Michael Savage

Michael Savage is the pseudonym of Michael Alan Weiner (pronounced Why-ner) (born March 31, 1942), who is a popular and controversial American conservative talk radio host and political commentator. As Savage, he has written three books on politics: The Savage Nation (2003), The Enemy Within (2004) and Liberalism is a Mental Disorder (2005). As Weiner, he has written a number of books on herbal medicine and homeopathy. Most of the non-political titles are currently out-of-print.

Biography

Michael Alan Weiner was born to a Russian Jewish family [1] in the borough of The Bronx in New York City. He received a Ph.D. in Nutrition and Epidemiology from U.C. Berkeley, and has a background in alternative medicine. He has stated he was a liberal at one time.

Weiner was an associate of beat poet Allen Ginsberg, offering to arrange readings for Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti in 1972. [2] Some of his letters to Ginsberg are held in Ginsberg's archives. [3]

In 1996 he applied to be a dean at UC Berkeley's School of Journalism. When he was not granted an interview, due to lack of qualifications — less than two years of experience in radio, with a Ph.D. in epidemiology and nutrition science — Savage filed a discrimination lawsuit that was eventually dismissed. The position instead went to China scholar Orville Schell.

Radio

File:Michaelsavageiraq.jpg

A US Marine serving in Iraq shows support for The Savage Nation.

He began his radio career as Michael Savage on March 21, 1994 on KSFO in the Bay Area, debating a liberal show host. On January 1, 1995 he was given his own show during the drive-time hours. The show quickly became a local hit. In 1999, he came to the attention of the Talk Radio Network.

On January 17, 2000 he started doing an additional two hours of radio which was broadcast nationally. For the next eight months, Savage would spend a total of five hours a day just talking. His national experiment was a success, and on September 21, 2000, he stopped doing separate shows, beginning a full three-hour national show. After just one year, he was in 150 markets. By 2003, he was in over 200 markets and is currently the number 3 radio host in the world.

In June 2003, he had a salary dispute with his flagship station KSFO who refused to renegotiate his contract. He was off the air for three weeks. On July 1, 2003 he began his show on a different station: KNEW in San Francisco. Since that dispute, he speaks badly of KSFO—and of "pretty boy" Sean Hannity, whose show replaced his on the station.

MSNBC

Savage was hired by MSNBC to do a one-hour show starting March 8, 2003. On July 7, a mere four months later, he was fired for making anti-gay remarks in response to a caller, later identified as prank caller "East Coast Bob," posing as a gay man. Savage said to the caller: "you should only get AIDS and die, you pig [...] go eat a sausage and choke on it," also referring to the man as a "sodomite," "bum," and a "piece of garbage." [4] Gay rights group GLAAD applauded the decision to fire him. Savage responded that he did not realize he was on the air when he made the comments and that he did not intend any offense to homosexuals but was merely angry at the caller, who had been, according to Savage, making "vicious personal attacks" on him (the caller had ridiculed Savage's teeth). He apologized for any "pain" his comments may have brought to anyone. Before the show was canceled MSNBC was replaying his show during primetime hours Saturday night; many believe the show would not have been canceled if it were not for his comments. Many of Savage's fans believe that MSNBC was simply looking for an excuse to cancel the program due to pressure from special interest groups. Savage's show was growing to be more popular than Bill O'Reilly's O'Reilly Factor on FOX

Politics

Savage claims that he was the original user of the phrase "compassionate conservative" in 1994. The slogan later became a pillar of George W. Bush's election campaign in 2000. Savage, however, frequently accuses the national political parties of having identical philosophies and no real differences, and he uses the coined terms Republicrat to refer to them. Savage also states he coined the phrase Islamofascism.

Savage's radio program, The Savage Nation, often returns to the subject of closing U.S. borders to illegal immigrants as a way of solidifying American identity. He advocates stronger immigration controls and the reassertion of English as the official language of the United States. His mantra is "Borders, Language, and Culture". He believes that in order for the United States of America to survive as a nation, its citizens need to maintain secure borders, have English as a uniting language, and promote traditional American culture.

His political opponents, however, accuse him of racism, homophobia, and bigotry (including Anti-semitism) due to his controversial statements on Muslims, gays, feminists and illegal immigrants (His opponents sometimes fail to note he is the son of Russian immigrants, and Jewish. However, many opponents, such as Sam Seder of the Majority Report, who is also Jewish, do take this into account.).

