Six more US soldiers have died in Iraq. For what? Not to seize WMD. There were none. Not to smash Al-Qaeda. It has only grown stronger, and slaughter more innocents -- in Mumbai, Istanbul, Jakarta, Riyadh, Moscow and Madrid.
Yes, it is another bad weekend for the _resident...The
Spanish people, thanks to their own intelligence
service, have realized (as the LNS told you several
days ago) that it was NOT the Basques who slaughtered
200 hundred people in Madrid just a few days before
the national elections, but (as Osama Bin Laden
promised in October) Al-Qaeda's retribution for
Asana's joining with the _resident and the
shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-Tony-Blair in the
foolish military adventure in Iraq, a foolish military
adventure that 80-90% of the Spanish electorate
opposed...Yes, it is another bad weekend for the
_resident, the Jamaican government has invited
Jean-Bernard Aristide back to the Caribbean and Amy
Goodman of Democracy Now has gone to the Central
African Republic to provide REAL press coverage of his
return...In Venezuela, South Korea and Zimbabwe more
trouble is brewing for the neo-con wet dreamers...But
perhaps of most concern is the anarchy that has broken
out on the air waves...Yes, Howard Stern has joined
Walter Cronkite and Bill Moyers on the John O'Neill
Wall of Heroes....
Eric Boehlert, Salon: Declaring a "radio jihad" against President Bush, syndicated morning man Howard Stern and his burgeoning crusade to drive Republicans from the White House are shaping up as a colossal media headache for the GOP, and one they never saw coming. The pioneering shock jock, "the man who
launched the raunch," as the Los Angeles Times once
put it, has emerged almost overnight as the most
influential Bush critic in all of American
broadcasting, as he rails against the president hour
after hour, day after day to a weekly audience of 8
million listeners. Never before has a Republican
president come under such withering attack from a
radio talk-show host with the influence and national
reach Stern has.
Break the Bush Cabal's Stranglehold on the US
Mainstream News Media, Show Up for Democracy in 2004:
Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/03/12/stern/
Howard Stern's schwing voters
The raunchy jockey is mobilizing his army of listeners
against Bush -- and they could make a difference in
November.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Eric Boehlert
March 12, 2004 | Declaring a "radio jihad" against
President Bush, syndicated morning man Howard Stern
and his burgeoning crusade to drive Republicans from
the White House are shaping up as a colossal media
headache for the GOP, and one they never saw coming.
The pioneering shock jock, "the man who launched the
raunch," as the Los Angeles Times once put it, has
emerged almost overnight as the most influential Bush
critic in all of American broadcasting, as he rails
against the president hour after hour, day after day
to a weekly audience of 8 million listeners. Never
before has a Republican president come under such
withering attack from a radio talk-show host with the
influence and national reach Stern has.
"The potential impact is huge," says Charles Goyette,
talk-show host at KFYI in Phoenix. "And it's not just
with the 8 million people who tune it, it's that he
breaks the spell. Everybody's been enchanted by Bush,
that he's a great wartime leader and to criticize him
is unpatriotic. Now Stern pounds him every day and it
shatters that illusion that the man is invincible and
he shouldn't be criticized."
"He's got one of the biggest audiences in all of
radio, and perhaps the most loyal," says Michael
Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine, the
nonpartisan monthly that covers radio's news/talk
industry. "And that's why he's so dangerous for the
White House."
Today's Daypass sponsored by Lions Gate Film
Stern had strongly backed Bush's war on Iraq, but in
the past two weeks, he has derided the president as a
"Jesus freak," a "maniac" and "an arrogant bastard,"
while ranting against "the Christian right minority
that has taken over the White House." Specifically,
Stern has assailed Bush's use of 9/11 images in his
campaign ads, questioned his National Guard service,
condemned his decision to curb stem cell research and
labeled him an enemy of civil liberties, abortion
rights and gay rights.
In other words, it's the kind of free campaign
rhetoric the Democratic National Committee couldn't
have imagined just one month ago.
"Our research shows many, many people in the 30- to
40-year-old range who were Bush supporters are
rethinking that position and turning away from Bush
because of what Howard Stern has been saying," says
Harrison.
Coming in tandem with Wednesday's announcement that
the much-talked-about liberal radio network Air
America will debut at the end of the month, there's an
indication that Republicans may finally get a taste of
the commercial talk-radio wars, which for years have
tilted almost uniformly to the right and teed off on
progressive causes and politicians.
"Overnight, Stern's probably increased by an important
percentage the amount of talk-radio airtime that is
not right-wing," notes Martin Kaplan, associate dean
of the University of Southern California's Annenberg
School for Communications. "His show does make a
difference in terms of media ecology and what's out
there. It's letting people know how they feel is an
acceptable way to feel. What the media do is put out a
version of what's normal. And if all that's out there
is Rush Limbaugh and Dittoheads, then centrists and
progressives see themselves as the minority. But if
you can hear voices on the airwaves that sound like
the voice in your own head, you begin to realize it's
a polarized, 50/50 nation."
