Stephanie Miller.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Changes in political parties - Interview

I've got a weakness for Stephanie Miller. I happen to think .she's the best thing going in progressive talk radio. For three hours every weekday morning, The Stephanie Miller Show provides breezy, often hilarious radio. But it's got a sharp point. It takes the air out of the pompous windbags of the right.

Miller and her executive producer, Chris Lavoie, grab the most embarrassing soundbites from Fox and play them for all to hear. "We listen, so you don't have to" is the motto of this segment, called "Rightwing World." Another sparkle is Jim Ward, an actor who does a vast array of voice impressions: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Schwarzenegger, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Tom Cruise, among many others. Not only is his voice spot on, but Ward manages, time after time, to parody his targets to risible effect.

Miller, forty-four, presides over all the zaniness, throwing in her own schticks, including "Stand-up News" and frequent mentions of her "future husband list," which has recently featured Senator Russ Feingold. She and Ward and Lavoie also invent their own little game shows, such as "Republicans Eating Their Own" and "Really Bad Analogies."

Syndicated not by Air America but by the Jones Radio Networks, The Stephanie Miller Show runs on dozens of stations around the country, including in Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. You can find out more about it at stephaniemiller.com.

I spoke with Miller on May 19 after she and Ward did the show live at the Barrymore Theatre in Madison, Wisconsin. Though tired from the performance and the autographing afterward, Miller was gracious--and quippy as always. Here's an edited version of our conversation, which you can hear in its entirety at www.progressive.org.

Q: I understand you are the daughter of Republican Congressman William Miller, who was Barry Goldwater's running mate in 1964.

Stephanie Miller: I was actually abandoned by wolves and then raised by Republicans. It's a very traumatic life story. My dad's been gone about twenty years now. I still contend to this day that he and Barry Goldwater would just be appalled at what's happened to their party. Barry Goldwater used to talk about the undue influence of the religious right on the Republican Party back in the '80s. He was pro-choice. He was pro-gay rights. He used to say about gays in the military: "You don't have to be straight. You just have to shoot straight." I can't even imagine what they'd think today about their party.

Q: What has happened to the Republican Party since then?

Miller: It's just amazing. It's...