Howard Stern doesn't want to replace Larry King. He wants to bury him.

Stern called King a "loser" and "the luckiest man in show business" at a Hamptons party over the weekend - and a "f?ing ass?" on his Sirius radio show Monday - after learning that the CNN talk-show host had trashed him in an interview published last week in Steppin' Out magazine.

King invited the verbal beatdown when Steppin' Out columnist Chaunce Hayden asked the suspendered wonder if Stern would make a good replacement for him when he steps down from his talk show.

"No, I wouldn't want to be compared to Howard Stern," King said, adding: "He's not tasteful at all." King continued: "You go to the least common denominator and that's Howard Stern."

He also said the shock jock "would like you to print that I called him a smock" - presumably a euphemism for the Yiddish word "schmuck."

King ended his diatribe with: "I regard Howard Stern as worthless."

Stern had been on vacation and was unaware of King's comments when Gatecrasher brought him up to speed at Savanna's in Southampton, where his wife, Beth, was being feted as Hamptons magazine's new cover girl.

"It's alleged he was banging his wife's sister and he's saying that I'm tasteless?" Stern said incredulously. "He's a frog … an imp and he's the luckiest man in show business."

As for King's "smock" remark, Stern said: "Is that something you wear when you paint?" The self-described King of All Media then summarized the career of the soon-to-be King of no media.

"Larry King did overnight radio. He got no ratings. He moved to CNN," Stern said, "where he had no competition. As soon as MSNBC and Fox News gave him a little bit of competition, the cards folded."

Stern said he has no plans to take over King's show (or join the cast of "American Idol" for that matter), but were the job his, he told us, "I would do everything that Larry doesn't do because Larry's a loser and he lost his entire audience.

"Let's be honest, he didn't retire willingly. The man had one foot in the grave. It's obvious, he is no longer relevant."
by Carson Griffith