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August 18, 2009 | 6:05 pm

Stern Rule #1

Posted by Rob Eshman

My son doesn’t like it when I listen to Howard.  All summer I’ve been driving him to his internship in Beverly Hills.  I wait in the car for him to get out of the house, figuring the extra time he takes are a few extra minutes of Howard.  He gets in the passenger seat and reaches to turn off the radio.

“Can’t we just talk?”

“No.”  I bat at his hand. “Let me listen. If you don’t laugh, you never have to listen again.”

He accepts.  He’s always loved to laugh.  I think he would sell me out for a Henny Youngman joke. (Last night he told one of his latest favorites:  A girl goes up to her boyfriend and says, “I think we need to stop seeing each other.  Everyone says you’re a pedophile.”  The boyfriend says, “That’s a pretty big word for a 10 year old.”)

So we listen, and sure enough, by about Venice and Sepulveda, Adi cracks a smile.  By the time I drop him off on Canon, he’s laughed at least once.  Yesterday he held out until we got to Mar Vista.  Then Howard made his crack about Don Imus knowing how to treat kids with cancer when he can’t even put together a decent radio show. Adi laughed. Today he held out all the way to Beverlywood, until Artie did his Christian Bale impression.  That set him off.

I like to listen for the guaranteed laugh on the way to work, but I realize there’s a much bigger reason I’m compelled to tune in: Howard is my teacher.

Scary, huh?

The revelation came to me when Howard was talking to Robin about, hmm, how do I say this—bathroom hygiene.  He was nailing down the particulars—wiping with toilet paper versus moist towelettes versus showering.  I found it all compelling, even if it was frustrating that in 20 years of talking about it, no one has mentioned the obvious: buy a bidet attachment for your toilet, $200 bucks, install it with a crescent wrench, and you’re done, end of story, case closed, and cleaned.

It’s true that one of Howard’s main influence on the larger culture is his willingness to talk about the things we all do, but which, for good reasons or bad, we’re loathe to discuss.  Important—but that’s not what makes him so powerful to me.  In fact, what he says, as groundbreaking as it is, is in the end less important than what he does. Howard affects the culture, and his listeners lives—including mine—by what he does.  By example.

Ultimately I think that’s why we keep listening.  Put all the bits and gags and interviews and doodie jokes aside—Howard is a radio therapist, an inspirational broadcaster, a self-help guru—disguised as a shock jock.

I can think of ten ways Howard has inspired and led by example.  Here’s the first and most obvious one. Let’s call it, Stern Rule #1.

Run TOWARD conflict, not away from it.

Think about it.  His battles with management.  With and among his staff. With the Congress.  With the culture.  Howard will say he didn’t necessarily seek out these battles, and in his personal life I have no idea how he handles conflict (I don’t know the guy, and I’m writing here about his on-air persona, which of course can’t be one and the same with his radio persona.  Otherwise he’d have killed himself a long time ago).

But on air, he relishes a battle.  He thrusts himself into it, well-prepared, fully-loaded, his facts and allies in place.  Most of us (by that I mean me) shy away from head-butting.

I can say Howard has led me to at least learn to go for it, if not relish it.

That’s a great gift—above and beyond the dick jokes.

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Run *toward” conflict?  That’s preposterous.  Confront when necessary, but choose your battles wisely. 

And Howard is a horrible manager if he truly confronts his employees on the air.  That may make for entertaining radio, but a lousy boss.  How do you justify criticizing an employee in front of co-workers, let alone hundreds of thousands of listeners?

Comment by Jeff on 8/20/09 at 11:38 am

Howard has that trait to a degree but seems to take the official party line with regards to Israel. It’s much the same way with liberals and pregressives who are for universal justice unless it’s for Palestinians.

I think that is what has had him co-opted by Jews who used to loathe him; his broad appeal. If anyone else went on a rant about hypocritical Jews who ask for forgiveness for their deeds while still operating in the same unethical fashion (I believe that was Howard’s complaint about a Clear Channel exec who wasn’t going to pay him after he was dropped - I think he wished cancer on him - prayed for it actually).

