It's not just Imus
On April 11, NBC News announced that it was dropping
MSNBC's simulcast of Imus in the
Morning in the wake of the controversy that erupted over host Don
Imus' reference to the Rutgers
University women's
basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." The following day, CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves announced that CBS -- which owns both the radio station that broadcast Imus' program and Westwood
One, which syndicated the program -- has fired Imus and would
cease broadcasting his radio show. But as Media Matters for America has extensively documented,
bigotry and hate speech targeting, among
other characteristics, race, gender, sexual
orientation, religion, and ethnicity continue
to permeate the airwaves through personalities such as Glenn Beck, Neal Boortz, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, Michael Smerconish, and
John Gibson.
Glenn
Beck
- On the March 21 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, The Glenn Beck Program, Beck called Rosie
O'Donnell, co-host of ABC's The View,
a "fat witch," claimed that O'Donnell
has "blubber ... just pouring out of her eyes," and asked, "Do
you know how many oil lamps we could keep burning just on Rosie O'Donnell
fat?" On the March 23 edition of his radio show, Beck said, "I'm a
little ashamed" for calling O'Donnell
"a fat witch" -- then added, "But she's so fat."
- On the March 15 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Beck said:
"Hillary Clinton cannot be elected president because ... there's
something about her vocal range." He went on to say, "There's
something about her voice that just drives me -- it's not what she says, it's
how she says it," adding, "She is like the stereotypical -- excuse
the expression, but this is the way to -- she's the stereotypical
bitch, you know what I mean?" Beck subsequently
qualified his statement: "I never said
that Hillary Clinton was a bitch. I said she sounded like one."
- On the February 28 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck, while discussing racy photos
of American Idol contestant
Antonella Barba, Beck asked his female guest: "I've got some time and a
camera. Why don't you stop by?"
- On the November 14, 2006, edition of his CNN Headline News program, Beck said to Rep. Keith
Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim ever elected to Congress: "OK. No
offense, and I know Muslims. I like Muslims. ... With that being said, you are a
Democrat. You are saying, 'Let's cut and run.' And I have to tell you, I have
been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is,
'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.' "
- On the September 5, 2006, edition of his CNN Headline News program, Beck warned that if "Muslims and
Arabs" don't "act now" by "step[ping] to the plate" to
condemn terrorism, they "will be looking through a razor wire fence at the
West."
- On the April 27, 2006, edition of his radio program, Beck claimed that there
are three reasons that an illegal immigrant "comes across the border in
the middle of the night": "One, they're terrorists; two, they're
escaping the law; or three, they're hungry. They can't make a living in their
own dirtbag country."
- On the August 24, 2006, edition of his CNN Headline News program, Beck claimed
that Braille on walls (used to identify rooms for blind people) "drives me
out of my mind." When he made his comment, Beck was discussing the
"politically correct world we live in." He then said, "Just to
piss them [blind people] off, I'm going to put in Braille on the coffee pot ...
'Pot is hot.' "
- On the August 10, 2006, broadcast of his radio
program, Glenn Beck
warned that "[t]he world is on the brink of World War III" and that
"Muslims who have sat on your frickin' hands the whole time and have not
been marching in the streets" will face dire consequences. Beck made his
comments toward Muslims who he claimed "have not been saying, 'Hey, you
know what? There are good Muslims and bad Muslims. We need to be the first ones
in the recruitment office lining up to shoot the bad Muslims in the
head.'"
- On the August 9, 2006, edition of his CNN Headline News program, Beck aired a segment mocking the names of
several missing Egyptian students in which the announcer said that one
"may or may not be accompanied by his camel." The segment showed
pictures of crowds and pointed to random, unidentifiable people as the missing
Egyptians. It ended with a reading of the students' names in quick succession
followed by the announcer pretending to gag as he struggled to pronounce them.
- During the March 16, 2006, edition of his radio show, in describing Nigeria's new public education campaign to fight
the spread of bird flu, Beck stated that the country has "actually
resorted to radio jingles," and then asked if the United States could be "as dumb as Nigeria."
- On the January 10, 2006, broadcast
of his radio show, Beck called anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan "a pretty big
prostitute," later amending, at the
behest of his executive producer, Steve "Stu" Burguiere, that
"tragedy pimp" would be "the most accurate description."
- On the September 9, 2005, edition of his radio show, Beck referred to survivors
of Hurricane Katrina who remained in New
Orleans as "scumbags." Also, after acknowledging
that nobody "in their right mind is going to say this out loud," Beck
attacked victims of the disaster and the families of victims of the September
11, 2001, terrorist attacks, saying: "I didn't think I could hate victims
faster than the 9-11 victims."
- On the May 17, 2005, broadcast of The Glenn
Beck Program, Beck said he was "thinking about killing [filmmaker] Michael Moore"
and pondered whether "I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire
somebody to do it," before concluding: "No, I think I could. I think
he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the
life out -- is this wrong?"
Neal
Boortz
- On the August 3, 2006, edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Neal
Boortz asked his audience: "I want you to
think for think for a moment of how incompetent and stupid and worthless, how
-- that's right, I used those words -- how incompetent, how ignorant, how
worthless is an adult that can't earn more than the minimum wage? You have to
really, really, really be a pretty pathetic human being to not be able to earn
more than the human wage. Uh -- human, the minimum wage."
- On the July 19, 2006, edition of his radio
show, Cox Radio Syndication's The
Neal Boortz Show, Boortz
claimed that "at its core," Islam is a "violent, violent
religion," and said, "[T]his Muhammad guy is just a phony
rag-picker." Boortz asserted that "[i]t is perfectly legitimate,
perhaps even praiseworthy, to recognize Islam as a religion of vicious,
violent, bloodthirsty cretins."
- On the March 31, 2006, broadcast of his radio
program, Boortz said that then-Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) "looks like a ghetto slut."
Boortz was commenting on a March 29 incident in which McKinney allegedly struck a police officer at
a Capitol Hill security checkpoint. Boortz said that McKinney's "new
hair-do" makes her look "like a ghetto slut," like "an
explosion at a Brillo pad factory," like "Tina Turner peeing on an
electric fence," and like "a shih tzu." McKinney
is the first African-American woman elected to Congress from Georgia.
- On his March 27, 2006, radio program, Boortz suggested the U.S. government should "store 11 million Hispanics" who
entered the country illegally in the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans before deporting them to their
home countries.
- In a December 12, 2005, weblog post, Boortz predicted that California Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) would commute the sentence of convicted murderer Stanley "Tookie"
Williams to life imprisonment because "Schwarzenegger knows full well that
as soon as Tookie's death is announced there will be riots in South Central Los
Angeles and elsewhere." Boortz wrote that "[t]here are thugs just
waiting for an excuse ... not a reason, an excuse" and explained that
"[t]he rioting, of course, will lead to wide-scale looting." Boortz
added: "There are a lot of aspiring rappers and NBA superstars who
could really use a nice flat-screen television right now."
- On the October 24, 2005, broadcast of his radio program, Boortz suggested that
a victim of Hurricane Katrina housed in an Atlanta hotel consider prostitution. "If that's the only
way she can take care of herself," Boortz posited, "it sure beats the
hell out of sucking off the taxpayers."
- On the October 14, 2005, broadcast of his radio show, Boortz stated that if the
country is faced with an impending national disaster, then "hell, yes, we
should save the rich people first. You know,
they're the ones that are responsible for this prosperity."
- On the August 17, 2004, broadcast of his radio show, Boortz, in response to
reports from Florida
that looting was occurring in Hurricane Charley's aftermath, said: "If they see someone looting,
shoot him. They go up there, they just spray paint an 'L' on him
and get about their business, and then after everything is over, they can go
collect them all and bury them in a mass grave."
