In San Francisco, a transsexual was brutally murdered. Like all murders, this is tragic; and in this case, it seems likely that the murder was an act of anti-transsexual hatred.
So how does Mike Savage — one of the most popular and listened-to right-wingers in America — react? With a torrent of incoherent anti-transsexual hatred, naturally. From his March 20th radio show:
Lynch said it appeared the victim had been in the process of becoming a woman.” Yeah, process of becoming a woman — psychopath, should have been in a back ward in a straitjacket for years, howling on major medication. …
…And then they go into “she said transgender victims” going on and on “extremely violent” going on and on “are frequently left partially clothed or completely nude, it’s making a statement and humiliating the victim,” blah-blah-blah. I am so beyond fed up with freaks…
…But you know what? You’re never gonna make me respect the freak. I don’t want to respect the freak. The freak ought to be glad that they’re allowed to walk around without begging for something. You know, I’m sick and tired of the whole country begging, bending over backwards for the junkie, the freak, the pervert, the illegal immigrant. All of them are better than everybody else. Sick. Everything is upside down.
I’ve occasionally encountered sentiments like this among lefties and feminists, but never from someone with prominence and popularity among lefties comparable to Savage’s among right-wingers.
Curtsy: Box Turtle Bulletin and The View From (Ab)Normal Heights.
Yeah, well that’s Savage for you. I listened to his show once. As soon as I heard him encouraging violence towards immigrants, I was done. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard such seething hatred broadcast before or since. Nothing that I have heard about him since indicates that he’s changed. One can only hope that what he encourages boomerangs on him. This man is evil.
There are a number of Conservative (and Liberal — I’m voting for the Stewart / Colbert ticket for President in ’08) talk show hosts I listen to, and I have to say that Savage is a stark, raving loon.
No offense to loons — nice birds, don’t see many of them out my way, tho.
He’s a nut. Don’t take him seriously, you’re only encouraging him.
The only “taking him seriously” I’d go for is getting him off the air and into a correctional facility.
He’s an asshat.
those of us already familiar with the joys of michael “savage” wiener, or “the savage wiener” as we like to call him, count every single day that he has a radio show with listeners as a sort of windsock – limp most of the time, but sometimes suddenly erect when filled with an odious wind from forces unseen. my guess is he gets secret funding from someone, but i have a feeling his market is fading and so is his job. nobody hears much from andrew dice clay anymore, for instance, and i suspect wiener will end up on that same trash heap in due course.
Oh man . . . this jackass has a big billboard up on the highway just a few minutes from my home. Every time I drive by it, I just grit my damn teeth.
On the other hand, pointing out when he says vile shit is a full time job, and it’s so absolutely obvious that i just have to chuckle. I mean, “In other news today, the local Klan Grand Dragon said some really offensive stuff.” Gosh, really?
He broadcasts out of San Francisco. I wonder if a storm of letters could get his home station to drop him.
Everybody here might think he is crazy, but I don’t think that encouragements of anti-trans violence belong on the radio, no matter how nuts the encourager is. It’s also worth noting that comments regarding this on Media Matters were pretty transphobic. People are receptive to his hate on the right and on the left.
I don’t care much for his show (except when he calms down and talks about non-political stuff), nor do I agree with him on much politically (too populist), but Michael Savage fascinates me—there’s a lot more to him than you’d guess from his bizarre rants. I strongly suspect that his show is to some degree an act, though whether it’s an intentional parody or just giving the people what the people want, I have no idea.
Les:
I doubt it. He’s too popular to drop.
I don’t take Savage seriously. What I do take seriously is his enormous popularity among conservatives. He has too many loyal listeners to be dismissed as just a fringe act.
It’s not that I disagree, it’s just that he’s such a crazy bigot that I’m not surprised that he says crazy-bigot things. Rather than dismissing him and his listeners, I guess I think of his listeners as the folks in the crowd at a skinhead rally.
I mean, yeah they’re awful. Isn’t that their whole point?
I react with revulsion rather than addressing any of his ‘points’, because he has no points. He has rants. Crazy rants, because he’s a crazy bigot.
But skinheads are a minor part of our culture. The 8 million people who listen to Savage are part of the mainstream Conservative coalition that rules our country (in two of three branches of government). That makes Savage much scarier, in my opinion.
I think I get what you’re saying, Amp, and like I said, I don’t think I disagree.
I think my thing is that there’s a point when engaging with someone as a serious person lends them legitimacy and a point where they’ve already got enough legitimacy where you must engage with them, in order to rebut them.