I truly used to like his take on the news, but his inability to comment accurately on the I/P conflict shows his “courage” only goes so far.

Comment by LanceThruster on 9/19/09 at 1:30 am

Lance,

I don’t know what you mean that Stern takes the “official party line with regards to Israel.”  What party are you talking about?  As far as I can tell, there is no “party line” among American Jews.

By the way, every liberal/progressive I encounter is fairly consistent on the Palestinian question.  That loberal orthodoxy happens to annoy the heck out of me, because these people tend to see what they think is an oppressed underdog and don’t really appreciate the long history of the conflict.

Comment by jeff on 9/21/09 at 9:01 am

The “party line” I’m refering to is that when a truth-teller such as Dr. Norman Finkelstein comes along, the wagons are circled and he’s attacked not on the strength of his arguments but for going against the conventional wisdom/official narrative/party line.

That this sort of gatekeeping is in place is established by the almost complete lack of MSM coverage of the June 8, 1967 attack on the USS Liberty. They covered the 40th anniversary of the Ford Mustang, and Beatles release of Sgt. Pepper, but were silent on this episode of unparalleled heroism since WWII by memebers of the US Navy. Now even if you accept Israel’s explanation that the attack was a case of mistaken identity, why is the valor of this crew ignored? They covered again and again McCain’s episode on the Navy carrier where the missile tragically launched from his aircraft while still on the flight deck so it’s not that crews cannot be courageous or in harm’s way when mistakes happen. Yet the actions of the crew of the USS LIberty is ignored; even at a time when other accounts of US heroics were played on Ollie North’s FOX show to boost support of the US military.

—-

To the JJ web admins - The old Web Guy blocked my other IP address. Can you do something about this? I’ve asked Mr. Greenberg of the God Blog but he says he isn’t the one to deal with that. The Web Guy blocked/banned me for saying it was established that Israel has lied, murdered and used nukes (other than DU munitions). I cited the assault on the USS Liberty for the first two and an Italian report that said it found radioactive material in the rubble from an IDF attack on Lebanon.

I think it was also an example of the Web Guy’s gatekeeping that he would not address the issues on their own merits but rather chose to take his bat and ball and go home. This is just more towing the “party line.”

To be sure, I could be wrong, but I wasn’t inventing these assertions out of whole cloth. Many times when Israel says it has the truth and the facts where others don’t it has purposely blocked anyone else from investigating or reporting in the first place.

Comment by LanceThruster on 9/21/09 at 11:28 pm

Norman Finkelstein?  The guy who met with Hezbollah and was banned from entering Israel? 

The USS Liberty?

In my experience, those concerned with Mr. Finkelstein or the USS Liberty episode are extremist cranks.

Comment by jeff on 9/22/09 at 11:31 pm

Yes, of course jeff. Your “experience” is *more* than enough to dismiss the US Naval personnel that were eye-witnesses to the Israeli assault (as well as refute the assertions of those who said the “investigation” was a sham). And yet you actually ask about the party line. The US military and its personnel will be described in reverential tones as long as it fights proxy wars for Israel but have them actually tell the truth about an attack by our supposed ally and the aftermath of lies told for their benefit and all of the sudden you know more than they do. FEH!

Finkelstein was also punished for coloring outside the lines and rejecting the official narrative so his continued marginalization is more a badge of honor. I’ve seen him speak on campuses several times and try as they might, pro-Zionist supporters were unable to make any sunstanative points.

Maybe you should get more talking points from Alan Dershowitz if he’s not too busy arguing in favor of torture and collective punishment (which both happen to be war crimes).

Comment by LanceThruster on 9/23/09 at 2:06 am

But how do you respond to the fact that an overwhelming number of U.S. military officials supported the Israeli account of the events?