- On the July 21, 2004, broadcast of his radio show, Boortz referred to McKinney as "the cutest little Islamic jihadist in Congress."
Rush
Limbaugh
- On the March 2 broadcast on his nationally syndicated radio show, Premiere
Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show, Rush Limbaugh stated that "since [Sen. Barack]
Obama [D-IL] has -- on his mother's side -- forebears of his mother had slaves,
could we not say that if Obama wins the Democratic nomination and then wins the
presidency, he will own [Rev.] Al Sharpton?"
- On the February 1 edition of his radio show, Limbaugh responded to a Reuters
report on a University of Chicago study that found that "a majority of
young blacks feel alienated form today's government" by asserting:
"Why would that be? The government's been taking care of them their whole
lives."
- On the November 30, 2006, edition of his radio show, Limbaugh proclaimed: My "cat's taught me more
about women, than anything my whole life" because his pet cat "comes
to me when she wants to be fed," and "[s]he's smart enough to know
she can't feed herself. She's actually [a] very smart cat. She gets loved. She
gets adoration. She gets petted. She gets fed. And she doesn't have to do
anything for it."
- On the August 23, 2006, broadcast of his radio program, Limbaugh commented on a
season of CBS' reality TV program Survivor
in which contestants were originally divided into competing "tribes"
by ethnicity. Limbaugh stated that the contest
was "not going to be fair if there's a lot of water events" and
suggested that "blacks can't swim." Limbaugh stated that "our
early money" is on "the Hispanic tribe" -- which he said could
include "a Cuban," "a Nicaraguan," or "a Mexican or
two" -- provided they don't "start fighting for supremacy amongst
themselves." Limbaugh added that Hispanics have "probably shown the
most survival tactics," that they "have shown a remarkable ability to
cross borders," and that they can "do it without water for a long
time, they don't get apprehended, and they will do things other people won't
do." When the Survivor
producers decided to dissolve the show's racially segregated "tribes"
after only two episodes, Limbaugh declared that "[t]here can only be
one reason for this ... that is the white tribe had to be winning."
- On the January 10, 2006, broadcast, Limbaugh suggested that some women "would
love to be hired as eye candy."
- On the July 17, 2005, broadcast of his radio program, Limbaugh announced a new
"advertising campaign" for the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba,
in which he would call the facility "Club G'itmo, the Muslim resort,"
a "tropical paradise down there where Muslim extremists and terrorist wannabes
can get together for rest and relaxation." On his website, he sold
"Club G'itmo" T-shirts that read: "I Got My Free Koran and
Prayer Rug at G'itmo," "Your Tropical Retreat from the Stress of
Jihad," "My Mullah went to Club G'itmo and All I Got Was This Lousy
T-Shirt," and "What Happens in G'itmo Stays in G'itmo."
- On the March 1, 2005, edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Limbaugh
claimed that "[w]omen still live
longer than men because their lives are easier."
- Limbaugh
noted on August 9, 2004, than in recent television appearances, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd
appeared "just joyless," "miserable," and "did not
seem happy at all." Limbaugh then concluded: "Must
be a guy. Isn't it always a guy when a woman's unhappy?"
- On June 14,
2004, Limbaugh shared with listeners
his "pet name" for the National Organization for Women (NOW):
"National Association of Gals" (his acronym: "NAG"). Limbaugh
claimed that the "militant feminists" who make up the
"NAGs" "aren't determining who wins elections. White men
are."
- Responding to
an Associated Press report that women had recently been appointed as chiefs of
police in four major U.S. cities, Limbaugh on May 27, 2004, referenced the abuse of
Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib: "If we've got four new female police chiefs
out there, then I guess we can watch out for some naked pyramids among
prisoners in these new jailhouses that these women ran, because we had a woman
running the prison in Abu Grab [sic]."
- On
April 26, 2004, Limbaugh claimed that women
"actually wish" for sexual harassment, and said he then "laughed [him]self to
tears" when Media Matters for America
documented that and other sexist remarks he has made. The Media Matters report also noted that
Limbaugh used the term "femi-Nazis" eight times between March 15 and
April 29.
