Tony Kornheiser is back on the show to talk about, what else, the next American Idol.

And by that, of course, we mean Barack Obama.

We first discuss his absence from the radio airwaves. This week would be the week he’d return to radio. Does he regret his decision to stay away from radio in the off-season? Does he miss it? Did he even have a station to come back to? We discuss these things, as well as Tony explaining that he can’t just start a radio station. I try to explain to him that, with the internet, you can do just that.  So does he regret it?

1. “Yes. I would have a lot to talk about. I would have been able to talk about Maureen Dowd’s party on Sunday night. And I would have been able to talk about the inauguration and I would have been able to talk about, in great detail, the traffic circumstance in Washington.
   

1. “Yes, I regret it enormously. It’s probably what I do best. I would point out that I don’t have any offers, so it’s very hard to come back, when nobody has said, ‘here’s an offer.’  I mean I can’t invent my own radio station, can I? What should I do? Should I put some tin foil on my head and attach a wire through my nose and just begin broadcasting. Is that how it works?”
   

My response: “Basically.”

Which leads to futher explanation of the concept of podcasting. And an interesting discussion about doing what you do for money and doing what you do because you love doing what you do. It’s easy for me to do this show the way I do it, and I don’t expect Tony to start a podcast (although he mentions he doesn’t want to do it and take away my audience because he likes me) but there are alternate ways to get out there if your first concern is not making money, but rather putting out a good product.

We talk more about the wonders of technology. And Twitter. And Facebook. And Tony asking if I’d cheat on my wife with Cindy Boren (via Twitter, I assume).

I ask Tony if he ever gets concerned about becoming irrelevant. I’m not even relevant and I spend half my day concerned about becoming irrelevant. But Tony doesn’t seem to mind, and it spawns an interesting discussion about  getting old and finding your place and your audience in the world. More tin foil talk ensues.

1. “I’m old. When I was your age, the technology was different but I desperately wanted to be a famous sportswriter. I wanted to be on the biggest paper possible and have the biggest page possible and write the best words that anybody had ever read and move them to tears and move them to laughter. And that’s what I wanted to do. It’s probably not unlike what you want and the only difference is the mechanism by which this happens.”
   

Speaking of becoming irrelevant, we do talk about American Idol, the show, but with it being early in the season, we don’t get too in-depth (a good thing for most of you). We do, however, discuss the changes to the show and Tony takes the opportunity to explain how the new judge is on board in case Paula Abdul explodes one day...and I think he means that quite literally.

Then of course, we talk about the Inauguration of Barack Obama. What was it like being in DC? How bad was the traffic? How did he manage to get to PTI and back home?

But more nationally speaking, What does this mean to us? To the country? To the world? I know that’s a big set of questions, but I think that’s what everyone is wondering. What does this mean?

I ask Tony, as a writer, what the lasting storyline will be from yesterday’s ceremony. It’s hard to pick one, and Tony has a few, as do I, and they include the speech, the walk, and of course, the raccoon sitting on top of GHW Bush’s head.

We also talk about Sunday’s concert and I wonder who the most famous person was? I’ve been thinking about that since I watched it. I wonder who got the most people excited. Springsteen? Beyonce? Stevie Wonder? Obama himself? I think the answer, at least for now, is Obama. Which is pretty cool.

We talk about Tony’s lack of balls last night.  Wait, that came out wrong. We talk about Tony’s lack of invitation to any balls last night.

And yes, we bring back Mr. Tony’s Mailbag! An extended version with emails from many of the old radio listeners and littles. Oh, and Mr. Tony brings up the giant shadow my father casts upon me. And we talk more about Wilbon’s Facebook page.

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