Michael Savage

Michael Savage is the pseudonym for Michael Alan Weiner, PhD (born March 31, 1942). Savage is a controversial American conservative talk radio host and political commentator.

His nationally syndicated radio show The Savage Nation reaches over eight million listeners on 377 stations throughout the United States.

Michael Savage has written a total of 18 books including three New York Times bestsellers:

The Savage Nation (2003)
The Enemy Within (2004)
Liberalism is a Mental Disorder (2005)

As Michael Weiner, he has written a number of books on herbal medicine and homeopathy. Most of the non-political titles are currently out-of-print.

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 U.C. Berkeley. His thesis, 185 pages in length, was titled "Nutritional ethnomedicine in Fiji" (accessible at the UCB Library Catalog Main Stack 308t 1978 468). 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] Some of his letters to Ginsberg are held in Ginsberg's archives and one of those letters describes a homoerotic encounter with a young Fijian man. [3] Savage denies writing the letter and called it part of a "smear campaign" by "gay fascists". [4] Savage also once posed naked for a photograph with Ginsberg while swimming in Fiji. [5] Ferlinghetti views Weiner's reincarnation as Michael Savage as "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."

In 1996 he applied to be a dean at UC Berkeley's 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.

He began his radio career as Michael Savage on March 21, 1994 on KSFO in the Bay Area, debating a liberal 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 world.

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.

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

Savage makes a point of speaking pejoratively when referencing his fellow talk radio hosts.

Bushbots: Pundits who blindly follow George W. Bush
Waldo: George W. Bush
Hush Bimbo: Rush Limbaugh
Pawn Vanity or Pretty Boy: Sean Hannity
The Lepre-con (formerly Leprechaun): Bill O'reilly

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," posing as a gay man. The prankster made a lewd comment about Savage's birth name (Weiner) insinuating that Savage was a homosexual. Savage said to the caller: "you should only get AIDS and die, you pig [...] go eat a sausage and choke on it, get trichinosis" also referring to the man as a "sodomite," "bum," and a "piece of garbage." [6] 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 (the caller had ridiculed Savage's teeth). 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.

Politics

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The Enemy Within

Michael Savage's political beliefs center around maintaining three aspects of America: "Borders, Language, and Culture." He asserts that America needs strong borders to protect itself from rampant illegal immigration which, he claims, undermines the economy and national security. English should be maintained as the language in the United States. When prior generations of immigrants came to the United States, they learned to speak English, instead of having the government placate for them because "they don't bother to learn English." according to his second book. American culture has always centered around a strong family life and Judeo-Christian ethics. Failure to maintain these three aspects will result in the disintegration of America.

Savage claims that he was the original user of 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 having identical philosophies and no real differences, and he uses the coined terms "Republicrat and Democan" to refer to them. Savage also states he coined the term "Islamofacism", although it was used in 1990 by Malise Ruthven.

On The Savage Nation, Savage often returns to the subject of closing U.S. borders to illegal immigrants as a way of solidifying American identity. He advocates stronger immigration controls and the reassertion of English as the official language of the United States.

His political opponents, however, accuse him of fascist leanings, racism, homophobia, and bigotry (including Anti-semitism) due to his controversial statements about Muslim extremists, militant gays, feminists and illegal immigrants and bring up controversial statements Savage has made, including calling for the licensing of journalists, the arrest of liberal activists, violence in response to protests (supporters contend that this would be only in response to violent protests) and saying that the tsunami which struck East Asian countries in 2005 was not a tragedy, but rather a message from God. When political opponents began boycott campaigns, Savage threatened to release their names and addresses to his supporters. Recently, an online critic of Savage released the talk show hosts address, which caused Savage to threaten to have the person prosecuted under federal anti terrorism legislation. He has also advocated relegislating the Sedition Act, accusing mainstream media sources such as ABC, CBS and NBC of being "mouth pieces for the enemy."

His supporters agree with him vociferously, as they feel that the nation is threatened by the influx of disease, crime and terrorism that the USA has endured from the 10,000 illegals crossing the border daily, which no other leading nation tolerates.

Recently, Savage has been extremely critical of his fellow conservative talk show hosts, in particular Rush Limbaugh, whom he has called "Hush Bimbo," for what he views as their blind support of the Republican Party and President George W. Bush. He has also attacked Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly (whom Savage has dubbed the "Leprechaun"), as well as William Bennett, as hypocrites and phony conservatives for advocating morality while living what he views as immoral lives. Example: Savage says that O'Reilly is against most pornography laws and for church-state separation between religious symbols and public property.

Savage has also broken from traditional conservatives by showing strong support for the environmental and animal rights movements, and calling any right-winger who opposes such movements "ignorant" and "knee-jerk" conservatives. However, he is very critical of the PETA movement and science-based Global Warming information.

On May 4, 2005, Savage stated that he believes the only chance the Republican Party has against Hillary Clinton running for president is Laura Bush.

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 [7]. However he recently stated that the chemicals in marijuana make it too dangerous to be use as medicine. 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 takes on the "liberal media," 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 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 Salvation, 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. Although most modern music bands are known to be politically liberal, Metallica seems to have some conservative leanings - their lead guitarist Kirk Hammett has called into Savage's show to say "We support what you're doing," and lead singer James Hetfield, reportedly "hates Democrats" [8]. During Savage Uncensored, a live show at the Chronicle Pavilion in Concord, California, a Metallica cover band played during breaks and intermission.

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

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, New York : Macmillan Pub. Co., 1980.
The way of the skeptical nutritionist, New York : Macmillan, 1981.
Maximum immunity, Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1986.
Complete Book of Homeopathy, Garden City Park, N.Y. : Avery Pub., 1989.
The Herbal Bible, San Rafael, CA : Quantum Books, 1992
Herbs that heal : prescription for herbal healing, Mill Valley, CA : Quantum Books, 1994.
The Antioxidant Cookbook, Mill Valley, CA : Quantum Books, 1995.

External links