Recently, Savage has been extremely critical of his fellow conservative talk show hosts, in particular Rush Limbaugh, whom he has called "Hush Bimbo", for what he views as their blind support of the Republican Party and President George W. Bush. He has also attacked Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly (whom Savage has dubbed the "Leprechaun"), as well as William Bennett, as hypocrites and phony conservatives for advocating morality while living what he views as immoral lives.

Savage has also broken from traditional conservatives by showing strong support for the environmental and animal rights movements, and calling any right-winger who opposes such movements "ignorant" and "knee-jerk" conservatives.

On May 4, 2005, Savage stated that he believes the only chance the Republican Party has against Hillary Clinton running for president is Laura Bush.

Writings

The Enemy Within

In 1980 Michael Weiner saw the publication of Weiner's Herbal: The Guide to Herb Medicine, which advocates the therapeutic use of marijuana [5]. He has authored a number of other books on various herbal medicine topics under this name. More recently, Savage's books are political in nature and published by WND Books, a partnership between the conservative website WorldNetDaily and Thomas Nelson, a publisher of Christian books.

In January 2003 Weiner published The Savage Nation: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Borders, Language and Culture, his first book under the pseudonym Michael Savage. The book quickly reached the top of the New York Times bestseller list earning Savage, as noted above, a commentary show on MSNBC. The controversial book takes on the "liberal media," the dominating culture of "she-ocracy," gays, and liberals.

Critics have faulted Savage for making a number of assertions in the book that he often fails to substantiate with facts or resources. Exacerbating this condition is the fact that the book itself has no index. The book is divided into two to four page sections, many of which are near-exact replicas to columns he published on the conservative site NewsMax.com.

In January 2004 Savage published his second political book, The Enemy Within: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Schools, Faith, and Military. As of 2005, Savage is currently working on a new book titled Liberalism is a Mental Disorder to be released on April 12, 2005.

Religious Views

Even though he is very conservative, Michael Savage is not a Christian. He claims he is a Universalist. In a radio interview with Jerry Falwell on April 29, 2005, he opposed Falwell's view that people will go to hell if they do not believe Jesus is the unique son of God. He refuses to believe that good people who do not accept Jesus will go to hell, while unrepentent, sinful Christians will go to heaven. Savage believes that religion is "a wheel." At the center of the wheel is God, and the five "spokes" of the wheel are the world's major religions: Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. He believes in Universal Salvation, which means everybody will eventually go to heaven. He abhors atheism.

Quotes

On America:

"[The U.S.] is being taken over by the freaks, the cripples, the perverts and the mental defectives." - San Francisco Bay Guardian, September 20, 2000.

On MSNBC which led to his firing:

"Oh, you're one of the sodomites! You should only get AIDS and die, you pig! How's that? Why don't you see if you can sue me, you pig? You got nothing better than to put me down, you piece of garbage? You got nothing to do today? Go eat a sausage and choke on it. Get trichinosis. Okay, got another nice caller here who's busy because he didn't have a nice night in the bath house and is angry at me today?" Bauder, David. "MSNBC fires Savage on anti-gay remarks." Associated Press: July 7, 2003.

On Liberals (whom Savage dysphemismally calls "Red Diaper Doper Babies"):

"I certainly don't underestimate the Red Diaper Doper Baby, either. The Red Diaper Doper Baby- although pot-ed out, although deviant- is very, very smart with more power than you can imagine. They run every image in this country. Every image that comes out of Hollywood, Red Diaper Doper Baby driven. Every image that comes out of a New York newsroom, Red Diaper Doper Baby written. Every last one of them, Red Diaper Doper Baby, pull the switches on the images and the words that come out of Hollywood and New York. Don't for one minute think otherwise" - June 11, 2003. From his book, Savage Nation.

"To fight only the al-Qaida scum is to miss the terrorist network operating within our own borders... Who are these traitors? Every rotten radical left-winger in this country, that's who." From his book, Savage Nation, January, 2003.

On Terri Schiavo:

"The radical Democratic left is an army of soulless ghouls. Being of the living dead, they live in a world of death and try to impose it on we the living. Witness who led the charge: a radical homosexual, Barney Frank. A radical abortion Mafiosa, Barbara Boxer. What is difficult for we the living to comprehend is the reason they can engage in such anti-life abominations is because they have no souls. They have said that the tears of Terri Schiavo are mechanical. They have said that her smile is reflexive. They can rip an emerging child from the womb, murder it, and call this a compassionate act. Like Mengele -- the doctor of death from the Nazi concentration camps -- the radical, soulless Democrats keep referring to "the doctors," as if a medical degree guaranteed humanity. Therefore, choose life. God bless George W. Bush." - March 22, 2005. (source)

On Al Gore:

"We are all sitting here asking ourselves, was there lead in Al Gore's silver spoon, because of the obvious tilt across the river of sanity. He has definitely pulled his raft across the river of sanity, or he has taken the side of the enemy, there's no other explanation for what he has been doing." - The Daily Savage, May 12, 2003.