This was one of those tragedies that can happen in the fog of war. Israelis had warned away U.S. ships from the area during the Six-Day War and the U.S. authorities had confirmed to the Israelis that there were no U.S. ships within 100 miles.  Regardless of fault, the Israeli government paid reparations to the families.

Of course there will be some unsatisfied people who believe that an investigation was a sham, particularly the relatives of victims.  There are people who believe the Mossad (and the U.S. government, too) had specific advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks.  Because your comments seem to fall into that category, I have to ask, are you one of those 9/11 conspiracy theorists, too?

Comment by jeff on 9/23/09 at 10:32 am

How typical jeff. You essentially declare “Victory” and push to move on to other things. Let’s stay on the Liberty for a bit, shall we? (You can also read the extensive material provided in the JJ Forum).

from: http://www.ussliberty.org/index2.html


AMERICAN LEADERS SUPPORT USS LIBERTY SURVIVORS
The Israeli government, the AntiDefamation League, and
certain notorious apologists for Israel insist that the attack was a tragic accident and that the US government accepts that assertion. Not so. Virtually every knowledgeable American official with the lone exception of Robert McNamara is on public record calling the attack deliberate and the Israeli story untrue.

Here are a few of those American leaders.
 
      “I was never satisfied with the Israeli explanation. . . . Through diplomatic channels we refused to accept their explanations. I didn’t believe them then, and I don’t believe them to this day. The attack was outrageous “
      —US Secretary of State Dean Rusk


 
      “...the board of inquiry (concluded) that the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing in attacking the Liberty.”
      —CIA Director Richard Helms


 
      “To me, the picture thus far presents the distinct possibility that the Israelis knew that the Liberty might be their target and attacked anyway, either through confusion in Command and Control or through deliberate disregard of instructions on the part of subordinates.”
      —CIA Deputy Director Admiral Rufus Taylor


 
      “I can tell you for an absolute certainty (from intercepted communications) that the Israelis knew they were attacking an American ship.”
      —NSA Deputy Director Oliver Kirby


 
      “. . . the commander of the Sixth Fleet was informed by the Washington Intelligence Apparatus that it had evidence that the Liberty was going to be attacked and to provide protection for it. That message was never really acted upon, and the ship was dead in the water when it was hit. So the end result was no accident.”
      —Raymond Tate, Deputy Assistant SecNav and Deputy Director, NSA, “Worldwide C3I and Telecommunications” (1980, pp. 25-47) 


 
      “That the Liberty could have been mistaken for the Egyptian supply ship El Quseir is unbelievable”
      —Special Assistant to the President Clark Clifford, in his report to President Lyndon Johnson


 
      “The highest officials of the [Johnson] administration, including the President, believed it ‘inconceivable’ that Israel’s ‘skilled’ defense forces could have committed such a gross error.”
    —Lyndon Johnson’s biographer Robert Dallek in Flawed Giant, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 430-31) 


 
      “A nice whitewash for a group of ignorant, stupid and inept [expletive deleted].”
      —Handwritten note of August 26, 1967, by NSA Deputy Director Louis W. Tordella reacting to the Israeli court decision exonerating Israelis of blame for the Liberty attack. 


 
      “Never before in the history of the United States Navy has a Navy Board of Inquiry ignored the testimony of American military eyewitnesses and taken, on faith, the word of their attackers.
      —Captain Richard F. Kiepfer, Medical Corps, US Navy (retired), USS Liberty Survivor


 
      “The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack…was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew…. It was our shared belief. . .that the attack. . .could not possibly have been an accident…. I am certain that the Israeli pilots [and] their superiors. . .were well aware that the ship was American.”
      —Captain Ward Boston, JAGC, US Navy (retired), senior legal counsel to the US Navy Court of Inquiry


 
      That the attack was deliberate “just wasn’t a disputed issue” within the National Security Agency
      —Former NSA Director retired Army Lieutenant General William Odom on 3 March 2003 in an interview for Naval Institute Proceedings


