Michael Savage

Michael Savage is the pseudonym for Michael Alan Weiner, PhD (born March 31, 1942). Savage is an American conservative talk radio host and political commentator. As Michael Weiner, he has written a number of books on herbal medicine and homeopathy. As Michael Savage, he has written three New York Times bestsellers: The Savage Nation (2003), The Enemy Within (2004), and Liberalism is a Mental Disorder (2005). His nationally syndicated radio show The Savage Nation reaches over eight million listeners on 377 stations throughout the United States.

Biography and education

Michael Alan Weiner was born to a Russian Jewish family [1] in the borough of The Bronx in New York City. Michael Savage earned a Bachelor's from Queens College in education and sociology. He taught high school for several years in New York City. Following that, he earned two Master's degrees in ethnobotany and anthropology from the University of Hawaii. He then received a Ph.D. in nutritional ethnomedicine in 1978 from the University of California, Berkeley. His thesis was titled Nutritional Ethnomedicine in Fiji. Savage spent many years researching botany in the South Pacific, and has a background in alternative medicine. He has stated he was a liberal at one time and never served in the military.

Weiner was a friend of openly gay beat poet Allen Ginsberg, offering to arrange readings for Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti in 1972. [2] [3] [4] Savage also once posed naked for a photograph with Ginsberg while swimming in Fiji. [http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/03/05/savage/index1.html

In 1996 he applied to be a dean at UC Berkeley's Graduate 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 who, according to Weiner, was less qualified than himself.

Radio

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

Michael Savage began his radio career in 1992 on San Francisco's #1 news/talk radio station KGO, first doing fill in work for other hosts, then getting his own show on the weekend. Two years later he was given a weekday show on KGO's sister station KSFO where he shared airtime with a liberal talk show host. He chose his "nom de voix" in "the Tonga Islands in the 1960s. I stumbled upon the name of a [19th-century] shipwreck who was locally infamous -Charles Savage. His exploits were legendary," he said. "So the name was bouncing around in my head." At the time, his slogan was "To the right of Rush, and to the left of God." 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 No. 3 radio host in the United States.

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 "Vanity or Pretty Boy" Sean Hannity, whose show replaced his on the station. Savage also speaks pejoratively when referencing his fellow talk radio hosts or individuals with whom he disagrees (see List of Michael Savage neologisms).

As of 2005, Savage has between 8 million and 10 million listeners per week. This makes his show the third most widely listened to broadcast in the United States.

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."

Savage was doing an "Airline Horror Stories" piece, when Bob called into his show to talk about undercover security guards smoking in the bathroom. His next words were "Half hour into the flight, I need to suggest that Don and Mike should take your show so you can go to the dentist because your teeth are really bad". The words after "should" were bleeped out by a MSNBC exec, which would make one believe that the caller was actually making lewd comments about Savage's sexual orientation. Savage asked if he was a "sodomite", to which the caller answered "yes" . Savage then said to the caller: "Oh, so you're one of those 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 to do than to put me down, you piece of garbage, you got nothing better to do today, go eat a sausage and choke on it. Get trichinosis. Now do we have another nice caller here who's busy because he didn't have a nice night in the bathhouse who's angry at me today? Put another, put another sodomite on....no more calls? I don't care about these bums, they mean nothing to me. They're all sausages." [5]

Gay rights group GLAAD applauded the decision to fire him. Savage responded that he had signaled the cameraman to "cut" and 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. 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 have been canceled even without his comments, and that MSNBC was simply looking for an excuse to dump the program due to pressure from special interest groups. Others point out that MSNBC has had poor programming and ratings performance for a long time and that many talk shows of all different political stripes have come and gone quickly on the network.

Personal views and criticism

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The Enemy Within

Michael Savage's socio-political beliefs center around maintaining three aspects of the United States: "Borders, Language, and Culture". From these beliefs he founded "The Paul Revere Society".

Savage asserts that America needs stronger immigration controls and borders to protect itself from rampant illegal immigration which, he claims, undermines national security and the economy. He also considers that the position of English as the official language of the United States should be reasserted. In The Enemy Within, Savage compares earlier generations of immigrants to the United States who learned to speak English, with more recent immigrants, who he says are placated by the government because "they don't bother to learn English". With regard to culture, Savage asserts American culture has always centered around a strong family life and Judeo-Christian ethics. He considers that failure to maintain these three aspects will result in the decline and "disintegration" of the United States, and often discusses these subjects on The Savage Nation.

Savage claims that he coined 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 sharing identical philosophies and not having any real differences, and he uses the coined terms "Republicrat and Democan" to describe their members. Savage also states he coined the term "Islamofascism", although it was used in 1990 by Malise Ruthven. Savage is a refreshing voice on the radio compared to the knee-jerk Bush-bots and anti Bush-bots. At his best he is like a jazz musician in his prime, improvising his way through a breadth of topics that lesser hosts would find dizzying. Savage's political opponents accuse him of fascist leanings, racism, homophobia, and bigotry because of his controversial statements about Islam, homosexuality, feminism and immigration. Opponents point out various controversial statements he has made, including calling for the licensing of journalists, and the arrest of liberal activists; proposing responding violently to protests (however his supporters contend that this would only be in response to protests which were already violent in nature). Savage has also advocated the reintroduction of the repealed Sedition Act, accusing mainstream media sources such as ABC, CBS and NBC of being "mouth pieces for the enemy".