On Women:

"I'm beginning to think that women should be denied the vote. Their hormones rage; they are too emotional." San Jose Mercury News, November 6, 1998.

On Islamic terrorists:

"I think these people [Al-Qaida, terrorists] need to be forcibly converted to Christianity ... It's the only thing that can probably turn them into human beings." - The Daily Savage, May 12, 2003.

On Minorities and Immigrants:

"With the [Latino] population that has emerged, since they breed like rabbits, in many cases the whites will become a minority in their own nation... The white people don't breed as often for whatever reason. I guess many homosexuals are involved. That is also part of the grand plan, to push homosexuality to cut down on the white race" San Francisco Bay Guardian, September 9, 2000.

"We need racist stereotypes right now of our enemy in order to encourage our warriors to kill the enemy." San Francisco Chronicle, February 6, 2003.

"You open the door to them, and the next thing you know, they are defecating on your country and breeding out of control." The Oregonian, April 24, 2002.

On gays

"Well there's a big difference between fighting for civil rights, and fighting for homosexual marriage, you moron. It's a big difference for fighting for the equality of all men, despite their race, and fighting for perversion, you idiot! You think people are stupid?" - June 10, 2004. - The Daily Savage, May 24, 2004.

"But the question is what's good enough for you? You wanna live in a country like this? Where a gang of liberal judges hijack any law they don't like? And hold you hostage to it? They make homosexual wedding the law of the land, when 90% of the American people find it repugnant! And sickening! And disgusting! And don't wanna accept it! And don't wanna live in a degenerate nation!" - The Daily Savage, June 10, 2004.

"Gays bore the hell out of me. They're the least important members of our society." - in his radio broadcast, September, 2000.

"Somehow I can't picture Martin Luther King Jr. marching in makeup and a miniskirt to hold a vigil at the state capital for the rights of drag queens" from his upcoming book Liberalism is a Mental Disorder

On torture in Iraq:

"[T]ake their deepest fear, the pig, the dog, the woman with the leash, and use it on them to break them!" - The Daily Savage, June 10, 2004.

"Use ... [l]ittle, ugly women. And let 'em take big strapping Iraqis and put 'em on leashes naked." - The Daily Savage, June 11, 2004.

"Instead of putting joysticks, I would have liked to have seen dynamite put in their orifices." - The Daily Savage, June 11, 2004.

On Hillary Clinton:

"Then you have Hillary Clinton, the most Godless woman in the Senate, right out of the Marxist playbook..." - The Daily Savage, June 19, 2004.

"[Hillary Clinton, Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor have] "feminized and homosexualized much of America, to the point where the nation has become passive, receptive and masochistic." in his book, Savage Nation, January, 2003.

On the ACLU:

"...these big-mouthed, phony scum of the ACLU, who should be rounded up, arrested for sedition. Their property seized, and they should be put into Abu Ghraib prison as far as I'm concerned. That wouldn't be enough of what I'd like to see done to the ACLU. They're the worst vermin America has ever tolerated. The worst vermin in the history of America are the vermin in the ACLU." - June 19, 2004

On the tsunami in the Indian Ocean:

"Many of the countries and the areas in these countries that were hit by these tidal waves were hotbeds of radical Islam. Why should we be helping them destroy us? ... I truthfully don't believe in foreign aid. ... We shouldn't be spending a nickel on this, as far as I'm concerned. ... I don't want one nickel of my money going over there. ... I am sick of being bled to death by every damn incident on the earth." - December 31, 2004

“It is the Savage Nation out here on the West Coast. We’ve had rain for five days. We have another five days of it. I need some aid right now. International aid. Because I may be suffering from seasonal affective disorder if this keeps up. Maybe I should go to the U.N. [United Nations] and see if I can get some special psychotherapy and sun lamps.” - December 31 2004

Trivia

The current opening theme to Savage's radio show is "Looks That Kill" by Mötley Crüe; and "The Shortest Straw" and "Master of Puppets" by Metallica. At times it has been "Du Hast" by Rammstein. Interestingly, most of the bands who've been featured in the bumper music (music played in between commerical breaks) are politically opposed to Savage (being either socialist or liberal), although Metallica's Kirk Hammett has called into the show saying "We support what you're doing."

External links