Radio Nowhere

With Washington DC run by avowed liberals, the New York Times predicts an upswing in conservative talk radio. Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, and Rudy Giuliani are expected to join the ranks of Limbaugh and Hannity in stoking America's unrest with inside-the-beltway politics.

It's a start, and these voices will have their place. But make no mistake: they represent an old guard and an old medium.

The problem with radio is that, like television, it's passive. So as millions tune in, it becomes easy for the so-called "main stream media" to dismiss Rush Limbaugh as a single voice delivering soliloquies from the fringe of American politics. They don't want to see the millions of heads nodding in agreement.

But what if those nodding heads used their voice to speak out? That would be hard to ignore. That's where a medium like the internet can go beyond where talk radio has gone before.