When political opponents began boycotting campaigns, Savage threatened to release their names and addresses to his supporters. However, when an online critic of Savage recently released Savage's address, Savage threatened to have the person prosecuted under U.S. Federal anti-terrorism legislation.

Recently, Savage has been extremely critical of his fellow conservative talk show hosts (particularly Rush Limbaugh, whom he has called "Hush Bimbo" and Sean Hannity "Pawn Vanity," for what he views as their blind support of the Republican Party and President George W. Bush. He has also attacked Bill O'Reilly (whom Savage has dubbed the "Leprechaun"), and William Bennett, as hypocrites and "phony" conservatives for advocating morality while living what he views as immoral lives. For example, Savage asserts that O'Reilly opposes anti-pornography laws and supports the separation of church and state in relation to religious symbols and public property.

Savage has also broken from traditional U.S. conservatives by showing strong support for the environmental and animal rights movements, and describing any right-winger who opposes such movements as "ignorant" and "knee-jerk" conservatives. However, Savage's stated pro-environment position is somewhat unclear as he is also very critical of evidence in support of global warming. Savage, while claiming to be pro-animal rights, is verbally outspoken against PETA; he states this is due to their political ties, not their philosophy.

Writings

*Liberalism is a Mental Disorder: Savage Solutions*

In 1980 Michael Weiner saw the publication of Weiner's Herbal: The Guide to Herb Medicine, which advocates the therapeutic use of marijuana [6]. However he recently stated that the chemicals in marijuana make it too dangerous to be used as medicine. On his program, he strongly cautions against the recreational use of marijuana, occasionally devoting his show to "marijuana horror stories" and its claimed potential to ruin lives. 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 directs attacks at "media bias", 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. His newest book, Liberalism is a Mental Disorder was released on April 12, 2005.

Religious views

Michael Savage states that 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 in the doctrine that Jesus is the unique son of God. He refuses to believe that good people who do not accept Jesus will go to hell, while unrepentant, 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 reconciliation, which means everybody will eventually go to heaven.

Trivia

The signature introduction to the Savage Nation is an announcer saying "Warning: The Savage Nation contains adult language, adult content, psychological nudity. Listener discretion is advised." The beginning of Metallica's "Master of Puppets" will come next, followed by Mötley Crüe's "Looks that Kill", and Metallica's "The Shortest Straw" will finish off the introduction.

For bumper music, Savage has used "Eye of the Beholder," "Frayed Ends of Sanity," "Holier Than Thou," and "The Shortest Straw" by Metallica; and "Du Hast" and "Tier" by Rammstein. Someone claiming to be Metallica's lead guitarist Kirk Hammett called into Savage's show to say "We support what you're doing", but it is unlikely that it was actually Kirk Hammett as he expressed disgust for George Bush and Pat Buchanan in the documentary A Year and Half in the Life of Metallica, and contributed $1,000 to John Kerry during the 2004 elections.

Russell Goldencloud Weiner, Savage's son, is the founder and CEO of Rockstar, INC. who manufactures and markets Rockstar energy drink.

In July 2005, Bernard Goldberg included Savage in his book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America as number 61. Goldberg cites Savage's tendency to be venomous and says "Savage's brand of over-the-top bile...puts him right in there with the angriest haters on the Left..." Apparently Goldberg doesn't like the fact that Mike Savage is a 'danger' to the American left.(Clinton, Kerry, Gore, ACLU) Or that he is a 'danger' to the American right. (Bush, Gingrich, Bennett, neo-cons)

On September 23, 2005, Savage accidentally used profanity while describing Ted Turner before recanting with the word BS. An MP3 of the event.

Bibliography

Books by Michael Weiner

Plant a Tree, New York : Collier Books, 1975
Bugs in Peanut Butter, Boston : Little, Brown, 1976.
Man's Useful Plants, New York: Macmillan. 1976.
Earth Medicine, Earth Food, New York : Macmillan Pub. Co., 1980.
The way of the skeptical nutritionist, New York : Macmillan, 1981.
Nutrition Against Aging, Bantam books, 1983.
Secrets of Fijian Medicine, Quantum Books, 1983.
Getting Off Cocaine, Avon Books, 1984.
Maximum Immunity, Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1986.
Reducing the risk of Alzheimer's, New York : Stein and Day, 1987.
The Complete Book of Homeopathy, Garden City Park, N.Y. : Avery Pub., 1989.
The Herbal Bible, San Rafael, CA : Quantum Books, 1992.
Healing children naturally, San Rafael, CA : Quantum Books, 1993.
Herbs that heal : prescription for herbal healing, Mill Valley, CA : Quantum Books, 1994.
The Antioxidant Cookbook, Mill Valley, CA : Quantum Books, 1995.

Books by Michael Savage

The Savage Nation, WND Books, 2003.
The Enemy within, Nelson Current, 2004.
Liberalism is a Mental Disorder, Nelson Current, 2005.

External links