Kaplan will host a nightly media affairs program on
Air America. [Salon.com will contribute one story each
day to Air America's programming.]
Stern's sustained FM taunts come at a tough time for
the White House, which has watched Bush's approval
ratings fall to new lows. Even more disturbing for
Republicans was the revelation in the latest USA
TODAY/CNN/Gallup poll that Bush's traditionally strong
support among male voters is down significantly, and
that Bush actually trails Kerry among those voters.
"That's the demographic Howard Stern targets
specifically," says Goyette. "If Bush's grip on men
continues to soften, he could be in big trouble."
Anecdotally, those daily phone calls from listeners --
mostly men -- who tell Stern they usually don't vote,
but this year they're definitely going to vote against
Bush (and it's usually against, Bush not for Sen. John
Kerry) cannot be comforting to the Bush/Cheney '04
strategists.
"Karl Rove and the White House would have to be
brain-dead to not know they have a problem here," says
Goyette.
There are early signs that Bush supporters are indeed
nervous about Stern's crusade. This week Limbaugh
wrote a newspaper Op-Ed column dismissing Stern's
claims against Bush as coming from "the left-wing
fringe." (Stern returned fire, labeling Limbaugh a
Bush "lackey.")
Stern's torrent of Bush barbs came in the wake of
Clear Channel Communications' move in late February to
pull Stern off six of its stations, condemning his
program as "vulgar, offensive and insulting."
Following the controversial Super Bowl halftime show
featuring Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson, Clear
Channel, like most major broadcasters, was under
scrutiny over allegations it broadcast indecency.
Clear Channel's radio chief was scheduled to testify
before Congress where he was sure to face hostile
questioning. On the eve of that congressional
appearance, Clear Channel, which had never raised
serious concerns about Stern's show before, suspended
the program from its radio outlets.
Clear Channel's move appeared to be more a symbol than
a substantive effort to shut Stern down. The
communications giant carried the shock jock only in
six markets. Viacom's Infinity Broadcasting -- a Clear
Channel competitor -- is Stern's syndicator and main
radio vehicle.
But Stern quickly complained on-air that the real
reason Clear Channel yanked his show was that just
days earlier he'd begun questioning the president and
praising comedian/commentator Al Franken's anti-Bush
book "Lies, And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them." Stern
insisted it was political speech, not indecency, that
got him in trouble with the San Antonio broadcasting
giant, whose CEO, Lowry Mays, is close to the
president and the Bush family. The jock still condemns
Clear Channel and its Republican connections, but most
of Stern's firepower today is directed squarely at
Bush and his close association with the religious
right, which Stern says is the driving force behind
the FCC crackdown on indecency.
Some in the broadcast business see Stern, perhaps best
known for ushering into radio "Lesbian Dial-a-Date"
contests, as a corporate clown whose political
influence is not on par with the likes of Don Imus,
the syndicated shock jock turned smart-aleck pundit.
"Who cares what Howard Stern thinks about people
running for public office?" says one longtime radio
executive. "Imus is different, that's more of a
thinking guy's show. With Howard, it's pure
narcissism."
Yet Stern has proven his political clout in the past.
Known mostly for his libertarian take on politics, in
1992 he made news by endorsing Republican Christie
Todd Whitman for governor of New Jersey, and she then
won in an upset over Democrat Jim Florio. (She repaid
the favor in 1995 by naming a New Jersey highway rest
stop after the jock.) Stern has also backed Republican
George Pataki for New York governor. "When Stern says
he helped Pataki win," says Goyette, "I don't think
anybody doubts that."
That's because of the bond Stern has built with his
fans. "He's got a passionately loyal audience, which
includes many extremely affluent and white-collar
listeners," notes Paul Colford, who wrote an
authorized biography of Stern, "The King of All
Media." "However he wants to play his most recent
grievance, he's got a nucleus of tens of thousands of
fanatics who are willing make the phone calls and send
e-mails and show up at Times Square to protest,
whatever the course of action may be."
"They're addicted to this guy and that's an awesome
power," says Harrison. "Stern has moral authority with
these people, in part because he has not been beating
the drum for a political agenda for all these years."
It's that relative absence of political discussion on
Stern's show in the past that might make the current
anti-Bush barrage more influential. "The fact that his
audience does not tune in to him to hear about
politics means that he is not just preaching to a
choir, in the way that most of the conservative
talk-show hosts are doing," says David Barker, author
of "Rushed to Judgment: Talk Radio, Persuasion and
American Political Behavior." It's an audience, he
suggests, that might be more open to persuasion from a
broadcaster like Stern.
Approximately 8 million listeners tune in each week.
And at any given moment during his four-hour program
roughly 1.4 million people are tuned in. By way of
comparison, that's more than the number of morning
viewers at any given time watching Fox News, CNN and
MSBNC -- combined.
"There's no question," says Harrison, "Stern is the
sleeping giant of liberal radio."
salon.com