(4 of 5)
Consider, then, the plight of the group that WNYC's Brian Lehrer calls "the politically complex." As Lehrer, host of On the Line, New York City's most thoughtful, informative talk show, notes, "Some people's views don't fit neatly into traditional conservative or liberal labels. But that's not what's wanted in the media these days, especially in talk radio. They want you to be 100% confident that you have the truth and 100% predictable in your views. It's a comedy of clarity, a circus of certainty." But even to admit that an issue has two sides, as one Lehrer caller suggested, is to admit you're a liberal.
Don Imus is one liberal -- well, he did vote for Clinton -- who succeeds with a comic-misanthropic style he has established in 27 years of radio, the last seven on New York City's WFAN. Imus, whose morning potpourri of talk and sharp parody sketches is syndicated in 23 cities, has interviewed Clinton, Bob Dole, Alfonse D'Amato, the lot. The rest of the show revels in bad taste, spitball humor and abolition of the Fairness Doctrine; it's radio freedom with a vengeance. (His show last Wednesday claimed that Gingrich earned his college degree from the "Close Cover Before Striking University of Armpit, Georgia.") "The news isn't sacred to me," Imus gruffs to a reporter. "It's entertainment. The show is an entertainment device designed to revel in the agony of others."
The radio rightists offer a cloaked version of the same. But they don't care to admit it. Hot talk? Shock talk? Ban that speech! "To me," says Tradup, "shock talk is Howard Stern. Period. It's for 12-year-olds who get excited when they hear the word penis." Stern, natch, considers himself a political commentator and motivator. So does George Pataki; supported by Stern, he unseated New York Governor Mario Cuomo and saved an honored seat at his inauguration for Stern. But Howard, whose mixture of sex, politics and humongous self-pity has made him the morning star across the country, takes consolation in his popularity. "I know what my fans like," he said on the air last week. "Penis! Vagina!"
Other talk-show hosts also know what their fans like: to be flattered with a few minutes in which to say their piece on the air, then insulted into oblivion. Tangle with WABC's hosts, and you risk the sharp end of their shtick. Grant: "Ah, get off the phone, you sick degenerate!" Lyn Samuels: "Oh, shut up!" Jay Diamond: "Are you on anything? How do I know you're not poppin' speedballs?" And so it goes on politically perplexing insult radio. "A lot of talk-show hosts are opportunistic twits," says David Brudnoy, the gay libertarian (with AIDS) at Boston's WBZ. And the listeners hover on the brink of a solipsism: that they and they alone know the answer. No one says, 'I don't believe in my doctors anymore so I'll take out my own appendix.' But with politics, somehow we don't need any experts."
Will the mood of radio listeners change? Can the hot-talk hosts continue to squirt scalding water on the body politic without one group or the other crying "Enough!"? If 1994's electoral trend continues, there may soon be few demons left to bitch about. And as Grant misses "those nice days when I was the only conservative on the scene," many radio rightists betray a truculent nostalgia for the old foes who became their roadkill: Cuomo, Howard Metzenbaum and the man from Arkansas who roams the White House like the Ghost of Clinton Past.