Posted on 11/28/2005 5:03:33 PM PST by mastercylinder
Edited on 11/28/2005 5:07:49 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Al Franken and the other liberals are probably still wondering why they had such little luck in their efforts to start a talk-radio network to bash George Bush from the left. They didn't consider the obvious explanation. George Bush has his left flank nicely covered. It's on the right that he's weak.
That is the theory of Michael Savage. Savage is the most right-wing of the right-wing talkers on the national airwaves at the moment. He is based in San Francisco, but he can be heard in the New York area on WOR in the evenings. He is a welcome change from those Karl Rove clones Hush Bimbo and Sean Vanity.
"Hush Bimbo" and "Sean Vanity" are the names Savage has pinned on Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity of WABC. In doing so, he has sparked a war between the members of his "Savage Nation" (slogan: "Borders, language, culture") and the so-called "Bushbots," that sizable number of gullible Americans who can be convinced that whatever policy Bush adopts is a conservative policy.
"What makes Bush a conservative?" Savage asked when I got him on the phone the other day. "On the economy, Bush has got more governmental workers than anybody before him. He's ballooned the government."
As regards the so-called "war on terror," Savage points out that you can't win a war when you're afraid even to name the enemy.
"He's never mentioned Islamofascism," said Savage.
No, he hasn't. Even the French have been more willing to defend their borders, language and culture than Bush. He's a multiculturalist and a mushy one at that. Instead of reducing the reach of Islamic fundamentalism, Bush has managed in Iraq to get 1,700 Americans killed in a war that will create yet another Islamic republic. Just yesterday we learned that the new constitution in Iraq will incorporate sharia, Islamic law.
That's why we right-wing commentators believe the Iraq war has been the biggest blunder in America's military history. As for Bimbo and Vanity, if I may employ Savage's labels, they are simply too uneducated to realize that the Iraq war represents a failed liberal exercise in nation-building.
"There is no college in Rush. There is no college in Hannity," said Savage. "He's a high school dropout. It's like listening to an uneducated, unthinking man on the radio."
Savage has a Ph.D. from Berkeley in epidemiology, an extremely challenging field. That makes him a bit overqualified for the verbal pro-wrestling matches that make up talk radio. But it also makes him interesting.
The Bushbots don't think so. On their Web sites, they call Savage a bigot and a racist, two terms the employment of which generally indicate that the speaker is losing an argument. Savage is a hero on those Web sites that attack Bush's open-borders approach to immigration. "Rush Limbaugh is a direct link to his president, El Traitor, Senor Bush," wrote one blogger. "The invasion by illegals has been going on now for a long time."
"You are 100 percent correct," said another of Limbaugh and Hannity. "They are nothing but blind, rubber-stamping followers of El Presidente Bush."
All of this is a lot of fun if you don't take it seriously. I certainly don't. But I do find talk radio to be a good barometer of the nation's mood. And the nation is slowly figuring out that the Bush-neoconservative-Troskyite- internationalist view of foreign affairs has not worked out so swimmingly for the good old U.S. of A.
"Bush is melting down our borders and making us into a polyglot nation in which no one speaks the language," says Savage.
Savage hears a lot from people who say that any criticism of Bush is a mark of disloyalty to conservatism.
"I can't stand listening to people who want me to be a lapdog for Bush," he told me. "We're supposed to be watchdogs, not lapdogs."
As for the rest of the radio talkers, "They may as well work for the Republican Party. There's nothing interesting if you can predict what a man's going to say by just going to the GOP Web site."
He's certainly got that right. Listening to an endless rehash of Karl Rove's talking points, leavened by a few Teddy Kennedy-is-a-drunk jokes, is not very entertaining.
As for the Al Franken approach, how can a nation-building, internationalist multiculturalist get any traction by criticizing another nation-building, internationalist multiculturalist? John Kerry had that problem as well, you might have noticed.
When you attack the Bush-Rove spin from the right, however, you realize that the neocons' grand social experiment has been tried most visibly in Iraq and has failed most visibly there. People are starting to notice. Eventually even the Bushbots may get a clue.
It's obvious you don't listen to them.
I've never listened to Savage...But what little I read of him at FR makes pretty good sense...Apparently he's rude and crude, his choice...
Sometimes you have to club someone to get their attention...
A number of outright lies in Mulshines's article about "bushbots". Both Limbaugh and Hannity have been outspoken in their criticism of Bush on a number of matters including spending and illegal immigration. And if having a college degree automatically makes one a genius in talk radio/political logic, then a host of uberliberals like Krugman and Dowd should be in charge of setting policy. From this article I can conclude that Mulshine is hardly a conservative and certainly not a genius. If shouting at your listeners and having an ego the size of Uranus makes Savage the master of talk radio, then I'm sorry, count me out.
Children and immature adults both have great difficulty in differentiating between a person and an argument. The result is name calling and insults replace actual debate.
Savage is a rabble rouser. He has none of the intelectual draw that he so derides Rush and others for not having. He does more damage for the conservative cause than good.
And as a convservative Republican who was born overseas, speaks 4 languages, and has a multi-cultural background, his views offend and anger me.
He has a right to say what he wants. I have a right to turn the dial or pop in the Disney CD for my kids.
Al Gore is highly educated and is an idiot. michael savage is highly educated and couldn't succeed in his degree field, so he's moved on from one money making scheme to another. He couldn't make a million selling herbs but he's succeeded in making a million selling BS.
It's not that he's so intelligent, it's simply he found customers for what he's selling.
I can hear his creepy New Yawk accent saying that Iraq is "an unmitigated disasduh".
He's also wrong about it.
I like Savage at times but he trots out that college line then says the oil companies need price controls. I guess in all of his studies he never stumbled over economics. I am far from being a Bushbot but even if I had never cracked a economics textbook I am old enough to remember what Jimmy Carter did with his interference into the supply and demand of oil. I waited in several democrat created gaslines of the 70's. Thank god Bush kept his fingers out of the oil companies!
On the Islamics he is dead on. Yes Bush has said that word but what needs done is to put the fear of god into those people. I was over there in the 80's and I know that this kindler gentler war is not going to cut it.
"support... when their policies are liberal" You obviously don't listen to either Limbaugh or Hannity much. Both have been very critical of Bush on spending and immigration especially Hannity on illegals.
Is Savage currently married?
I agree. Savage is smart as hell and is well spoken, He may be very tough and politically incorrect, but he is correct about Bush not being a conservative. Bush, like Clinton talked a great game to their base, but governed from the center/ The difference is supreme court justices.
I really believe Bush would be better than his Dad, but did not happen
He is emotionally stunted and creepy. He was so proud of that TV gig. Too bad he was too smart for us to understand.
Few people make me ill just listening to their voice.
Because no intelligent person listens to talk radio?
Liberal, Conservative, Libertarian, Commie.. truly.. radio is trash.
SAVAGE!!!!!!!!!!
He gives his fans what they want. That entrance sounds like awesome theater in the round, bordering on camp! I love that kind of stuff! Thanks for sharing! :-)
Like I said, Michael Savage is a character Mike Weiner portrays. And nobody does it better!
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