 
      Former NSA/CIA Director Admiral Bobby Inman “flatly rejected” the Cristol/Israeli claims that the attack was an accident
      —5 March 2003 interview for Naval Institute Proceedings


 
      Of four former NSA/CIA seniors with inside knowledge, none was aware of any agency official who dissented from the position that the attack was deliberate
      —David Walsh, writing in Naval Institute Proceedings


 
      “It appears to me that it was not a pure case of mistaken identity.”
    —Captain William L. McGonagle, Commanding Officer, USS Liberty, speaking at Arlington National Cemetery, June 8, 1997


 
      “To suggest that they [the IDF] couldn’t identify the ship is ... ridiculous. ... Anybody who could not identify the Liberty could not tell the difference between the White House and the Washington Monument.”
      —Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chief of Naval Operations and later Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, quoted in The Washington Post, June 15, 1991, p. 14


 
      “Those sailors who were wounded, who were eyewitnesses, have not been heard from by the American public. . . [Their story] leaves no doubt but what this was a premeditated, carefully reconnoitered attack by Israeli aircraft against our ship.”
      —US Senator Adlai Stevenson III in interview with Wm. J. Small, UPI, for publication September 28, 1980


 
      “I have read the Navy investigation of the Liberty, and the evidence adduced there, and I have read the Israeli court of inquiry records, and based upon their own records of the investigation, I cannot agree that it was accidental.”
    —Senator Bourke Hickenlooper; From transcript of May, 1968, Senate Foreign Relations Hearing on Foreign Assistance Act of 1968, page 444.

Comment by LanceThruster on 9/23/09 at 11:19 pm

Look who’s talking about declaring “Victory” and pushing on to other things. How do you manage to dimiss Judge Jay Cristol’s (former Navy Pilot and legal officer) evidence and conclusions? It is based on National Security Agency tapes, documents and transcripts. Jew-hate sources and websites refer to other tapes that unfortunately nobody can produce.

I am perfectly happy to accept a good conspiracy theory, LT, but yours doesn’t go far enough.

I have no trouble accepting that in history here is more than meets the eye. You have the self-evident means; the opportunity is a little kinky, like what the hell was the Liberty doing playing in traffic? What you don’t have is the motive. Where are the women and the money? Where is the political or diplomatic gain? The theory has to explain who benefits and why.

By the way, I know a good theory, but you don’t. I won’t look it up now but I probably went through all of that in the forum, if it hasn’t been deleted by now. The Web Guy dislikes Orthodox Jews even more than antisemites like you.

So what you and all the Liberty nuts are saying is not just that Israel deliberately attacked a vessel they knew to be an American. You are saying that they spent hours sadistically torturing it, and then attempting to sink it to destroy the evidence but failing. Not the Israeli or Jewish style, except in the diseased imagination of antisemites. Speaking of that, what do you suppose the proportion of antisemites there are in your list above? Not hard to find in Washington and military inner circles.

But what you are saying in the larger sense is that Israel took a lot of trouble and heat to attack its only diplomatic ally in the whole world which calmly watched for weeks as the surrounding Arabs committed acts of war against Israel, evicted the UN from the region, and vowed Israel’s destruction; while in Israel public parks were being dug up to become cemetaries and body bags were being distributed. The explanations from Stevenson and Hickenlooper seem to omit that explanation, because anti-Israel people don’t really need an explantion.

Something else you can explain to us is the reaction of President Johnson and the rest of the administration to the Liberty attack. If Israel actually deliberately and knowingly attacked a blameless Liberty, he had no political cost to pay by saying so. What was his reason to say that it was accidental? Something a little more reasonable than the Jews controlling the world using world leaders as puppets. There would have been no need for all the drama and war in the first place if that was true.

As always, ‘get a life’, if there is one to be found without Jews.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 11/29/09 at 9:45 am

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