Ousting a Rightwing Savage

It's Saturday afternoon at the home of Bill and Melinda Gates, and the family has gathered for a late lunch. The television is on and tuned to MSNBC, the cable news network the Microsoft mogul owns jointly with NBC (AKA General Electric). "Broadcasting from the studios of KSFO in San Francisco, MSNBC welcomes you to 'The Savage Nation,'" the announcer roars. In the next hour, Savage does his usual thing; slams immigrants, women, gays and lesbians, and Latinos, and for good measure he cracks back on the ACLU. Melinda looks at Bill: "Do we really need this in our house?"

In hopes of saving MSNBC from the dust bin of television history, top brass at the cable news network have come up with another brainstorm. This one appears to fuse the wackiness of Morton Downey Jr., the pompous rhetoric of Rush Limbaugh, and the ideology of David Duke: Let's all welcome Michael Savage to the MSNBC family!

MSNBC has been getting creamed in the rating wars by both the rapidly rising Fox News Channel and that old news warhorse, CNN. Recently, in moves that have symbiosis written all over it, MSNBC fired talk-show host Phil Donahue and hired Savage and two other right-wing ideologues.

Entering MSNBC's "Class of 2003" is Michael Savage, the popular right-wing radio talk-show host, former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, and former Florida conservative Congressman Joe Scarborough. Savage will host a weekly one-hour Saturday afternoon program, Armey will be a regular contributing commentator, and Scarborough will, for a time at least, host a nightly show.

Starting this weekend, viewers will be able to tune in Saturday afternoons to "The Savage Nation" and get a dose of what listeners to Michael Savage's daily radio broadcasts on KSFO in San Francisco have been hearing for several years. (According to Talkers magazine, Savage, with more than 350 outlets across the country, is the nation's fourth most listened to talk-radio host, behind Limbaugh, Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Howard Stern.)

Michael Savage (AKA Michael Weiner) is a former peddler of herbs, who on the cusp of his sixtieth birthday is making his television debut. Savage's modus operandi is a blend of bigotry, narrow mindedness, inflammatory rhetoric, ridicule and self-promotion. Over the years, he's made a string of well-chronicled notorious comments: Hispanics -- they "breed like rabbits"; women -- "should have been denied the vote"; gays and lesbians -- "the gay and lesbian mafia wants our children"; immigrants -- "you open the door to them, and the next thing you know, they are defecating on your country and breeding out of control"; the ACLU -- "the greatest danger to the American public today is the ACLU." (For more Michael Savage in his own words, click here.)

The Hiring

Here is what MSNBC said about the signing of Savage: "The addition of Michael Savage to the MSNBC lineup was made with the full awareness of his reputation for controversy and confrontation. We respect the right of those who wish to protest. However, we also strongly defend his new show as a legitimate attempt to expand the marketplace of ideas. By bringing our viewers a wide range of strong, opinionated voices, MSNBC underscores its commitment to ensuring that its perspective programming promotes no one single point of view. We encourage debate and we would neither expect, nor want, our audience to agree with everything on our channel."

In addition to Savage's highly-rated radio program -- he's the number one drive-time talk show host in the Bay Area -- he's written a best-selling book titled "The Savage Nation." (In his book, Savage referrs to MSNBC as "More Snotty Nonsense By Creeps.") Savage also has a well-traversed Web site, MichaelSavage.com, billed as the home of "The Savage Nation and the Paul Revere Society: Men and Women Protecting America." In the spirit of opening a dialogue, a recent posting at the site features the banner headline: "The Sedition Act -- Time to Act. Time to Arrest the Leaders of the Anti-War Movement, Once We Go To War? We Must Protect Our Troops! Sponsor The Paul Revere Society!" The Web site also sells all sorts of Savage gear, including hats, CDs and a number of other books he's written.