Savage didn’t make fun of children. He believes they are being damage by a false diagnosis.
Top Radio Talk Show Host
1) Rush Limbaugh
2) Sean Hannity
3) Michael Savage, Dr. Laura
Yes, I think his point is valid; that is to say, children are diagnosed with mental illness at a higher rate then ever in the country now, and most are on meds. He said 99%, not 100% - so he is saying there is such thing as real autism.
It is so much easier, isn’t it, to label and drug a child then deal for years trying to modify his behavior and attitude and perceptions. It’s just a lot of plain old exhausting emotional and physical work.
Then it should be even easier to apologize for saying 99% of autistic kids are brats, idiots, and cry babies, if that wasn’t even what he really meant to say.
I think driving him off the air over this is overkill but honestly, I can’t blame the parents of these kids who are feeling stabbed in the back by him. Many parents of kids with disabilities are conservatives, and being told that their kids are brats and would not be retarded if they were better fathers must be a very shocking thing to hear. Maybe there’s a misdiagnosis problem and maybe there isn’t— some people made some thought provoking points in an earlier thread about this— but there obviously is also a large group of autistic children out there who are profoundly retarded and need constant supervision just to not hurt themselves. Taking one look at one of them, you can immediately see the difference between them and badly behaved children from disfunctional families. There is no comparison. Implying that autism doesn’t exist at all is just a slap in the face to the parents who are taking loving care of disabled children. As a pro-life woman I find the continuing devaluation of disabled children a very disturbing trend and am disappointed to hear conservative people saying in public that these are just bad kids with bad parents.
If that’s not what he meant then all he has to do is “man up” and apologize. I’ve got no interest in burning him at the stake but if he didn’t mean that 99% of autistic kids are not really retarded and are just badly behaved brats, then he should take it back. Everybody says the wrong thing sometimes.
Savage didn’t make fun of children. He believes they are being damage by a false diagnosis
‘Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.’ “