When John and Ken first came on the scene in 1992, I wasn’t impressed. Sure, their show was better than that of their immediate predecessor, Daryl Gates, but everyone knew he was just a placeholder anyway. Compared to their real predecessor, I found them to be only marginally informed about the issues they opined on, much more knee jerk, and a lot less entertaining. Their predecessor was … don’t laugh … OK, do … Tom Leykis. I’m serious. As godawful as his show may be today, kinda like Howard Stern’s, back then his show was quite entertaining, you know, like Howard Stern’s, and informative to boot, also like Howard Stern’s. He screamed fairly often, but rarely screamed at a caller – and almost never blew one up – who hadn’t done something to deserve it. He constantly reminded us which Congressmen had voted to raise their own pay when, and which ones had voted not to. Like Howard Stern, he maintained a decent mix between dirty jokes and serious, useful commentary. And of course he hated to be compared to Howard Stern. As far as I was concerned, unless management had some way of knowing how bad the Howard Stern Tom Leykis show would become a few years down the road, they were idiots to fire him when he did, and bigger idiots still to hire Heckle and Jeckle in his place.

Early on, Heckle and Jeckle staked out their territory as the two who could be jerks to both liberals and conservatives. Gun owners were among their favorite targets, not for actually doing anything, but simply for choosing to own such icky things or, worse still, claiming to have a constitutional right to do so. But liberals got bashed on other issues, as well, and with roughly equal frequency. It was almost as if they thought that being jerks to people on both sides of the aisle somehow insulated them from criticism from all sides, as if equally pungent odors emanating from both the left and right proverbial butt cheeks^* would somehow cancel each other out. The only saving grace of their show back then was listening to them butcher the name of every Southern^** California city with an Hispanic name.

I left the state in 1993, so it’s theoretically possible that Heckle and Jeckle shifted gears and went intelligent on everybody until 1999, shortly before I returned. I rather doubt it, but hey, I wasn’t here so who knows. Maybe they persuaded a few listeners in 1994 to vote in vain for Prop 187 or not in vain for 184. Couldn’t have hurt. But when I tuned in for the first time in a while in 1999, they asked a softball questions to an organizer of the “Million” (tens of thousands) “Mom” (angry woman who may or may not have children, but does have an agenda she thinks of as her baby) “March” (march), and again mocked as tinfoil hat types anyone who suggested that if there’s a First Amendment and a Third, there might also be a Second lodged in there somewhere. I still listened to them occasionally on KABC, for want of anything better to listen to while commercials ran on KFI, but had to laugh when I passed a KFI billboard advertising that “We Fire ‘Em, They Hire ‘Em.”

Shortly afterward, their tag line changed to “We Fire ‘Em, They Hire ‘Em, Then We Grovel To Get ‘Em Back.” Or maybe it was “More Stimulating Talk Radio Than The Unsufferable Crap We’ve Been Running In The Afternoon For The Last Couple Of Years.” I’m not sure. Whatever it was, KFI hired them back in their time slot, and it was like old times. They helped out a good deal with the recall and Schwarzenegger’s election in 2003, albeit in part by smearing Rhonda Miller and persuading many local bloggers, myself included, to do the same. They also helped the signature gathering efforts for a referendum on driver licenses for illegals, which never actually happened because the Legislature saw the writing on the wall. At around the same time, they were also instrumental in pressuring the government to undo the VLF increase. And they’ve been pretty good on those last two issues – taxes and illegal immigration – generally. So if they were still idiots, at least it seemed for a while that they may be useful idiots.

Then, last year, the usefulness of their idiocy jumped the shark. The peak or valley, depending on one’s perspective, was their ill-conceived “political human sacrifice,” which was supposed to end the career of one prominent Congressman from each party who had been weak on immigration. Both attempts flopped, and in the end, all Heckle and Jeckle actually sacrified was their own clout with their one-time ally David Dreir, along with whatever other clout they may have had with anyone connected with the recall a year earlier.

Today, their jumping shark moves on to other targets. At the moment, their twin jihads du jour consist of relentless efforts to (1) demonize everyone who doesn’t see eye to eye with George Felos, George Greer and Michael Schiavo, and (2) encourage potential jurors who have already made up their mind about Fernando Avila’s guilt to lie their way onto his jury. I’m not sure which is worse. On the one hand, their increasingly shrill characterization of every Schiavo skeptic who doubts the L.A. Times’s version of the facts^*** makes their show pretty much unlistenable. On the other, while their persistent attacks on the Avila court offer a guilty pleasure, they are also a crime, and rightly so, despite Heckle’s frequent protestations to the contrary. While it is unlikely that either Heckle or Jeckle will actually face any criminal charges, it is not all that far-fetched that their tampering may give him grounds for an appeal if when he is convicted. Of course they don’t care; like everything else it’s all about ratings.

Speaking of which, I am under no illusions that anyhing I say on this here blog is going to have any impact at all on Heckle and Jeckle’s ratings. The only reason I bring these clowns up at all is because both are often quoted, usually approvingly, by my fellow conservatives in the blogosphere. Yes, they are sometimes the good guys, and when they are, then boy oh boy does that 50,000 watt bullhorn come in handy. So it’s fine to quote them when it suits you, or to use them in any other way, but just remember that that’s the key: use them, don’t trust them. Their agenda is not liberal, conservative, or even centrist; it’s self-promotion. Enjoy listening to the demonize your adversaries today, but don’t be surprised if you turn out to be their target tomorrow. As eager as they may be to pose as your friends, they’re not.

^*Yes, as a matter of fact, I do know a few proverbs about butt cheeks. No, I’m not going to repeat them here.

^**All this embarassment would have been avoided if they had moved instead to Northern California, where you are supposed to butcher the pronunciation of every Spanish-named city. See, e.g., San Rafael (pronounced “san ruh-FELL”), Contra Costa (“contra cost – uh”), San Pablo (“san PABB low”) and, worst of all, Los Gatos (“luss GATT us”).

^***I’m not making that up. Right now on their web site, they cite a Dog Trainer article as proof positive that since Terri Schiavo is in a partially vegetative state, she can’t recover – as if oblivious to the entire argument that she may not in fact be in PVS, and that the whole point of the requested PET scan is to find out. And on Monday and Tuesday’s shows, they openly mocked the notion that anybody might think the L.A. Times is biased – at least on this issue.

UPDATE: Apparently, KFI has some deal where their afternoon and evening hosts get paid by the ephithet. John Ziegler’s show tonight was every bit as awful as Heckle and Jeckle’s. Al Rantel is much more sane.