My favored response to the former is a wrinkled nose, strongly expressing disgust and distaste, and making it clear that those sorts of views will be treated like rubbing crap all over my walls. We don’t logically argue against finger-painting with crap.
My favored response to the latter is . . . well, actually, you’re part of my favored response to the latter. A calm, well-reasoned, logical obliteration of their bullshit views.
I think guys like Limbaugh and Gingrich are the latter, and Coulter is the former.
I’m not sure where Savage actually lands on that spectrum, but I think I put him more towards the former, and you put him more towards the latter.
I’ve never listened to Mike Savage. I’ve read some transcripts. They’re bull$hit. People whose opinion I respect definitely would check off the “asshat” box next to his name. His opinions are not mainstream conservative.
Hmm, I think that even conservative versions of great American virtue dictate something like: “I think he is a freak, but he shouldn’t be murdered”.
It’s Michael Savage, and it’s part of his schtick. It’s an ugly schtick, but a schtick nonetheless. Anyone who takes him seriously probably hasn’t evolved to the point of having opposing thumbs.
I do have to give Savage one thing – I’ve never seen a thread so full of wanton agreement anywhere on the internets. People who would argue with each other about the shade of the sky can only disagree about how much
to hateto care about hating Mike Savage :DI’m a libertarian who is often mischaracterized as a Conservative. While I think Coulter has a lot to say despite her occasional hyperbole, I think Savage is an embarrassment. I don’t know any Conservative who considers him to be playing for the same team.
I’m going to tell you right now, I am more than just a little offended by his comment. A man was murdered. I don’t care if Savage has some sort of antipathy towards people he doesn’t like or understand. At the very least he should be offended by the idea that another human being took the life of another without just cause. That seems to be a more conservative notion than that offered by Savage.
Usually I reject the way people in online forums dismiss a person by ad hominem attacks. But in this case it would feel really good to just say …” FU Savage .. You dirty rotten piece of …
. On another note the facts surrounding this killing are very depressing. Cowards. The killer as well as Savage.
While I think Coulter has a lot to say despite her occasional hyperbole
Suggestions that people disagree with her should be killed, that the only way to talk to a political opponent is with a baseball bat in hand, and using childish, homophobic slurs seemingly at random are “occasional hyperbole”? Even people she supports are walking away from her.
I doubt that Savage’s numbers are quite as high as he would like us to think. That said, in San Francisco he is known as a wackaloon–not merely for his political views, but because he really is that crazy in real life.
Her name was Ruby Rodriguez. My partner happened to know her. Here’s two articles.
http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=1656
http://blabbeando.blogspot.com/2007/03/update-sf-vigil-in-memory-of-ruby.html
Here’s a pretty entertaining profile of Savage.
http://www.sfweekly.com/2006-07-19/news/inside-the-savage-nation/
My personal favorite part is when former commie turned sufi neo-con, Stephen Schwartz, talks about Savage going around North Beach showing a naked picture of himself and Allen Ginsberg skinny dipping together.
I think he’s still pissed that he had to grow up with the name Weiner. I would imagine all those playground ass-kickings probably affected his cognitive abilities as well.
I’m glad that you found Savage’s comment to be so offensive. A note about language usage, however: one should refer to a transwoman as a woman, not a man.
How come you are so offended about this rape and Michael Savage’s comments thereto, but have yet to offer anything resembling an opinion on the most horrific hate crime of 2007, the brutal gangrape and murder of Tennessee co-ed Channon Christian? Her and her boyfriend were carjacked, he was killed, she was held captive and gangraped for several days before having her breasts cut off, draino poured down her throat in an attempt to remove DNA evidence and murdered. Her remains were found in 5 trashbags. To paraphrase Orwell, ” All animals are created equal. Some are more equal than others.”
http://www.volunteertv.com/news/headlines/5483316.html
Bernadett, virtually everyone who is aware of it is appalled by what happened to Ms. Christian and Mr. Newsome.
But unless the town has been standing behind the criminals and trying to protect them from punishment (as in a different case I wrote about, in which someone emailed me to ask me why I was silent on the Christian/Newsome case), or unless one of the top 5 radio personalities in America has been using this as an opportunity to talk about his contempt for Ms. Christian and Mr. Newsome, there’s just nothing here for me to blog about.
This isn’t a murder blog. I’m not obliged to blog about every crime out there. Show me some reason that this horrible tragedy brings up an issue of the sort I talk about on “Alas” — and no, criminal brutality is not interesting in and of itself, nor is the inter-racial aspect — and maybe I’ll blog about it.
Regarding your quote from Orwell, thank you for being so rude and for immediately assuming the worse about me. Maybe you should learn not to be so rude, if you’re going to be asking people who owe you nothing for favors.