- In 2003, Limbaugh made controversial comments about Philadelphia Eagles
quarterback Donovan McNabb, which led to Limbaugh's resignation from his
position as a commentator on ESPN. During the September 28, 2003, edition of
ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown,
Limbaugh said that "[t]he media has been very desirous that a black
quarterback do well" and, therefore, that McNabb "got a lot of credit
for the performance of this team [the Eagles] that he didn't deserve."
- According to a June 7, 2000, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) article, "As a
young broadcaster in the 1970s, Limbaugh once told a black caller: 'Take that
bone out of your nose and call me back.' " In the early 1990s, "after
becoming nationally syndicated, he mused on the air: 'Have you ever noticed how
all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?' "
According to FAIR, "[w]hen Carol Moseley-Braun (D-IL) was in the U.S.
Senate, the first black woman ever elected to that body, Limbaugh would play
the 'Movin' On Up' theme song from TV's 'Jeffersons' when he mentioned her.
Limbaugh sometimes still uses mock dialect -- substituting 'ax' for 'ask'--
when discussing black leaders." FAIR also reported that "[i]n 1992,
on his now-defunct TV show, Limbaugh expressed his ire when Spike Lee urged
that black schoolchildren get off from school to see his film Malcolm X:
'Spike, if you're going to do that, let's complete the education experience.
You should tell them that they should loot the theater, and then blow it up on
their way out.' "
Bill
O'Reilly
- On the April 6 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Westwood One's The Radio
Factor, Bill O'Reilly stated that Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf
"should be baking pies, not running a major
city."
- On the April 2
edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor,
while discussing the British soldiers captured by the Iranian government, Nancy
Soderberg, former U.S.
ambassador to the United Nations, stated that "the Arab Sunnis are uniting
against Iran"
and said: "[I]t's going to be the Arab world against the Persian world.
And that's a fight we don't want to have played out in Iraq." O'Reilly responded: "Well, I'd like to see
that fight with us out of it. That's what I'd like to see." O'Reilly
continued: "I want -- let them kill each other."
- On the February 28 edition of his radio show, O'Reilly told co-host Lis
Wiehl that "women were treated better than men"
at ABC News and CBS News because "[t]hey had a little cabal; and they
intimidated the men in the organization and said, 'If you look at me
cross-eyed, I'm gonna bring you up to Human Resources and destroy your life.'
" O'Reilly added that "every man in the place was terrified of
them." He later stated that, "in a lot of places, women have formed
cabals to terrorize the men because they take advantage of, 'Oh, we're
downtrodden. You're kicking us in the teeth.' " He then discussed how, in
every country he'd "ever been to, women are treated worse [than] in the United States.
... Guys are gonna put their hands on you in that society in Italy, in Spain." O'Reilly concluded:
"So, all of this whining about American women -- 'We don't have this; we
don't have that' -- to me, I'm not real sympathetic. But I am a
barbarian."
- Discussing Iraq
during the January 24 edition of his radio show, O'Reilly claimed that
"the Sunni and Shia want to kill each other.
... They have fun. This is -- they like this. This is what Allah tells them to
do, and that's what they do." O'Reilly then asserted that the
"essential mistake of the war" was failing to anticipate that
"these people would act like savages, and they are." Later, O'Reilly
said that he had not predicted that the Iraqis "were going to act like
savages in the aftermath of Saddam [Hussein]," and added: "[N]ow, Iran,
we know they're savages."
- On the January 16 broadcast of his radio show, O'Reilly agreed with a
caller's assertion that illegal immigrants "bring corrupting influences" to the United States,
including "a third-world value system" that "can corrupt the
education system." O'Reilly replied: "Absolutely. And that's why the
dropout rate is so high."
- On the January 15 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly said of Shawn
Hornbeck -- who was abducted at the age of 11, held for four years, and
recently found in Missouri -- that "there was an element here that this
kid liked about this circumstances" and that he "do[esn't] buy"
"the Stockholm syndrome thing." O'Reilly also said: "The
situation here for this kid looks to me to be a lot more fun than what he had
under his old parents. He didn't have to go to school. He could run around and
do whatever he wanted." When fellow Fox News host Greta Van Susteren pointed
out that "[s]ome kids like school," O'Reilly replied: "Well, I
don't believe this kid did."
- On the December 13, 2006, edition of The
O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly dismissed scientific research on same-sex
parenting to assert, "Nature dictates that a dad and a mom is the
optimum" form of child-rearing. O'Reilly asked "why," if
children suffer no psychosocial deficit from being raised by same-sex parents,
"wouldn't nature then make it that anybody could get pregnant by eating a
cupcake?" O'Reilly declared that by arguing in favor of same-sex couples'
right to raise children, "you're taking Mother Nature and you're throwing
it right out the window, and I just think it's crazy." In fact, studies have
consistently found that children raised by gay or lesbian parents suffer no
adverse effects in their psychosocial development.
- On the November 29, 2006, broadcast of his radio show, O'Reilly denied that Iraq is in a "civil war as NBC
News wants you to think" and asserted that "they're all Muslims, and
they're doing what they do. They're killing each other. And they're killing
Americans."
- On the August 16, 2006, edition of The
O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly argued extensively for "profiling of
Muslims" at airports, arguing that detaining all "Muslims between the
ages of 16 and 45" for questioning "isn't racial profiling," but
"criminal profiling."
- While discussing the rape and murder of 18-year-old Jennifer Moore during the
August 2, 2006, edition of his radio show, O'Reilly appeared to suggest
that the clothing she was wearing at the time helped incite her killer. O'Reilly
discussed several factors that contributed to the "moronic" girl's
rape and murder, including that she was drunk and wandering the streets of New York City alone late
at night. But in addition to those factors, O'Reilly added: "She was
5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff.
Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up
at 2 in the morning."
- On the July 12, 2006, edition of his radio program, during a discussion of the
development of ethanol-fueled vehicles in Brazil,
O'Reilly stated that "they
still have people in Brazil
running around with their little darts, hitting you in the head with the
poisoned darts, with the loincloths."
- During the April 12, 2006, broadcast of The
Radio Factor, O'Reilly claimed that on the April 11 edition of
The O'Reilly Factor, guest Charles
Barron, a New York City councilman, had revealed the "hidden agenda" behind the current
immigration debate, which was "to wipe out 'white privilege'
and to have the browning of America."
- While discussing New York City Councilwoman Christine Quinn's decision to
boycott Manhattan's
St. Patrick's Day parade due to the decision by the Ancient Order of Hibernians
to ban the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization (ILGO) from marching O'Reilly
attacked Quinn, calling ILGO's potential
participation in the parade "inappropriate." O'Reilly asked,
"Why doesn't Ms. Quinn and others who support her wise up?"
Continuing, O'Reilly stated: "You have your Gay Day parade. You have your
Stonewall celebration. You have your Halloween deal, OK? You don't need
this." O'Reilly also asserted, "I don't want these people intruding
on a parade where little children are standing there, watching" for fear
that children would ask "mommy, what does that mean?" O'Reilly's
comments came during the March 17, 2006, edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor.
- In a February 27, 2006, conversation with a
caller about the disproportionately few jobs and contracts that have gone to
locals in the rebuilding of New
Orleans, O'Reilly said: "[T]he homies, you
know ... I mean, they're just not going to get the job."
- On the November 10, 2005, broadcast of his radio show, during a segment on a
telecommunications executive who spent $250,000 in one night at a New York
strip club, O'Reilly asked Wiehl if "it
might be worth learning how" to dance for a $10,000 tip, adding,
"You're [Wiehl] a good-looking girl. I mean, if you haven't seen Lis on
TV, she's a good-looking blonde."
