While the week's most exciting political story is clearly the bombshell revelations from the book and testimony of former anti-terrorism chief Richard Clarke, I continue to be really fascinated by the continuing evolution of Howard Stern's political awakening and its potential impact on the 2004 election. Check out the latest bit of hilarity from Stern's show, an absolutely hysterical "Bad American Presidents" parody of those Budweiser Too-Much-Cologne-Wearing-Man ads:
Updated linK: http://www.howardstern.com/sounds/Bad_Amer_Pres_GWB.mp3
What's interesting about Stern is that he supported both Bush and the Iraq War until just about a month ago, when he came back from a weeklong vacation saying that he had read Al Franken's Lies... and that he was now an Anybody-But-Bush guy. Ever since, he's been mercilessly mocking and ridiculing Bush every morning on his radio show in front of millions of listeners (mp3 sample here). Sure, part of this is totally self-serving, as Stern directly blames Bush for the fact that Clear Channel suddenly dumped Stern's show from 6 of its radio stations (reportedly because of its offensive/lewd content but only a few days after Stern's anti-Bush statements started, hmmm...). And by ranting against the president himself, Stern brilliantly backs up against the ropes and puts himself in a position to become a political martyr and a free-speech-censorship victim should the FCC decide to actually go after him with heavy fines. I really hope they let him stay for at least a few more months so that he can keep railing on W and win over the minds of thousands of impressionable "Howard Stern listeners", who may or may not overlap with the much-hyped "Nascar Dads" demographic.
Posted by Tim at March 25, 2004 01:41 PM