Thanks for your response. All rape is horrible, but I just learned about this crime today, and it seems particularly horrible, especially the Drain-o part, which I read in an affidavit on the Tennessee Volunteer TV website. I haven’t been as physically sickened by a crime since James Byrd.
i’ve held my tongue regarding bernadett’s comment until now, but it’s been bothering me all morning. it’s as if she’s saying that amp ought to be blogging about “real” people, real murders, and “real” bigotry, as opposed to wasting his time on mere transwomen and minor hate speech, because, well, the murder victim was “only” a transwoman. sorry if i’ve misinterpretted her comments, but that’s the way it feels to me. and that feeling is way too familiar to me.
huh. i wonder if luckynkl knows she’s got some sympathy for her views -somewhere.-
apart from that: yeah, Savage has springs coming out of his head.
as per money–maybe the “Rockstar” line of energy drinks pays his lunch money?
Stacy M wrote :
I’m glad that you found Savage’s comment to be so offensive. A note about language usage, however: one should refer to a transwoman as a woman, not a man
I meant to convey how Savage would see the situation .
I had not heard about this terrible murder and rape till now. But I do understand
what I THANK Bernadett was try to say. Think about it. I am very well informed and try to keep up with the news yet this story escaped me. This and just about every other blog purporting to be sensitive to feminist ideas covered the Duke rape fraud constantly until the truth started to come out. This horrific example of a crime against a man and a woman should not have escaped the target of those fighting against rape. But this is not the only rape case which is strangely uncovered by left leaning blogs.Silence often is quite telling.
I will try to put it succinctly. When issues of race and gender collide a rape case they are covered quite differently depending on the race and gender of the individuals involved. Sadly this happens at the expense of women.
Michael, there are dozens – hundreds – of horrific rape/murder cases I never blog about. To expect me to blog about every single one, or to blog about local stories that few people have heard of just as much as I blog about a case on the national news, is not reasonable.
As I’ve already said, I’m not a crime blogger. When I blog about crimes, it’s because there’s another issue that interests me. In the case discussed in this post, it’s that an enormously popular radio personality is saying such bigoted things. In the Duke case, I initially blogged about it because I was afraid it would be swept under the rug by the judicial system, and then later because it had become a national issue. The Long Beach Beating was interesting because of the rush to a guilty verdict based on seemingly insufficient evidence. The Billy Ray Johnson Beating was interesting because so many influential people in that town were trying to sweep what happened under the rug.
Do you see the pattern, Michael? I don’t just blog cases because they’re horrifying.
In the Christian/Newsome case, evil people brutally murdered a couple of innocent kids, and it seems likely that they will be punished for their crimes, as everyone agrees they should be. I’m sorry the murder/rape happened, and I hope the guilty are punished.
But can you tell me what about the Christian/Newsome case makes it one I should blog about, unlike the hundreds of other horrific crimes I don’t blog about?
I was wondering about that too, belledame.
Michael, you seem to be quick to say “I didn’t say that, somebody else did” when you’re called on what you’ve posted.
Ampersand . My post was not meant as a condemnation towards you in particular. I both understand and respect why YOU choose to write about a particular story. But I still see a pattern when it comes to stories such as the Duke case.
I knew the Duke story would become a huge national story from the start. There was no chance that this would be swept under the rug. But in the meantime many important stories go unnoticed. I seems clear to me that many people who call themselves feminists become silent when race and gender issues collide in a way that makes them uncomfortable.
As a person who cares deeply about the fundamental issues surrounding women in today’s society I find the old notion of Liberal Vs Conservative does not fully address the major problems. Doesn’t anyone remember the day when feminists all agreed that an inequality of power in a relationship was enough to constitute sexual harassment? I sure do. But then the Clinton / lewinski scandal came about and somehow the goal posts were moved.
While bloggers were busy wrongly pontificating bout the Duke case, some very serious examples of how race and gender interact were being ignored. In many cases this was to the detriment of wrongly accused Back males and actual female victims.
On a less serious note, one of your characters reminds me of my old 6th grade teacher. She actually told the entire class that I would become a pimp.
“But can you tell me what about the Christian/Newsome case makes it one I should blog about, unlike the hundreds of other horrific crimes I don’t blog about? ”
I understand that you can’t blog about every case. But the Channon Christian case is so much more horrific than the Duke Rape/Sexual Assault/Something Bad May Have Happened/Duke Lacrosse Players are Guilty of Being Priviliged Cads Case, that it is hard for me to understand how one winds up on the cover of Newsweek and #1 story in the blogosphere, while the other goes ignored. The facts in this case, judging by the affidavits, are so horrific, that it may be the MOST horrific crime committed against a woman that I have ever read about. How does an anti-rape blog ignore a story like that.
