A bump and a ping for Michael Savage!
RED DIAPER DOPER BABY-ISM.
my favorite line.
He's witty as heck, and has a knack for good sound bites. Most inspiring, he is as vicious and unfeeling as a good number of us will have to become in order to win the Big Game.
Mostly he hasn't changed over time. He's a genuine conservative.
Not a lot of people realize that a lot of Savage's anger goes back quite a bit further than the academic rejection that he suffered: Savage's father was a real tyrant. It's not the best example that he's given, I think, but he describes being viciously yelled at, and having to scrub antiques with a cyanide solution in the basement. Still, there are aspects of this man about which Savage is justifiably proud --the man's hard work, common-sense, and honesty, for example. As a conservative and a real man, however, he's too proud a man to boo-hoo about this important topic in any great detail, of course.
Seems like everyone thirsts for their Oprah moment ("THE OBSTACLES I'VE OVERCOME...!"), these days, and that Savage leaves this one thing off the table is part of why I like him.
Savage sometimes switches his opinions around, and I don't think he has much respect for the intelligence of the Average Joe --to him we are Yokels. More importantly, his own narrow success is much more important than to him than the success of conservativism as a whole, although he's hardly alone in this. Also, he works very, very hard to create an impression in the minds of his listeners that the whole house of cards of America's political culture is tumbling down --with Savage hoping to be seen by his listeners as their only hope. He is even something of an opportunist, hoping to feed the petty misgivings and gripes of his listeners. Rush, by contrast, is constantly trying to cast our times as being merrier than they sometimes actually are.
It's strange that Rush should suffer tarring as an oppotunistic hater with Michael around, but this has had the effect of tiring out the opposition some, wherupon they are set upon by the enthusiastically vicious Michael.
Savage will avoid some of Rush's mistakes. With his hatred of "Checked Pants", Savage will never breathe a word about Golf --I believe he has never touched a club in his life, and neither have I, in spite of the place I come from.
Savage also never gives out legislation bill numbers or lobbying group phone numbers, which, while perhaps helpful to conservativism in the short run does turn out to be a real Show Killer. Instead of treating lofty political themes, Savage will continue to shriek about The Pebbles in Our Shoe, and he will continue in his success.
People said that Rush is America's rightishly-inclined stereoisomer.
He's not.
Rush is logical, classy, Lilly white, patient, and enormously generous to his subordinates.
It is in the ethnic, short-tempered, artistically-inclined, uncompromising, and much more vicious, Michael that the American left sees its political reflection, and they are right to be afraid.
If Michael ever wins, rest assured that he will not be gentleman about it, and I am happy for it.