As soon as Bill O’Reilly lost his plum gig at Fox, speculation swirled about who would give O’Reilly a platform next. After all, second acts — despite F. Scott Fitzgerald’s chestnut — have become pretty common in American life. O’Reilly jump-started the conversation by doing a post-Fox podcast, which brought the ridicule of “King of All Media” Howard Stern. A podcast? For the guy who just weeks ago was the most watched news-talk personality on TV? Stern lambasted O’Reilly this week in a skit for not just coming down in the world, but for being dunked down into muddy gunk of irrelevance.
Stern is not just the “King of All Media” — he’s also the King of SiriusXM. The satellite radio juggernaut is a platform that’s pretty accepting of those who’ve been cast out elsewhere. (Opie, of Opie and Anthony fame, started his second act at SiriusXM, thanks to the “all powerful old man” Stern.) Stern pretended to take a call from O’Reilly after his podcast, giving the O’Reilly impersonator lines like: “I was in Thailand doing bad, bad stuff to lady boys.” Anything can happen, but it seems unlikely that O’Reilly will find a friendly welcome to the SiriusXM platform. The comedy isn’t personal with Howard Stern, it’s business. But the charges against O’Reilly just aren’t something Stern will overlook. Despite his reputation as a bad boy and objectifier of women, Stern is really an equal opportunity man who loathes abuse of power. Or maybe it goes back to this:
