Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball

So, Media Matters has posted yet another belch 'o crazy from Michael Savage, and it's the usual frothing mix of baseless accusations and fearmongering that we've come to expect from this jabbering knucklehead. Savage has been labeling liberals, homosexuals, and anyone else he doesn't happen to like as Nazis waayyyy before Jonah Goldberg suddenly realized he could make a buck doing the same thing, and he's got it down to an art form, man.

Well, not really. More like a tired, redundant, so-old-it-farts-dust cliché form, but damn it, it's gotten him this far, and this dead horse isn't quite beaten into nonexistence.

What caught my interest wasn't the text that MM highlighted; it was the rambling afterwards that made my head ache. Here's the first part of the excerpt, with MM's emphasis:

SAVAGE: It fell in my hands. I didn't choose this fight. I never liked CAIR, but I never figured they were going to be my enemy, but, like everyone else, it's not my problem. Well, then, they made themselves my problem. They attacked me. They went after all my advertisers. They learned good from their friends at Media Matters, that rat-bum -- it's a homosexual, fascist website. Let me explain who Media Matters is. It was founded by Hillary Clinton. It's run by a bunch of fascist homosexuals. They're the brownshirts of our time.

When are you gonna wake up to the fact that liberals are not liberal? When are you gonna wake up to the fact that the liberals are the new fascists. They are the brownshirts! And they're gonna take this country over the cliff if you don't stand up to them and stop them.

So, the usual, right? (Aside from the hilariously old-timey "rat-bum." I'm glad to see that Savage is fluent in Grizzled Prospector. "I told that no-good rat-bum, if he don't like the way I'm runnin' this general store, he can get his cornpone twenty miles away in Pottersville, by crackey!") Media Matters is full of homosexuals, homosexuals are facists, Media Matters are a bunch of facists, Liberals are facists, I'm a hero for fighting them, oh, and facist facist facist, brownshirts, they're all out to get you, facist facist facist, homosexual facists, facist homosexuals, and I'll throw a Clinton in there for good measure.

Yawn. I think I've figured out why Savage's listeners like him so much. He's like a soap opera. You can tune out for, like, months, and you'll still be hearing the same thing when you come back.

It's when he goes on from there that things get... interesting. (Emphasis mine this time)

That's why I'm putting myself on the line. And if you think it's a joke, it's not a joke.

I walk with my head swiveling. I look over my shoulder. I live as though I am the hunted one. And that's because you are not the hunted one. That's because you are a coward. And that's because your government doesn't protect its citizens.

Wow.

Okay, I could get into my usual rant here and point out how dangerous this kind of speech can be. Encouraging fear and paranoia regarding "the other" creates a culture of violence, etc, etc. I don't like the "we should just be ignoring him" argument because he has a national media forum and a huge fan base, etc, etc. You've heard me go on ad nauseam about this kind of stuff before. But here's what went through my head after reading the above quote:

• Whoever you are, wherever you are... be very, very, very glad you're not Michael Savage. Imagine being so crazed in your hatred for the "other side" that you feel you need to be constantly looking over your shoulder; that you're being hunted. I mean, crazy wingnuts make me furious, but I've never worried that one of them is going to sneak up behind me and, I don't know, force me to watch Touched by an Angel or something.
• Am I nuts, or did he call his listeners cowards? That last bit sounded an awful lot to me like "You all need to wake up and realize these people are out to get you, but especially, me. I'm the only one working against them, and that's because you're all cowards."

Nothing keeps 'em tuning in like insults dripping with contempt.

Well, actually, they do keep tuning in. What does that say about his listeners?

I'm beginning to think when Michael Savage finally shuffles off this mortal coil, his biggest regret will be that he was never physically attacked by a homosexual. Or a liberal. Or a Clinton. In Savage Never-neverland, they're one and the same. And they're all out to get him.


(If you don't get the title, watch this.)