Savage on Obama choice for CIA director: "[M]aybe Bill Ayers picked Leon Panetta"
Discussing President-elect Barack Obama's choice of Leon Panetta to head the CIA, Michael Savage asserted, "[M]aybe Bill Ayers picked Leon Panetta." He later asked, "Is it Bill Ayers and his crowd in Chicago who said 'Pick Panetta. He's a man we can trust'?"
Responding to reports that President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former congressman and Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta as CIA director, Michael Savage asserted on the January 5 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show that "maybe [former Weather Underground member] Bill Ayers picked Leon Panetta," later asking, "Is it Bill Ayers and his crowd in Chicago who said 'Pick Panetta. He's a man we can trust'?"
Earlier, responding to a caller's assertion that Panetta will be a "puppet" for Obama, Savage stated: "All right, so you're saying Panetta was appointed by Obama because he'll be a useful puppet. And then the CIA, instead of being an independent agency, will wind up being an arm of the executive branch. That's what worries me. That is Hitlerism." Savage continued: "Shall I be very clear? When Hitler aggrandized all the power in Germany and all of the agencies reported to him and there was no independence, it was called a dictatorship. Panetta must not be confirmed as the director of the CIA."
Talk Radio Network, which syndicates Savage's show, says that Savage is heard on more than 350 radio stations. The Savage Nation reaches more than 8 million listeners each week, according to Talkers Magazine, making it one of the most listened-to talk radio shows in the nation, behind only The Rush Limbaugh Show and The Sean Hannity Show.
From the January 5 broadcast of Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation:
CALLER: Yes, Doctor Savage, a comment on the new appointee for the CIA. I believe that that's exactly what they want is someone who doesn't know what they're doing. I believe -- the word I can only think of now is "puppet" -- but I believe no matter what --
SAVAGE: All right, so you're saying Panetta was appointed by Obama because he'll be a useful puppet. And then the CIA, instead of being an independent agency, will wind up being an arm of the executive branch. That's what worries me. That is Hitlerism. Shall I be very clear? When Hitler aggrandized all the power in Germany and all of the agencies reported to him and there was no independence, it was called a dictatorship.
Panetta must not be confirmed as the director of the CIA. This is an outrage. Outrage. Biggest story -- biggest story of the year. Biggest story of the year, picking an unknown hack. An unknown hack. No intelligence experience to run the CIA in an age of terror. I've never seen anything like this. Even Dianne Feinstein was caught off guard. She don't believe it herself. She doesn't believe it herself.
CALLER: And that's what got me, is when someone like Feinstein herself is even surprised at it. That's what got me. I believe --
SAVAGE: Right. Now, if Feinstein, a certifiable, bona fide liberal, was not consulted -- and she's the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee -- who, then, picked Leon Panetta?
CALLER: [unintelligible] I believe Ayers, Farrakhan, and the whole rest of that gang is --
SAVAGE: Yeah, maybe Bill Ayers picked Leon Panetta. Maybe everything we feared about Obama can be seen in the head of a pin here.
CALLER: Absolutely, you know --
SAVAGE: Something is wrong. The CIA position is the most important selection of all, perhaps next to the secretary of state -- even more important. Because the CIA has access to secret data that I don't even think the State Department has. Why would they pick a hack like Panetta? A college teacher. Why?
CALLER: 'Cause --
SAVAGE: Because -- because Obama wants all information flowing only to him, and he wants a useful puppet in the CIA, and this man must not be confirmed.
You know, what's interesting and very important for the American people to know -- because thus far, they haven't heard this story because it just happened today -- is this: The man originally selected by Obama to be the head of the CIA was a good man with great experience. He was rejected by the left-wing blogosphere. Obama then goes and picks a man with no experience? Who is advising Obama on this? Who? Who? Is it the very left wing that we feared in the background? Is it Bill Ayers and his crowd in Chicago who said, "Pick Panetta. He's a man we can trust"? This is no good.
Thanks for the call.
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Savage is like Coulter - assinine and becoming increasibly irrelevant.
I think it's time for the men in the little white jackets...
This moron is absolutely unhinged.
My gawd. Does Savage even listen to himself?
For the last 8 years nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, happened in any government agency without the Bush edministration's say-so. Bush has run the most centralized and opaque administration in this country's history.
But we gotta watch out for this Obama character!
Puh-leez...
And what's up with pulling Bill Ayers out of his sphincter? Random. He might as well have used any of a half-dozen other names (Soros anyone?). I guess his right-wing boogeyman Rolodex has flipped around to "A" and it's Ayers again this week.
Savage didn't get the memo that nobody but the nuttiest of wingnuts gives half a poop about Bill Ayers.
oops, "Bush administration's say-so"
I would think Mr. Sewage at least has the intelligence to use earplugs while speaking.
He knows it's best to inflict himself on others, and keep himself safe from himself. If he actually listened to himself, he'd probably burst out laughing, or perhaps spontaneously puke on himself himself.
Doesn't Obama know anyone besides Clintonistas?
Since the Clinton administration oversaw some of the best years this country has ever had, I think it's a pretty good idea to tap some of those folks for further service.
Don't you know any other talking points?
(It's obvious that you do, I just thought it would be cute to answer your meaningless, rhetorical question which leads to a false insinuation, with another meaningless, rhetorical question which leads to a false insinuation)
Didn't Bush know anyone besides his daddy's friends?
ZING!
He knows a whole bunch of people in Illinois and Chicago and I'm sure there would be absolutely no controversy whatsoever if he tapped some of them.
Look, it's pretty obvious that the talkers and blowhards on the right will spend the next 4 years searching for any fault to find in every thing that Obama does and in the absence of legitimate cause for criticism they will simply invent bizarre reasons to bash him.
If it weren't so sad it would be hilarious as he has so far demonstrated a very moderate, center-left style and yet the howler monkeys cry out that he's the mutant love child of Che, Marx and Mao covered in a light sprinkling of Hitler sauce for contrast.
Fool.
Comedy gold.
So instead of discussing the obvious questions of Leon Panetta's experience, you continue the wall of hatred against the radio host who is bringing the questions to the forefront. You should be scared that a political nobody, a hack is being appointed over one of the most important security positions in the country.
For shame MMFA, for taking attention away from this very frightening choice.
"Hitlerism", Savage. Oh, you mean like when you say you want to gas a hundred million Muslims, or when you say you want to become Reichführer only to throw all dissidents into work camps within six months of your "taking power"?
No wonder Savage apologists are trolling the internets yelling "One Border, One Language, One Culture! Heil Savage!" He truly is The Savage Nazi.
"And then the CIA, instead of being an independent agency, will wind up being an arm of the executive branch. That's what worries me. That is Hitlerism."
Then I'm sure Savage and his drooling dingbat fans would come to the conclusion that Bush is a Hitlerist, if they ever bothered to inform themselves:
Wapo: Vice President Cheney and his most senior aide made multiple trips to the CIA over the past year to question analysts studying Iraq's weapons programs and alleged links to al Qaeda, creating an environment in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to make their assessments fit with the Bush administration's policy objectives, according to senior intelligence officials.
Maybe Weiner is an idiot.