"To use ratings as an excuse not to offer fair and balanced programming is an insufficient reason," Athans counters. "American Forces Radio is funded by American taxpayers, not all of whom are conservative."
And if ratings drive the station's programming choices, then why not carry Howard Stern, who draws nearly 8 million listeners a week and who in recent months has emerged as President Bush's most high-profile critic on radio, declaring a "jihad" against the "arrogant bastard" in the White House? Although Stern's often-bawdy show differs from Limbaugh's politically, it fits Russell's criterion of being popular. "Stern today is a mirror reflection of what Americans are listening to," says Athans. In fact, Stern's ratings surged this year after he began leveling his broadsides against the Bush administration. "I strategize more about my radio show than Bush does about the war in Iraq," Stern quipped last month.
"My answer [on Stern]," says Russell, "is we have determined that that show, because of the [sexual] content, was not appropriate for a network that has just one or two stations broadcasting to an audience that ranges from 1-year-olds up to 50-year-olds."
"Rush Limbaugh is appropriate?" says Franken. "Saying the troops at Abu Ghraib were just blowing off steam -- that's more appropriate than what Howard Stern says? It sounds to me like they're rationalizing their decision." Adds Athans: "That sounds like censorship. In one breath, in regard to Limbaugh, they say they don't censor what the military listens to, and in the next breath they say Howard Stern is not appropriate."
"We don't censor, we provide," answers Russell. "Our troops deserve the same information that's available to them in the U.S."
Other critics of the network wonder if it's proper for the Pentagon to broadcast Limbaugh when he's calling John Kerry a skirt chaser, labeling female activists Nazis and telling servicemen and -women "what's good for al-Qaida is good for the Democratic Party in this country today."
The network, formerly known as Armed Forces Radio, was created by the War Department in 1942 to improve troop morale by giving service members a "touch of home" with American programs overseas. It added a television service in 1950. American Forces Radio beams "stereo audio services to over 1,000 outlets in more than 175 countries and U.S. territories, and on board U.S. Navy ships," according to its Web site. It reaches an audience of nearly 1 million with an innocuous lineup of classic rock, country and pop music, along with some sports telecasts, CNN's "Headline News" and Limbaugh's out-of-place radical rants.