- On the November 3, 2005, broadcast of his radio show, O'Reilly called for
"a full-body search" of Wiehl. During a
conversation about a New York Sun
editorial on a lawsuit over New York
City's policy of subway bag checks, O'Reilly said:
"Would you please -- would you please bring in some security to do a full-body
search on ... Lis Wiehl." When Wiehl repeated, "I said my bags, not
my body," O'Reilly responded, "Full-body search on Lis Wiehl right
this minute. She asked for it." Wiehl is also an author, Harvard-trained
law professor, and legal analyst for Fox News.
- On the September 13, 2005, broadcast of The
Radio Factor, O'Reilly claimed that "many of the poor in New Orleans" did not
evacuate the city before Hurricane Katrina because "[t]hey were
drug-addicted" and "weren't going to get turned off from their
source." O'Reilly added, "They were thugs."
- On April 15, 2005, a caller to O'Reilly's radio show claimed that each
undocumented immigrant crossing the border "is a biological weapon."
O'Reilly agreed, further stating, "I think you could probably make
an absolutely airtight case that more than 3,000 Americans have been either
killed or injured, based upon the 11 million illegals who are here."
- Responding to a Jewish caller to his
radio show who objected to "Christmas going into schools" and
expressed his "resentment" that "people were trying to
convert me to Christianity," O'Reilly asserted that America is "a predominantly Christian
nation" and said that "if you are really offended, you gotta go to Israel."
O'Reilly labeled the caller's concerns "an affront to the majority"
and insisted that "the majority can be insulted, too." During his
December 3, 2004, exchange with the caller, O'Reilly also mistakenly referred
to "the seven candles" of Hanukkah.
- On the June 21, 2004, broadcast of The
Radio Factor, O'Reilly referred
to Wiehl as "eye candy ... for
me," telling Wiehl that she is on the show "because you're
good-looking, so I got somebody to look over" while he's on the air.
Michael
Savage
- On the March 30 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, The
Savage Nation, Michael Savage stated that he "agree[d] 100 percent"
with a caller who said: "I'm very concerned that the Jews are now
accepting gays as rabbis. And as a Catholic, I can tell you it almost destroyed
our church when we accepted gays as priests." The caller added,
"[T]hey were raping teenage boys, and if you allow them to come into your
churches, I'm sorry, your synagogues, I have no reason to believe they're not
going to do the same thing." Savage responded: "The idea of a gay
rabbi is an oxymoron. Think about it: 'Rabbi' means teacher. You cannot have a
homosexual teacher teaching boys how to be a Jew," adding, "I'm not
going to mince words for fear of offending homosexuals. They're everywhere,
anyway, trying to tell me what to say and what not to say and what to think. I
know what's right and what's wrong. And that's all there is to it."
- On the March 20 broadcast of his radio show, Savage discussed a San Francisco Chronicle report detailing the
murder of a transgender woman whose body was found naked near a freeway outside
San Francisco. Savage read a sentence from the article stating that "it
appeared the victim had been in the process of becoming a woman," to which
Savage replied: "Yeah, process of becoming a woman -- psychopath. [She]
should have been in a back ward in a straitjacket for years, howling on major
medication." He went on to say, "And what's this sympathy, constant
sympathy for sexually confused people? Why should we have constant sympathy for
people who are freaks in every society?" adding, "But you know what?
You're never gonna make me respect the freak. I don't want to respect the
freak." Savage concluded: "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."
- On the March 16 broadcast of his radio show, Savage played audio clips from Barbara Walters' interview with
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, portions of which aired on the March 16
edition of ABC's Good Morning America,
and called her a "double-talking slut." Savage added: "She's
an empty mind-slut. She'd peddle anything for a ratings point." Savage went
on to call Walters a "mental prostitute" and said, "I think that
the woman is vermin. I think she's dirt."
