C-SPAN Gets Savaged By Right-Wing Radio Listeners (Michael Savage)

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/15/savage-cspan/

C-SPAN Gets Savaged By Right-Wing Radio Listeners

Last week, right-wing radio host Michael Savage was presented a Freedom of Speech award at Talkers Magazine’s annual New Media Seminar. C-SPAN, which aired portions of the two-day event, chose to not air Savage’s acceptance speech because the conservative talker only appeared in a pre-recorded DVD speech.

Savage is now claiming he is a victim of censorship. Repeatedly attacking C-SPAN this week as “fascists” and modern versions of the “brownshirt movement in Hitler’s Germany,” Savage encouraged his listeners to call and email CSPAN about their supposed “blacklisting” of his speech.

On Washington Journal this morning, host and C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb read aloud some of the emails he has received from alleged listeners of Savage’s show. The emails defending Savage are filled with personal attacks, referring to Lamb as an “ass loser Communist,” “pervert,” “bed-wetting commie,” and worse. Watch it at link~

Michael Savage is obviously not responsible for the content of these emails. But it’s worth noting that such attacks are standard fare for Savage’s radio show. According to Savage, MoveOn.org members are “rat-bastard Communists,” supporters of the Fairness Doctrine are “Nazis” and “no different than the Bolsheviks in 1917,” and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) says things that “Goebbels would be proud of.”

As Lamb notes in his introduction to the emails, Savage is also using the faux controversy to make money by charging his fans $20 apiece to buy a copy of the supposedly censored speech.

[wtmusic]

1. OK, if we're Bolsheviks, they're Czarists

I'll play along.

[Madspirit]

3. I like the way you put that...n/t

[EFerrari]

4. They called him everything from dickhead to "nazi -stalinist"

and bade him go to the Soviet Union (apparently these wackos don't know it doesn't exist any more).

:rofl:

[knitter4democracy]

10. How can you be nazi-Stalinist?

Odd.

[EFerrari]

13. You have to be a freep I guess?

:rofl:

[Richard Steele]

20. Yeah...remind me again how that one worked out, hmmmm?

Mr. Wiener's stupidity is surpassed only by his lack of knowledge.

[EFerrari]

2. This was the most hilarious Fascist Friday of ALL TIMES!

Brian keep reading the hate mail from these nutcases and pointing out their bad spelling and their factual errors. The camera showed the email addresses of these idiots and there were a ton of underlinings. :rofl:

He didn't look very happy but, he did get calls apologizing for the haters.

It was so funny it woke me up fully 'way too early.

[EFerrari]

5. Thom and I posted some of the messages here:

(I don't know why this tickles me so much when it should scare the heck out of me, but Savage lied to his audience and they made asses of themselves and Brian had to deal with it. Trifecta!)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1116851

[rasputin1952]

6. The Savage Wiener strikes again...Besides that fact that he

is nothing less than a blowhard cretin, he has to make $ off of a lame ass speech?

It is all about $ w/the RW, nothing goes by them if they can't squeeze some sort of profit out of it...x(

For God's sake, the closest thing he could come to as far as a speech goes, is something that crawled out of his ass anyway, he has a serious problem w/the English language as it is, I'm surprised antone listens to him at all. What he has to offer is hate disguised as, well hate, there is NO substance to the Weiner at all...x(

[EFerrari]

7. He ripped off his audience via C-SPAN. What morans. n/t

[rasputin1952]

8. The majjority of RW'ers are not known for their critical thinking

skills...doesn't take much to be a sheep...

[DBoon]

9. oh yes he is responsible for the content of those emails

He knew damn well what he was doing.

Just like Julius Streicher was responsible for inciting the holocaust.

Julius Streicher (February 12, 1885 – October 16, 1946) was a prominent Nazi prior to and during World War II. He was the publisher of the Nazi Der Stürmer newspaper, which was to become a part of the Nazi propaganda machine. His publishing firm released three anti-Semitic books for children, including the 1938 Der Giftpilz (The Poison Mushroom), one of the most widespread pieces of propaganda, which purported to warn about insidious dangers Jews posed by using the metaphor of an attractive yet deadly mushroom. After the war, he was convicted of crimes against humanity and executed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Streicher

People like Savage (and Coulter and Malkin and ..) are not some harmless satirists, are not legitimate political commentators trying to analyze the events of the day, and are not just wacky entertainers. These people are building a road to something really ugly.

[whistle]

11. His real name is Michael Weiner and the guy is a classic "lounge lizard"

...and hetero/homo sexual predator:

<snip>
Michael Savage is the pseudonym of Michael Alan Weiner (born March 31, 1942), a controversial<1> American conservative talk radio host,gasbag, author, and political commentator.<2> He holds master's degrees in medical botany and medical anthropology<3> and earned a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in nutritional ethnomedicine.<4> As Michael Weiner, he has written a number of books on herbal medicine and homeopathy.