Similarly, the circumstances surrounding the death of Christopher Barrios have made me physically ill, and I think that this is an underreported story in the blogosphere considering the circumstances. Again, perhaps the most horrific child murder I have ever read about. Tears are streaming down my face as I type this.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,260421,00.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,260421,00.html
Bernadett, I don’t know how many more times I can say “I don’t blog about murder or rape cases ranked by how horrific the crime seems.”
You need to start your own blog, where you can blog about crimes according to how horrific you find them. But that’s not how I decide what to blog about. I really don’t see any point in further discussion if you can’t manage to understand that point.
If Coulter and Savage do not represent the average conservative, who’s buying their books? Who’s listening to their shows? Conservatism is as conservatism does. And if a polarizing media environment is the problem, why are there no equivalent figures on the Left? (I leave it to you to figure in Michael Moore and late night comedians in there somewhere.)
If Coulter and Savage do not represent the average conservative, who’s buying their books?
Masochistic liberals. ;P
Coulter and Savage represent conservatism just as Ward Churchill and Michael Moore represent liberalism – they’re a reflection of the fact that mass movements include a lot of stupid people. Or, more charitably, people who once reach a conclusion about what they believe and then stop thinking about it. (Sometimes this is a rational approach, so I hesitate to broadly label it “stupid”.)
Ward Churchill was made famous largely because of a media frenzy created by conservatives. And even if you want to argue over who caused it, it’s a far cry from millions of liberals monetarily supporting Churchill over the course of many years so that he can make a career out of being an asshat.
As for Moore, tell me anything Moore said in his films or books – thereby eliminating what a right wing blogger heard from his friend’s cousin who heard about Moore saying something somewhere I forget where – that approaches Coulter’s call for mass execution of people who disagree with her or with Savage expressing glee over a ‘freak’ being killed. (Also saying nothing of the disparities in the sheer volume of factual inaccuracies, such as Coulter rewriting the history of Canada during the Vietnam War.) Why do you think I called out Moore pre-emptively?
What would be the purpose of that, sylphhead? Any of Moore’s outrageous opinions I cite will simply be defended by you with special pleading about why it doesn’t really count, or how it’s different, or whatever.
Whatever. All movements have goofball fringes. I quite agree that my movement’s goofball fringe is both goofball and polarizing; you, I take it, are one of the people who have a hard time recognizing that their movement can have one. (“But we’re right!“)
I think it would be an extraordinary claim to say that the left has no lunatic fringe. I think it’s clear that we do.
However, I also think it’s an extraordinary claim to say that the left’s lunatic fringe has anywhere near the power and influence that the lunatic fringe of the right does.
Thus, if you are opposed to ‘lunatic fringes’ wherever they occur, voting for leftist candidates seems to be the safest course, since the far-right lunatic fringe of the Republic party has been either running the country or strongly influencing those who do for some time now.
Oh dude . . . I REALLY meant to write ‘Republican party’.
People who write ‘Democrat party’ or ‘Republic party’ are assholes.
Bernadett,
Do a google search for “rape and murder” and you will see far worse cases, many of which have yet to be solved… But is that really the case you’re asking or is it because the perpetrators are black?
Amp,
Apologies if I’m opening up a can of worms here but it’s just getting a bit frustrating to have Bernadett and Michael try to hijack the thread while shuffling around the elephant in the flourescent-pink tutu sitting right there in the middle room.
i see it all the time, especially on non-trans blogs. perhaps it’s because trans issues/people make others so uncomfortable, or that these types of threads shift the focus away from “normal” issues and people for a moment. perhaps this should be added to the non-trans privilege checklist. yet another thread that was hijacked by non-trans people, by the way.
sorry, my cynicism is showing again…
“However, I also think it’s an extraordinary claim to say that the left’s lunatic fringe has anywhere near the power and influence that the lunatic fringe of the right does.”
Hard to argue with this statement. I’d only qualify as to the degree of it: the Left undoubtedly has its lunatics. Michael Moore is not one of them. Coulter has single handedly moved the goalposts of the term to repeatedly advocating mass executions of those who disagree with her. Equivalent leftists exist but the closest they get to fame is becoming a message board moderator for a faux-revolutionary site with cheap flash animation. Moore’s name comes up because he is as left as one gets among mainstream left wing commentators, and that will just have to do for weak kneed media equivocators.
Thank you for that excellent demonstration of what special pleading looks like, Robert. The bottom line is, you’re unable to back up your claims with facts.