- On the February 26 broadcast of his radio show, after playing an audio clip of
the beginning of singer Melissa Etheridge's acceptance speech at the Academy
Awards in which she thanked her wife and four children, Savage said: "I don't like a woman married
to a woman. It makes me want to puke. ... I want to vomit when I hear it. I
think it's child abuse." Savage later similarly stated: "I want to
puke when I hear about a woman married to a woman raising children because,
frankly, I think that it's child abuse to do that to children without their
permission. What does a child know? Ask them when they're 16 whether they want
to be raised by two lesbians or two men," adding: "What are the two
men doing behind the other wall? You think the children don't hear it?"
- On the February 7 broadcast of his radio show, Savage claimed that Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice "was chosen by
George Bush as part of an affirmative action program in order to make his
Cabinet look like America" and called her "a schoolmarm who has been
pushed up the ladder all of her life because of social engineering."
Savage also stated that President Bush's secretary of state "should have
been a man because he would have more respect in the Middle
East than does a woman to begin with."
- On the January 15 edition of his radio show, in a monologue about Martin Luther King Day,
Savage called "civil rights" a "con" and asserted:
"It's a racket that is used to exploit primarily heterosexual, Christian,
white males' birthright and steal from them what is their birthright and give
it to people who didn't qualify for it." Savage then said, "Take a
guess out of whose hide all of these rights are coming. ... [T]here is only one
group that is targeted, and that group are white, heterosexual males." He
added: "They are the new witches being hunted by the illiberal left using
the guise of civil rights and fairness to women and whatnot."
- On the November 27, 2006, edition of his radio show, Savage declared that in order to "save the United States,"
lawmakers should institute "an outright ban on Muslim immigration"
into the country. Savage also recommended making "the construction of
mosques illegal in America,
and the speaking of English only in the streets of the United States the law."
- On the November 13, 2006, edition of his radio show, Savage declared that "[t]he radical
homosexual agenda will not stop until religion is outlawed in this
county," adding that gay people "threaten your very survival."
Savage also stated that homosexuals are "all not nice decorators" and
warned: "Gay marriage is just the tip of the iceberg. They want full and
total subjugation of this society to their agenda."
- On the October 23, 2006, edition of his radio show, Savage said of Ethiopians: "The people down
there have flies around their eyes," adding, "I never went into an
Ethiopian restaurant. The Ethiopians come here to eat American food."
Earlier in the broadcast, while discussing Ramadan and the continued violence
in Iraq,
Savage suggested that Islam is "a bloodthirsty religion that's practiced
over there by a bunch of throwbacks, and we're gonna to kill 'em." Savage
called for the United States
to say: "That's it, we're leaving them; we're killing them."
- On the September 21, 2006, edition of his radio show, Savage claimed that the "average
prostitute" is "more reliable and more honest than most U.S.
senators wearing a dress."
- On the September 12, 2006, edition of The
Savage Nation, Savage claimed that "we" were
"told" that "before Barbara Boxer [D-CA]... before Dianne
Feinstein [D-CA] ... [and] before Hillary [Rodham] Clinton
[D-NY] became ... U.S.
senator[s], that when women became senators, we'd have a kinder, gentler
Senate." Instead, Savage said, the Senate has become "more vicious
and more histrionic than ever, specifically because women have been injected
into" it.
- On the August 7, 2006, edition of his radio program, Savage declared that CNN hosts Wolf Blitzer and
Larry King "look like the type that would have pushed Jewish children into
the oven to stay alive one more day to entertain the Nazis." Savage
remarked that Blitzer "will do the astonishing act of being the type that would
stick Jewish children into a gas chamber to stay alive another day. He's
probably the most despicable man in the media next to Larry King ... a close
runner-up." Savage opined: "The reason they curry favor with the
turbaned hoodlums is to gain access to the turbanned hoodlums, domestic and
foreign, for their news shows. They need more turbanned hoodlums to build
ratings."
