On March 5, Media Matters for America received the following email from radio host Michael Savage:
From: ****************@aol.com
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 5:55 PM
To: *******@mediamatters.org
Cc: *****@****.com
Subject: Re: Savage continued attacks on Etheridge & HollywoodIf you ever harass me again I will have you prosecuted under California's anti-stalking legislation. This indicates malice and intent to harm on the part of media matters.
The email was sent in response to a Media Matters email forwarding an item posted earlier that day. Michael Savage's email address is available on Bacon's.com to anyone with an account.
On the March 5 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, which aired at 6 p.m. ET, five minutes after the email was sent, Savage lashed out at "[t]hose scum-sucking vermin. Those left-wing rats" who he claimed “won't be happy until we're all on prayer rugs waiting to have our heads cut off.” He continued: “You ought to be happy, you liberal SOBs, that I am only a talk-show host. You ought to thank God that I have no avariciousness in my soul. You ought to thank God that I'm not power mad like you liberals, because if I ever ran for office, I can guarantee you, you wouldn't be in business too long. I can guarantee you you'd be arrested for sedition within six months of my taking power. I'd have you people licking lead paint, what you did to this country.”
As Media Matters for America has noted, Savage was signed by Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency (CAA) for “representation in all areas” -- including television and film -- but was reportedly dropped after Media Matters documented his comments attacking singer and CAA client Melissa Etheridge for thanking her wife during her Academy Awards acceptance speech. Savage also responded to Etheridge's speech by stating that homosexual marriage “makes me want to puke” and saying that married gay couples' raising of children amounts to “child abuse.”
In the March 5 broadcast, Savage repeated his claim that “lesbian marriage” is “nauseating” and “disgusting,” and he again asserted that it is “child abuse” for “lesbians who are married [to] rais[e] children.” He also claimed that his comments are not homophobic: “What it is, from my point of view, is not homophobia at all. I don't fear lesbians who are married raising children. I have contempt for them.”
On Savage's website, there is a poll that asks, “Should Michael Savage Run for the Presidency?” According to the site, there are more than 2.8 million “yes” votes. Savage has said that once he reaches 5 million, he will make a decision on whether or not to run.
The Savage Nation reaches more than 8 million listeners each week, according to Talkers Magazine, making it the third-most-listened-to talk radio show in the nation, behind only The Rush Limbaugh Show and The Sean Hannity Show.
From the March 5 edition of Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation:
SAVAGE: Those scum-sucking vermin. Those left-wing rats, they won't be happy until we're all on prayer rugs waiting to have our heads cut off.
You ought to be happy, you liberal SOBs, that I am only a talk-show host. You ought to thank God that I have no avariciousness in my soul. You ought to thank God that I'm not power mad like you liberals, because if I ever ran for office, I can guarantee you, you wouldn't be in business too long. I can guarantee you you'd be arrested for sedition within six months of my taking power. I'd have you people licking lead paint, what you did to this country.
[...]
SAVAGE: There's a guy named Bill Maher, I don't know who he is, I know he's some kind of guy on television. He actually looks like P.T. Barnum, but he thinks he's smart. He doesn't make as much money as I do, by the way. He has a small show on HBO. He could never do talk radio. This is too tough a medium.
His standard format is to have six idiot lefties, and he invites one dummy conservative, and they all attack him, and he sits there like Mister Goofball. He called for Cheney's death, OK, and everyone knows that.
Apparently it's OK to call for the death of the vice president, but it's not OK to say that you find lesbian marriage disgusting and nauseating and it makes you want to puke. This shows you why liberalism is a mental disorder.
Apparently a death threat is not as bad as homo -- let's say homo -- it's not even homophobia. What it is, from my point of view, is not homophobia at all. I don't fear lesbians who are married raising children. I have contempt for them. I think it is child abuse. That's my personal opinion. And I guarantee you if you polled most Americans, they would say the exact same thing that I'm saying. If you polled most politicians they wouldn't, though. That's why we're in trouble in this country -- no truth, no justice, no hope.
The culture is imploding like Chernobyl. It is melting down like Chernobyl, the Pink Hand has melted the country down. The Pink Hand has melted the nation down.