Ward Churchill is in no way as mainstream as Mike Savage or Ann Coulter. Churchill is a far leftist academic who, were it not for a brief flash in the pan, would be totally unknown; Savage and Coulter are not “goofball fringes”; they are the mainstream of your movement, with millions of readers and listeners.
Coulter surely has millions of readers; so does Moore. (I fail to see why in both cases.)
As for Savage, from what I gather he’s a radio talk show host with a modest following and has written a book or two. He’s a pipsqueak compared to (say) Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh. O’Reilly and Limbaugh are the mainstream, with multi-millions of listeners and fans; Savage is 1/10th of that at most.
I don’t know who the most-popular liberal media figure is; surely among the population of people who are at 1/10th that level, there are some nutjobs. Hell, you have Rosie O’Donnell spouting 9/11 conspiracies on the View; how much mainstream does it need to be?
Sewere and Nexyjo, I wonder if all three of us share the same conception of what the elephant in the room is.
I don’t see the elephant in the room as being transphobia — after all, I’ve also encountered the demands that I talk about Christian/Newsome in regard to posts that have nothing to do with crimes against transsexuals. (Also, Nexyjo, I’m not sure if you consider the discussion of the Conservative movement to be a digression, but I never intended this to be a thread that was only about transphobia; it was intended by me to be a post about transphobia, but also as a post about what’s wrong with the Conservative movement.)
I think much of the interest in the Christian/Newsome is about racism; I think a lot of people want any brutal crime in which black people hurt white people spoken about as much as possible, regardless if there’s anything about the crime which makes it representative, or nationally newsworthy, or germane to this blog. When I’ve gone to other blogs and read comment threads about the Christian/Newsome case, the racism from many comment-writers has been open and appalling.
That’s not to say that Michael and Bernadette are racists (except in the general way that everyone in our culture is racist); I don’t know anything about Michael or Bernadette as people. But — not talking about Michael and Bernadette, but about the culture as a whole — it seems clear to me that a lot of the groundswell of interest in the Christian/Newsome case is based on a racist desire to prove that blacks are animalistic, savages, etc..
Whoops, that claim about Savage is too strong. He’s actually a pretty popular guy. My bad.
I think my point about Rosie is on-target, though.
For the record, Rush has about 13.5 million listeners, compared to about 8.25 million for Michael Savage. (Source). Yes, Rush is more popular, but they are clearly playing in the same league.
Rosie O’Donnell is popular because she’s a movie star and stand-up comic; she parleyed that into being a talk show host, and now she mixes in political opinions — some of which are wacky, some of which are not — with her talk show host duties.
For the purposes of this post, I see three key differences between O’Donnell and Savage. First of all, O’Donnell didn’t become famous and listened to as a political commenter. She’s a celebrity who occasionally states political opinions, not a full-time political pundit; if she were a full-time political pundit, I expect she’d lose her job.
Second of all, when O’Donnell says something hateful, the left holds her to account and demands she apologize — for instance, her racist joke about Asians a few months ago, which she ended up apologizing for multiple times (at least once sincerely, in my opinion). There is no comparable effort among conservatives to hold Savage accountable.
Third, nothing O’Donnell has said (that I know of) is as hateful as Savage’s hissings. Being a 9/11 conspiracist is wacky, but it’s not inherently hateful and bigoted.
* * *
It’s telling, I think, that when liberals try to imitate the formula of Savage and other right-wingers, they generally go broke (see: Air America). I think it’s because the audience for that sort of thing, while it exists on both sides, is smaller among lefties than among righties.
Robert: Any of Moore’s outrageous opinions I cite will simply be defended by you with special pleading about why it doesn’t really count, or how it’s different,
We consider it different because the mainstream conservative figures we’re talking about famously talk about killing us, and that tends to stick in our mind. Especially since their fans seem more likely to kill people in the real world if their authorities tell them to do so. Show us Moore talking about killing conservatives.
How about Alec Baldwin, HF? Let’s go kill them and their families! That will be even more fun.
Rosie O’Donnell is popular because she’s a movie star and stand-up comic;
What’s the expiration date on “movie star”, anyway? When and how (besides death) does one transition from “is a movie star” to “was a movie star”? I thought she was great in “A Field of their Own”, but if she’s made a movie since then I’m not aware of it off the top of my head. I’m not a big movie fan, so maybe she’s made a few, but I can’t recall one of impact. In fact, what movie can you think of that people would have said, “Oh, Rosie O’Donnell is in that, let’s go see it,” which I would think is close to the operational definition of “movie star”, vs. “movie actor/actress”.
