Porn Valley- Howard Stern this morning played a clip from a radio interview with Larry Flynt who was on a Baltimore station. Flynt was asked his opinion about the FCC’s ongoing war with Stern. Stern said the table for the Flynt clip.
“He sums it up,” says Stern. “He’s outraged at what’s happening to the First Amendment. It’s not about me. These fines are the same as the Mafia shaking down a small operator. These fines that are unconstitutional that have never been tried in a court, this muscling in on these large companies and telling them that their licenses will be revoked unless they pay up is so outrageous. But what Larry Flynt points out he goes for Colin Powell’s son to be given this kind of power is absolutely freakish.”
A caller-in named Mike asked Flynt how he felt about the ongoing Stern censorship.
“I think it’s a travesty,” said Flynt. “It just boggles my mind. Powell’s kid can set up the FCC and call all the shots in terms of how much to fine people. This is the biggest attack on Free Speech that we’ve had in our century.
“The First Amendment is intended to protect offensive speech,” Flynt continued. “It’s intended to protect the thought you hate the most and not the thought you love the most.” Asked if Stern will come out of this or whether the government will succeed in getting him off the air, Flynt said he’s hoping Stern will come out of it.
“If there’s a new administration in, I think there will be a new attitude about censorship,” Flynt said. “Bush and his cronies play hardball.”
Stern agreed about the hardball part and said Bush has four more fines coming out against him. “I’m telling you I love it,” Stern said. “I like the fact that they have targeted me. I don’t mind if this company takes me off the air. I’m ready to go. And I’m ready to become the sacrificial lamb to prove that Bush is out of control. This is unfriggin’ believable- what’s going on with the war in Iraq; what’s coming out in all these books; the interviews on 60 Minutes and this is what they’re worried about.”
Meanwhile, folk in the VCA building, a Larry Flynt property, are worried about their futures. The latest rumor going around is that with the building lease up the end of the year, the company’s fortunes are hanging in the air. Spurring those rumors was the letting go of Jim Nitz, the company’s general manager, this week. Nitz had replaced the thought- irreplaceable Don McDonald, a Flynt hail-fellow-well-met. Not so hail and not so well met, apparently.