As Michael Savage, he has written four New York Times bestsellers: The Savage Nation (2003), The Enemy Within (2004), Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder (2005), and The Political Zoo (2006). His nationally syndicated radio show, The Savage Nation, reaches more than eight million listeners on over 400 stations throughout the United States, ranking third in number of stations syndicated nationwide<5> and third in nationwide audience behind Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.<6>

<snip>
In the early 1970s, Savage had more liberal views. Savage, then Michael Weiner, introduced himself to certain writers in the North Beach area of San Francisco.<10> He befriended and traveled with Beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Neoconservative scholar Stephen Schwartz, also an acquaintance of Savage from this time, reported that Savage once posed naked in a photograph with Ginsberg while swimming in Hawaii and used the photograph as sort of a "calling card."<8><10> One such letter describes an encounter with a black man, interpreted by some as sexual in nature.<11> Savage has denied that the letter had homosexual overtones, claiming that it is part of a "smear campaign" by "gay fascists."<11> Another acquaintance of Savage from this time was poet and author Neeli Cherkovski, who says that Weiner dreamed of becoming a stand-up comic in the mold of Lenny Bruce.<8><10> During this time, Savage also worked for famous psychedelic drug advocate Timothy Leary.<8>

Around 1980, Savage's political philosophies became more conservative. An acquaintance, Dr. Robert Cathcart, says that in his private conversations with Savage during this time, he knew Savage to have conservative political views.<10> Schwartz stated that Savage became alienated from the North Beach scene in the early 1980s. His beliefs and lifestyle shifted so far from his liberal friends that intense arguments would erupt when he encountered them.<10> When Savage was asked about his shift in politics and other views, he replied, "I was once a child; I am now a man."<7>

In 1994, Savage began his talk radio career working as a fill-in on the San Francisco's news/talk radio station KGO. In 1996, he applied to be a dean at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism as a political statement but was not granted an interview due to lack of qualifications. Savage filed a discrimination lawsuit that was eventually dismissed. The position instead went to historian and China scholar Orville Schell, whom Savage called a "front for the communist Chinese mafia."<10> In 2000, the Talk Radio Network took his show and syndicated it nationally.

Since Savage found his place in radio, he and his former friends and acquaintances from the North Beach area of San Francisco have traded barbs.<8> Savage now derides Ferlinghetti and calls Ferlinghetti's City Lights Bookstore "that once-famous communist bookstore."<10> Ferlinghetti claims that Weiner's "reincarnation" as Savage represents "total opportunism," the crowning achievement of someone who was "always looking to make a fast buck" and "always trying to think up new schemes to get famous."<10> Savage said, "I looked at almost like a rabbinic figure. Little did I know that he was the fucking devil."<8>

<MORE>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Savage_(commentator)

[EFerrari]

14. San Francisco shudders and apologizes for this hater. n/t

/oops

[whistle]

22. It is not San Francisco's fault that Michael Weiner landed there

...he is supported by the right wing conspiracy sickos who syndicate all of these nut jobs on the air. I believe the man is a total phony.

[EFerrari]

23. He is a performer. And not the kind that tries to marry their

ethics to their act. We attended a charity event once where he was holding court and both of us needed a shower when we got home.

[whistle]

24. I would think a shower and immersion in multiple detoxification solutions

....followed by gas fumigation and aroma therapy. I know I feel that way when by accident or just a weakened will I tune the radio dial in my car to 580am driving home from work evenings and get a five minute dose of this cretan :scream:

[Cha]

27. Looks to me like being

a weiner savage is a "mental disorder".

[jillan]

12. Brian Lamb is my favorite of the morning group.

He handled it really well.

I loved how he was bringing notice to their spelling, and their grammar.
And when he read a particularly nasty email, and said and that one was from a Doctor - and proceeded to tell the Doc's full name and where he practiced.

Good for him for standing up and not letting the savage weinie walk all over him. Brian exposed Savage for what a hateful jerk he is.

[EFerrari]

15. He did a great job. n/t

[BuyingThyme]

16. I caught a piece of the Weiner's show yesterday.

He said people were using ultrasound imagery to identify babies with the wrong color eyes (so they could abort them).

He's not only insane, but as dumb as a brick.

[Canuckistanian]

17. It's obvious he doesn't have a publicist

Calling CSPAN a "brownshirt movement" is not going to win him any favorable airtime.

But then again, who am I talking about?

If Attila the Hun called someone a RW nut, that person would call Savage a RW nut.

It's amazing that these extremists even get this close to mainstream media.

[EFerrari]

18. Are you kidding? These extremists OWN our media. n/t

[Canuckistanian]

28. Oh, I realize that

But CSPAN is arguably a "neutral" media outlet.

I know, I know, none of them are.

But if CSPAN gives in to the more extreme views like Wiener "Savage", they risk even a modicum of impartiality.

From what I've heard, CSPAN is an "equal-opportunity pisser off" of political views.

[KG]

19. are all RW blather monkeys whineys pussies?

i vote: yes

[Richard Steele]

21. Yes. nm

[KT2000]

25. Is he kidding?

Just about every time I turned on Book TV last weekend they were interviewing him at some book fair. He got in all his shots at the left without interruption.
He OWES C-Span for all that free advertising for his stupid book and vapid comments.

[Cha]

26. Yeah, Brian! Not too

nice, are they..those fascist dickheads you've been so supportive of on Friday?

[NI4NI]

29. I find it more disturbing

that Weiner got the award in the first place.