- On the July 28, 2006, edition of his radio show, Savage predicted Israel is "going to lose
in Lebanon" unless it wins a "devastating, catastrophic, overwhelming
victory" in which "nothing is left living in southern Lebanon, south
of the Litani River." Later in the program, Savage chastised the Israeli
government for displaying a "Holocaust mentality" by shying away from
his proposed course for victory, adding that Israel cannot continue to
"live" unless it "frees itself of the men who are acting as
though they are still hiding in the sewers of Warsaw" and "act[ing]
like Holocaust Jews hiding in the sewer."
- On the July 24, 2006, edition of radio program, Savage declared that Blitzer is "the type
who would have let children into the gas chamber in order to stay alive an
extra day." Savage accused Blitzer of being "anti-Semitic ...
anti-Jewish, and pro-Arab" because he "doesn't want to appear too
Jewish ... and too pro-Jewish."
- During the April 10, 2006, broadcast of his radio program, Savage warned political leaders not to
sympathize with illegal immigrants, whom he described as "vermin."
Savage stated: "If you take to the streets with the vermin who are trying
to dictate to us how we should run America, even though they're not
even entitled to vote or be here, you're going to be thrown out of office."
Savage added that Americans are "craving leadership" because
"[f]eminism is destroying America.
Homosexuality is destroying America.
Weepy liberalism is destroying America."
- On the May 21, 2004, Savage Nation,
Savage expressed disdain for a newspaper article
about "what breeds of dogs came first" that did not include that
"the Asians still chew 'em [dogs] up."
- On his May 11 and May 12, 2004, radio shows, Savage called Arabs "non-humans" and
"racist, fascist bigots"; asserted that Americans would like to
"drop a nuclear weapon" on any Arab country; and that "these
people" in the Middle East "need to be forcibly converted to
Christianity" in order to "turn them into human beings."
Michael Smerconish
- Substituting for host Bill O'Reilly on the April 4, 2006, broadcast of Westwood
One's The Radio Factor,
nationally syndicated radio host Michael Smerconish repeatedly discussed "the sissification of
America," claiming that political correctness has made the United States
"a nation of sissies." Smerconish also claimed, several times, that
this "sissification" and "limp-wristedness" is "compromising
our ability to win the war on terror."
- On the November 23, 2005, broadcast of The
Radio Factor, while guest-hosting, Smerconish took issue with a decision by the New
Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority to provide a designated prayer area at
Giants Stadium. The decision was in response to a September 19 incident
involving the FBI's detention and questioning of five Muslim men who were
observed praying near the stadium's main air duct during a New York Giants
football game. Smerconish stated: "I just think that's [the men's public
praying] wrong. I just think they're playing a game of, you know, mind blank
with the audience. And that they should know better four years removed from
September 11."
- On the November 23, 2005, edition of The
Radio Factor, Smerconish interviewed Soo Kim Abboud, author of Top of the Class: How Asian Parents Raise High
Achievers -- and How You Can Too (Penguin, 2005). Smerconish asserted that "if everyone follows
Dr. Abboud's prescription ... you're going to have women who will leave the
home and now get a great-paying job, because you will have gotten them well
educated." He continued, "But then they're not going to be around to
instill these lessons in their kids. In other words, it occurs to me that
perhaps you've provided a prescription to bring this great success to an
end."
John
Gibson
- On the May 11, 2006, edition
of Fox News' The Big Story, host
John Gibson advised viewers during the "My Word" segment of his
program to "[d]o your duty. Make more babies." He then cited a May 10
article, which reported that nearly half of all children under the age of five
in the United States
are minorities. Gibson added: "By far, the greatest number [of children
under five] are Hispanic. You know what that means? Twenty-five years and the
majority of the population is Hispanic." Gibson later claimed: "To
put it bluntly, we need more babies." Then, referring to Russia's projected decline in population, Gibson
claimed: "So far, we are doing our part here in America but Hispanics can't carry
the whole load. The rest of you, get busy. Make babies, or put another way -- a
slogan for our times: 'procreation not recreation'."
— R.D. & J.M.
Posted to the web on Thursday, April 12, 2007 at 06:55 PM ET