Stand up comic? Rosie O’Donnell is a stand-up comic? She has gained a degree of notoriety for this? I am behind the times, eh?
In comparing numbers of listeners, etc., how many people went to see Michael Moore’s films? He’s sold a few tickets for them, I think. Hard to compare the impact of a film vs. a TV or radio show or a book, though.
Do you consider that a following of 8+ million people makes Mike Savage “mainstream”? With close to 300 million people in the U.S., that’s less than 3% of the American public. Heck, the National Enquirer claims 20 million readers. Is it “mainstream”?
RonF, sorry; I should have said “former movie star” or “former actress” or something. My point was, her rise to fame was not based on liberal political punditry, nor is she primarily a political pundit for a living.
Ron, of those close to 300 million people in the USA, about half are apolitical or apathetic, and at most a third of the remaining 150 million are conservatives. 8 million of 50 million is about 16%. That seems to me to make the claim that Savage is a part of the mainstream of the conservative movement, not the fringe, fairly reasonable.
I think the tendency of decent conservatives (as we’ve seen in this thread) to deny that folks like Savage are central to their movement is one reason Savage and his ilk (Ann C., etc) are so free to be hateful.
But do they take him seriously? (I don’t but I don’t consider myself a conservative). I thought he, and the others, are demagogues that said outrageous things to entertain and get a reaction. In other words does he shape and form opinion or does he dance for the amusement of others?
below is the proof read version
But do they take him seriously? (I don’t but I don’t consider myself a conservative). I thought he, and the others, are demagogues that said outrageous things to entertain and get a reaction. In other words does he shape and form opinion or does he dance for the amusement of others?
Just to nitpick-League of Their Own-Not Field had Rosie O’Donnell. And yes, she has had some movies since then, but I don’t think they were hugely popular to concede that point but don’t quote me on that.
Amp,
I was referring to Bernadett and Michael’s race-baiting through hijacking the thread to draw the conversation to the race of the perpetrators.
Back to the first elephant, I was having a conversation with a bunch of friends in 2003, and one of them mentioned that he felt that democrats should pull out their own “pundits” to counter the likes of Coulter, Limbaugh and Savage… and I asked him why anyone would need to sink to the level of hate and fear-mongering to appeal to more voters? He didn’t have a response.
The only conservative pundit I’ve heard make an attempt to condemn the hate speech (but not outrightly so) was Andrew Sullivan….
She was in the Flintstones, which might not have tanked but which wasn’t a big hit. That’s about it for recent film work, at least in the last ten years. (If only there were some online resource that described her work…) As you can see, she has done a fair amount of TV acting and production since.
I don’t take Coulter or Savage seriously; ask me who is the mainstream of conservative thought and I’m going to point you to the NRO axis and the Weekly Standard crowd. That attitude probably does free them up to be more outrageous than they would be otherwise, but I’m not going to put hateful people in my mainstream on the hope that status will make them be less hateful.
Ron, of those close to 300 million people in the USA, about half are apolitical or apathetic, and at most a third of the remaining 150 million are conservatives. 8 million of 50 million is about 16%. That seems to me to make the claim that Savage is a part of the mainstream of the conservative movement, not the fringe, fairly reasonable.
Hm. I’d like to see some sourcing for those numbers. To say that there are only 50 million conservatives in the U.S. is, I think, stretching it. Consider that the votes for Bush vs. Gore was virtually 50:50, as is the Democrat/Republican split in the Senate. The House is pretty close to 50:50 as well. So if Democrat/Republican correlates to liberal/conservative, I’d say that your figures are off. Not to mention the “half are apolitical or apathetic”.
Ahhh! A LEAGUE of their own. I should have had that one right. Thanks!
Ron, you don’t want to use those definitions.
Robert, if I found a random Alec Baldwin fan, would she be able to tell me what the farg you’re talking about?
HF, shortly before the Clinton impeachment, Alec Baldwin went on the Conan O’Brien Show and suggested that “if we were in another country… we would stone Henry Hyde to death and we would go to their homes and kill their wives and their children. We would kill their families.”
Ridiculous comment. Nothing I said could be construed as race baiting unless you are predetermined to call anything that does not fit your agenda as such. I simply made a more general comment regarding what Bernadett had to say.Infering a person is racist is a cheap stunt. Don’t try to read into what I say. I say what I mean and I mean what I say.
I find the whole finger pointing on both sides concerning individuals of some notoriety absurd. Pointing out the distinctions between each famous individual doesn’t change the fact that they speak for a certain faction. Whether it’s Rosie O’Donnel or Al Franken , or Dennis Miller or Rush ,or Hannity or Randi Rhodes they own their own words.
