Posted on 02/18/2003 9:47:27 PM PST by Pokey78
New York’s senior senator is “Upchuck” Schumer. New York’s jun-
ior senator is “Pillory” Clinton. The federal appellate judges for the West Coast are the “The Ninth Jerk-it Court of Schlemiels.” America is threatened by a “tidal wave of Turd World immigration.”
Welcome to the world of Michael Savage, the pen name and radio moniker of author and talk show host Michael A. Weiner. Mr. Savage, born in the Bronx to a Jewish, Democratic, immigrant family that later moved to Queens, worked his way through college as a busboy at a hotel in the Catskills before earning a Ph.D. in epidemiology and nutrition science from the University of California, Berkeley. His humor, such as it is or isn’t, clearly owes less to the tradition of Berkeley than to that of the Borscht Belt.
So what to make of the fact that Mr. Savage’s book, “The Savage Nation,” published by a company whose main business is selling Christian Bibles, is now at or near the top of virtually every national bestseller list, with more than 300,000 copies in circulation? His radio show reaches an audience of 5 million a week; in New York it’s carried by WABC radio, 770 on the AM dial.
Proof that you can never go broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American people? Or is Mr. Savage onto something beyond mere pre-adolescent humor?
Mr. Savage does have a knack for wry, insightful observations on topics ranging from antitrust law to the excesses of the American left. They are delightful for the way they are calculated to incite apoplexy among the holier-than-thou types.
On toy guns: “All of a sudden, the seventies came along. If you gave your kid a cap gun, you were considered psychotic. Instead, you’re supposed to give him a collection of flags from the United Nations.”
On the overmedication of children: “Daydreaming is a sign that a child needs Ritalin?”
On predatory pricing and price-fixing: “The antitrust laws in America make it illegal to charge more than the competition. It’s called price gouging. But you can’t charge less, either, because that would be undercutting your competitors. And if you charge the same, then you’re guilty of collusion. They’ve got you crated and ready for delivery no matter which way you turn.”
On the ACLU’s concern about public displays of religiosity: “You can have sex in public. You can masturbate in public. You can cross-dress in public. You can rub against a sheep in public. But you can’t pray in public.”
He observes that America has too much sex and too little religion, while the Middle East has too much religion and not enough sex. His proposed solution is to “drop millions of copies of Playboy over the nations of the Middle East along with millions of tiny, airline bottles of booze.” Instead of handing out condoms to American college students, university administrators should distribute copies of the U.S. Constitution and the Ten Commandments, he says.
About as often, however, Mr. Savage himself is guilty of the very excesses he decries in his liberal opponents. He complains that because of them, “America is well on her way from being the melting pot to becoming the chamber pot.” But to judge by his book, Mr. Savage himself is doing more than his share to coarsen the culture.
Sometimes he’s just plain wrong. He complains that when Senator Lieberman “used his religion as a weapon. … we heard not a murmur about church and state from the media elite.” In fact, after Mr. Lieberman started talking about God and religion during the campaign, the New York Times let loose with an editorial (“Mr. Lieberman’s Religious Words,” August 31, 2000), that asserted, “whenever religious matters are addressed, Mr. Lieberman should firmly and unequivocally reiterate his support for the separation of church and state, a bedrock principle of the American Constitution and political system.”
Other times Mr. Savage sounds just like the liberals he attacks, denouncing the “oligarchy” he claims is ruling America. “It’s a government of the rich, by the special-interest groups, and for the lobbyists,” Mr. Savage says.
And other times the book goes beyond wrong, into the territory of truly bad taste and even worse.
He refers to “Third Way Führer Blair” of England, a truly vile and unjustifiable title for a prime minister who has been a good friend to America in the war on Islamic terror.
He offers an unconvincing defense of Pius XII as “not Hitler’s pope” but “one of the great men of all time in that he saved upward of a reported eight-hundred thousand Jews.”
Particularly misguided are Mr. Savage’s views on immigration. He writes, “If America is going to survive, we must close our borders to those who mooch and to those from all terror-sponsoring countries.”
Well, no objection here to reforming government-sponsored welfare. But if Mr. Savage’s immigrant ancestors made it to New York City and settled in without any help from their relatives or private charities, they’d be in rare company, indeed. And without admitting Iraqis and Iranians to America, how is America supposed to help train a new generation of leaders for those nations who will be steeped in American traditions of freedom and democracy?
Most creepy is Mr. Savage’s justification of his views on immigration by invoking, however elliptically, racial and cultural differences. “When you alter the people, you alter the country. Does America want to be like Mexico, Central America, or China?” he asks. “Our most important and consequential inventions have come almost exclusively from white males,” Mr. Savage asserts at one point in the book.
Incredibly, Mr. Savage then openly wishes for an American immigration policy more like that advocated by a center-right German politician, Angela Merkel. Now, Ms. Merkel and her Christian Democratic party have their merits on foreign and economic policy, but their railings against the number of Turkish workers in Germany are not among them.
In a section of his book headlined “Biased Liberal News Undermines America,” Mr. Savage defines the cable news network MSNBC as “More Snotty Nonsense By Creeps.” Recently, amid the success of Mr. Savage’s book, MSNBC announced plans to have Mr. Savage host a weekly hour-long TV talk show. Given that MSNBC’s other token “conservative” is Pat Buchanan, it’s unclear whether the move is a calculated liberal plot to make conservatives look bad or a sincere effort to better the network’s ratings in Germany.
As evidence that “we must not allow immigrants to come here and impose their cultural trappings on us,” Mr. Savage raises the following scare: “The next time you’re in your backyard grilling hot dogs, don’t be surprised if your Korean neighbor is actually grilling his dog. That’s the way things are done in Korea.”
But Mr. Savage needn’t worry. The son of the newcomer Korean immigrant will likely prefer to eat at McDonald’s. And his grandson might become a multimillionaire by starting a fast food chain that would popularize Korean cuisine the way Taco Bell did Mexican food. Or the grandson might seek his fortune by writing a bestselling book that argues for keeping the borders closed to the next generation of immigrants.
Exactly. What is it with the delicate sensibilities here lately. Some on another thread were taking shots at Mark Levin for being "rude". Oh wait. I think I get it.
Look at the Left. One of the reasons that conservatives like myself have such contempt for them is that they don't hesitate to inflame and incite based on purely visceral response.
You have Al Sharpton (who I compare with Savage--except hardly anyone knows who Savage is) who will stand up before a crowd and rant and rave about "injustice" and exhort his followers, who are just as unreasonable as he is, to "action."
He doesn't attempt to define a POSITIVE philosophy in order to promote POSITIVE action, just oppose all those who are "against us."
Savage just gripes, and gripes, and gripes. He attracts a fringe faction that has a tendency to glower at the world and complain about how "something oughta be done". But all that gets done is more griping.
I don't see the point.
I prefer people like Rush Limbaugh, who does his share of griping but tempers it with a positive, optimistic and "can-do" attitude. Rush spends a portion of his time relating the things that have always made this country great.
"Gripers" like Savage see all that is wrong, but there's no perspective. It's just anger for the sake of anger, and really no point to it.
It's a loser attitude, period.
Did you know that the Chief Rabbi of Rome converted to Catholicism because of what the Pope did for the Jews?? I think maybe THAT"S why some Jews are trying to re=write history.
I thought that was Taki's responsability!
Personally, I'd prefer a fusionist publication (ie a braodsheet version of the old National Review before it got boring), but for now the Post is the best we can do. I still think Conrad Black is wasting his money.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.