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.
I have been listening to all these guys since they began. I heard Rush the first time in Aug '88. I listen to Hannity every day on WBAP in Dallas, and Levin after him on the same station. I alternate between Savage and Hannity.
I don't think Rush, Hannity or Levin are Bush butt boys. I don't think Savage is some kind of raving right wing nut either. I hear Rush et al often harshly criticizing Bush...tonight for example, Levin is taking the Bushes to task over the border.
It is all kind of disguisting...I think that we would all be better off if Savage would stop attacking Rush, Hannity and Levin. I have'nt heard Rush or Hannity mention Savage. Levin goes off on Savage occasionally.
We are presently in a foreign war with an enemy who has promised to kill us all. We are also in a domestic war with leftist lunitics that have promised to steal our life, liberty and property....fighting amongst ourselves cannot be a good thing, and is counterproductive.
An entire article on nothing much. And they wonder why people don't care what the MSM has to say about anything these days.
Really and truly???????
That's what Al Franken and his ilk do. Why is Savage any better?
LOL. How does cheap personal insults by a lesser so-called radio host keep pressure on Limbaugh, Hannity, etc.?
I could stand him if he had a bit of civility with people who call to disagree. Instead he shouts at them like a lunatic and calls them names. If you aren't as rabid as him, he has no use for you.
Drink the Koolaid, bushbots.
2000 - a one state victoy against an algore. 2004 - a one state victory against a johnkerry. Does that indicate that our nation is pining away for - veritably lusting after - 1964 AuH2O conservatism?
Truth.
LOL! Yes, denigrating the education of other talk show hosts sure succeeds in doing that.
Karl Marx looks up and smiles at you.
""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.""
They give you a secret key in college to unlock your brain.
Slow day at the RNC? I'd expect you to be all over the Border threads pushing the Bush Agenda of surrendering our Borders for cheap lettuce.
Instead you are here on a Savage vs Rush thread?
Hmm...interesting priorities.
He looks so healthy in that picture! ;D
...I have heard Rush and Hannity cover Able Danger...
Crap.
Savage and Jimmy Carter, both gas price controlling kooks.
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