I don’t see much difference when a comedian engages in politics as opposed to when a political pundit tries to engage in comedy. More often than not the listener form an opinion based on bias. For instance, many on the left went ballistic over Coulter’s remark about poisoning a supreme court justice. But when ALC Baldwin makes a similar remark involving Dick Cheney they wonder at all the fuss over a bad joke.
Baldwin made the comment about killing Cheyenne and Bin laden in the same mission. We could point to dozens of comments from both sides. The indignation is selective.
Oops . The comment I found ridiculous was this one.
Sewere Writes:
April 5th, 2007 at 2:00 pm Amp,
I was referring to Bernadett and Michael’s race-baiting through hijacking the thread to draw the conversation to the race of the perpetrators.
Ron:
Only a little over half of Americans vote. Some of those are folks who can’t vote, of course, like children and prisoners; but I think it’s not ridiculous to think that many of those who don’t vote (and at least a few of those who do) are pretty much apathetic.
Of those who vote, I was figuring that about a third were conservative, a third were liberal, and a third were inbetweens of various flavors (independents, conservative democrats, liberal republicans, fence-sitters, etc). That was a totally seat-of-the-pants guess, I admit, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable.
According to the statistics in HF’s link, in 2000, there were around 44.8 million registered Republicans in the USA. (Thanks, HF!) And I frankly doubt that 100% of Republicans are conservatives, any more than 100% of Democrats are liberals. So my guess of 50 million conservatives seems, if anything, generous.
(And by the way, the majority of Americans voted for Democrats for the Senate. It’s only because Senate seats are not appointed proportionately to population that the Senate has a near 50/50 split.)
Michael, it seems self-evident that someone who rises to great popularity as a political pundit is saying things about politics that many people want to hear. In contrast, if someone (Alec Balwin, say) rises to fame as an actor and then says political things, it would be illogical to attribute his fame to his political statements. If he made the same political statements but had never acted, no one would pay attention or even know who he is.
Political pundits are political actors. It’s no more absurd to think that what one of the most popular political pundits in the entire conservative movement says is of significant political interest — more so than what actors say — than it is to think that a professional and successful politician’s political statements are of more interest, politically, than what some actors say.
What is absurd is your apparent belief that there is no difference at all in the place held in our political culture by Rush L., compared to that held by Alec B. You might as well say there’s no difference between a full-time animal trainer and someone who occasionally tells his dog to “sit.”
What is absurd is your apparent belief that there is no difference at all in the place held in our political culture by Rush L., compared to that held by Alec B. You might as well say there’s no difference between a full-time animal trainer and someone who occasionally tells his dog to “sit.”
Did I say a word about either one of those people? I never listen to or read Rush Limbaugh’s shows or writings, and I don’t know crap about Alec Baldwin other than he’s an actor.
For that matter, so is Rush Limbaugh. He said so himself. He was being interviewed on Nightline years ago and was being questioned for not upholding “journalistic standards”. His reply, which I heard at the time, was “I’m not a journalist. I’m an entertainer.” Which pretty much told me all I needed to know about Rush Limbaugh from the viewpoint of “Should I spend time listening to Rush Limbaugh?”. I pay zero attention to the political opinions of entertainers, regardless of whether they are TV actors, film actors, rock stars, athletes, etc.
(And by the way, the majority of Americans voted for Democrats for the Senate. It’s only because Senate seats are not appointed proportionately to population that the Senate has a near 50/50 split.)
Hah! Got me there. Of course, in any one election only 1/3 of the Senate seats are up for re-election (save the odd death or resignation). Are you talking about the last election, or the last 3 combined?
And I’ll admit fault that I made the mistake of presuming a binary solution set here that doesn’t exist. Everyone is not either “liberal” or “conservative”, and furthermore, while I’d expect people who so describe themselves to vote in the stereotypic fashion, the reverse is not true; everyone who votes Democrat is not a “liberal”, and everyone who votes Republican is not “conservative”. I personally have voted for both Democrats and Republicans in just about every election I have participated in, my first one being 1970. I’ve missed a (very) few primaries since then, but not much else.
However, I think that you are a little free with an assumption about political stances as well. You are assuming that everyone who is listening to this guy is a conservative and someone that buys into his political philosophies. I’ll bet there are a lot of those apathetic people who are listening to his show because he provides entertainment. I’ll bet there are some liberals who listen to him so that they can complain about his latest outrage. From the way you all describe him, he sounds like he’d attract an audience similar to a shock jock or Jerry Springer. Do you really think that everyone who listens to him takes him seriously?
