Mutt

Washington Post
Monday, March 15, 2004; 8:21 AM

The Howard Factor
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer

Could President Bush pay a price for the FCC crackdown on airwaves
indecency?

He's made a powerful enemy, it seems, in Howard Stern.

Scoff if you must, but the guy has millions of listeners, and he's
furious at Bush.

Stern has had a minor political impact before. He helped Christie
Whitman get elected in New Jersey in '93 (in return for a promise to
name a rest stop after him) and George Pataki in '94. Al D'Amato and
Donald Trump were frequent guests. He's been doing the same
sex-and-celebrities shtick for 20 years, only recently incurring the
wrath of the let's-clean-up-the-airwaves-after-Janet Jackson crowd.

Stern's impact could be limited, of course, if he carries out his
threat to quit if Congress passes the new indecency law with
mega-fines. Or if he gets booted from the air, though he's made a
bundle for Viacom.

But if he stays near a microphone and continues to trash the
administration, Howard Power could take on a new meaning.

Salon's Eric Boehlert has the goods:

"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 . . .

"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 Michael
Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine...

"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."

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