Howard's Endgame.

So Howard Stern got thrown off Clear Channel and claims it is because he has turned against President Bush.
Could happen, I ain't one to judge.
It is just plain weird though, to hear a voice from out my car radio denouncing President Bush in the most strident terms the law will allow-frankly I'm not sure how to handle the situation.
There is an irony at work here, for years now Howard has been one of Bush's strongest most nauseating marks-given his forum is talk radio that is saying quite a bit.
Let us not forget that back on September 30th 2003 Howard thundered I only wish someone would fly an airplane into Maher's studio while he is saying stuff like this..." that was in response to some "pro-terrorist stuff" Bill Maher allegedly uttered on HBO.
Howard could always be depended upon to call Bill Clinton a coward and a sell-out and friend of terrorists and all the rest.
You get the picture hardly a member of the A.D.A.
You'd think all this sturm-und-drang would immunize Howard from the current backlash against smutty programing...but no, Clear Channel needs a sacrifice in the Post Janet's Teat world and Howard, high profile, huge profits and all, is it.
So predictably Stern has run to the left, detailing all the myriad links between Clear Channel and President Bush and sounding the First Amendment tocsin.
In truth what could he do?
If all that Bush idolatry he indulged doesn't do the trick, there is nothing left but go out in a blaze of martyred glory.
Make no mistake about it, Howard is in trouble here, Clear Channel has booted him off a paltry six stations but the word is the F.C.C. is preparing to "make a case" against Stern in a court of law.
That means an obscenity trial, which is an iffy proposition admittedly, but then that is dependent on Infinity Broadcasting (Howard's owners) making a fight.
It will probably come down to a bunch of accountants figuring out to the penny, the cost of keeping Howard versus the benefit of simply paying him off and starting over with the likes of Michael Savage in drive time.
What the outcome of that computation will be I do not know...but it could easily end without anyone ever entering a court room.
A lot can happen though, the F.C.C. could drop it's case, the mere threat might be enough to get Howard to see reason.
In which look for Stern to lay off the pro-Kerry line he has been taking this week doubleplusquick.
Still there is something sad about Howard Stern trying to rally the liberals in defense of free speech rights...these being the very same liberals Howard has gleefully stomped into marginality and impotence nigh these past twenty years.
Now today he expects to rise up in our endless fervid millions to keep alive his hopes of total radio domination?
Just who the hell does Howard think he is kidding?
The word "liberal" has been expunged from the public dialogue save as a bitter Orwellian style epithet...we don't have that kind of power anymore.
What little wherewithal we have has to be husbanded for other fights.
I'd like to have Howard on our side this fall, but who can trust him?
And anyway what can any of us really do for him?
We are the ones who are truly impotent here.
A right wing talk show host is under fire from movement conservatism precisely because there are so many rightical chic talkers out there, they can afford to ditch one with aplomb.
There are after all so many replacements waiting in the wings.
This is why we need our own liberal radio network, so that we can concentrate our forces and mass our buying power around selected strong points.
Coming to Howard's rescue is a futile exercise in my opinion, either he will sell us out, get replaced by Jay Severin or maybe he'll survive til election day.
Maybe...
The odds of him even being on the air by Halloween is at best fifty fifty.
To the extent that this might be a First Amendment case, I wish Howard luck but that is all I have for him.
Sorry guy, where were you when the Wall Street Journal was lying it's ass off about Al Gore and the Florida recount?