Ward Churchill was made famous largely because of a media frenzy created by conservatives.
Ward Churchill was made famous because he said a number of things to draw attention to himself and that were far from mainstream. To what should have been nobody’s surprsie, he succeeded in getting noticed. Ward Churchill was made famous because of what he did, not because of what someone else did.
Ron, that (portion of my) comment was directed at Michael, not at you. Sorry for the mix-up; I’ve bolded the names in that comment to make things clearer.
Regarding the Senate, I was talking about the last three elections combined.
And I do think it’s safe to assume that the overwhelming majority of Savage’s listeners are conservatives. However, if you disagree with that assumption, that’s fair enough too; I have no means of proving it.
Quoting hf on this,
“Show us Moore talking about killing conservatives.”
“Show us Moore talking about killing conservatives.”
“Show us Moore talking about killing conservatives.”
“Show us Moore talking about killing conservatives.”
“Show us Moore talking about killing conservatives.”
“Show us Moore talking about killing conservatives.”
That’s pretty much the put-up-or-shut-up meter when it comes to bringing up Moore in this discussion, who is the only comparable figure who has been brought up here. (Baldwin and O’Donnell don’t count for reasons already gone over. They didn’t gain fame and riches for their politics.) Well, there’s Ward Churchill, and if you want to insert those caveats Ron then fine by me. The point is Churchill is in no way comparable to someone having the grassroots support of millions of daily listeners or book sales.
I question how many liberals actually listen to Limbaugh’s show just for things to complain about; if they wanted to do that, just going over to the Media Matters website would save them the time and a lot of collateral outrage. I also question if the fact that Limbaugh’s ‘just an entertainer’ is something he and his most devoted fans really take seriously, rather than simply existing as a copout whenever intellectually challenged (see The Way Things Aren’t, by FAIR). But I guess you do have points there, Ron. How about Coulter’s book sales, though? Given there’s a fair bit of money involved – hardcover books are such a scam – doesn’t that mean there’s very likely some ideological commitment there? Given Coulter’s regular appearances on cable news shows and syndication in many otherwise respectable newspapers, National Enquirer is really a stretch of a comparison.
The point is not to say that conservatism is inextricably linked with mass execution of its dissidents or anything, but rather that there is a palpable anger to modern conservatism that, in the words of Paul Krugman, at best has a faint echo in the anti-globalization left and none whatsoever in mainstream liberalism. (For those who want to parse the word ‘mainstream’, show me how many former Seattle or Genoa organizers get regular screen time on cable talk shows; that’s as good a barometer as any.) Conservatives get defensive about Coulter and the bunch because they don’t appreciate other people psychoanalyzing their movement, which is understandable. But hey, that’s political debate for you, and I think we’ve all seen in the past few years what the alternative to uncomfortable debate is.
I would not be so quick to say that liberals do not listen to crazy conservatives. My mother is definitely on the liberal side, but her TV is always on Fox, and she keeps a litany of complains going every time I visit her. She enjoys pointing out factual lies and making parallels with communist propaganda techniques. In the same way, the owner of the company for which I work, loves buying M.Moore’s books and dicing them.
Savage is repulsive, and I do not know anyone who will admit to agreeing with his rants. But I guess many find him entertaining. Coulter is different story. There are people who actually think of her as a political thinker, as opposed to a jester. Her popularity scares me a lot more than Savage’s.
As for the comments on the Christian/Newsome murders, some people believe that black on white crimes gets less coverage than they should. Personally, I think that yes, we hear less about them. On the other hand, while they are often horrific, the perpetrators usually get what they deserve and there is little of interest, unless one obsesses over gruesome suffering.
You crummy l little communist turd. The gall of a cretin like you calling Mike Savage bigoted is to be expected. You scum hope to take the spotlight off your crimes against humanity by trying to smear an example of truth and integrity. I would like to pull each one of you worms out of the shit pile where you live and salt you until you shrivel into oblivion which I will then wash away with piss. Damn you. Revenge on you!
Someday there will be a premium paid for your ears!
Normally I’d delete Jacks’ comment, but the invective was so over-the-top that it gave me a giggle, so I thought I’d share it.
“Someday there will be a premium paid for your ears!”
That’s a good line.
I hereby offer a $1 premium to any existing bounty or contract on Amp, for the addition of his ears.
Someday is today!
I think that the important question is whether or not there will be a VAT.
That’s hilarious! I’m totally going to steal some of that.
“…salt you until you shrivel into oblivion which I will then wash away with piss.”
I think the National Inquirer parallel is sound: Over-the-top and obvious nonsense always sells better than well thought out arguments.