I am a writer for Air America Radio, the new liberal radio talk network with Al Franken. No, I cannot get you a job there.

Eight months ago, when I didn't know I'd work here but had heard the idea for the network, I really wanted to see this project happen. That’s not because I expected to agree with everything liberals said on the radio or even thought I’d have time to listen to it.

It’s because, eight months ago, I was the editor of a daily opinion page in southern New Jersey, and had come to suspect that a propaganda war had broken out in my "letters to the editor" section. Liberals didn’t seem to realize they were in this war – which is probably why they were losing it.

But let’s take this chronologically: When I arrived at the Courier-Post in Cherry Hill in November 2000 as an editorial writer, the newspaper was solidly conservative. The publisher – whom I enjoyed greatly, though he seemed to regard me as a lunatic – was a swaggering libertarian who hated Bill Clinton in that not-even-bothering-to-explain-it-anymore way that's characteristic of Clinton haters and that will baffle future historians. The executive editor was a pro-lifer, as was my office-mate, a bright young capitalist who drew much of his gospel from the Wall Street Journal. The editorial page editor deeply loved the idea of capital punishment.

They were, by the way, a fun group, and we did some good work.

Yet, even then, we’d get letters calling us liberals. I began to realize that a stalwart segment of readers would scan our pages and attack anything that did not follow the strict conservative line. Naturally, this led me to conclude that some people are just annoying. And I stand by that conviction.

But it’s not just that.

When I became editor of the page after two years, I had to edit the letters as they came in, and I began to notice that certain arguments and turns of phrase would keep popping up from one letter to the next. One phrase I saw frequently as America geared up for war with Iraq was “Freedom is not free.” A peace protestor I knew also suggested I look for “The protestors ought to be ashamed of themselves.” And by gosh, there it was, in one form or another.

And editorial cartoons – oh my Lord! Anything that criticized President Bush’s botched dealings in Iraq drew threats of canceled subscriptions. After all the years of relentlessly slamming Bill Clinton, conservatives whined like a cranky child at a flea market now that they were getting back some of their own.

But after all, a newspaper’s letters page merely reflects its readers, right? Except, in this case, it didn’t. South Jersey is actually not a fortress of conservatism. As a matter of fact, it hangs limply in the talons of a fierce Democratic Party machine. Our newspaper even turned against that machine in the last election I helped cover. Most of the really passionate letters raged against the incumbents – and the Democrats danced right back into office anyway, as graceful as a debutante.

So if I were still an editor, this liberal talk network would be my salvation, and I presume it might be as well to my once-and-possibly-future colleagues in the mainstream press.

When you’re simply presenting both sides of an issue and some little rightwing whiner calls you a liberal, you can point to Air America – to Janeane Garofalo and Randi Rhodes and Franken (I still can’t get used to seeing him tooling around in the office every day) and say, “No, we’re not liberal. These guys – these liberal whack-jobs in Jew York City – that, my friend, is what a liberal sounds like. But this newspaper is what Fox News claims to be, what Fox News indeed is not, and what most newspapers in this country really, sincerely do try to become – fair and balanced.”

That ought to make them think twice. It ought to. But come on ...