On March 1, Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency (CAA) reportedly dropped conservative radio host Michael Savage two days after announcing that he had been signed as a client. CAA's reported decision followed Savage's comments -- documented by Media Matters for America -- attacking singer Melissa Etheridge, who thanked her wife at the Academy Awards, and asserting that married gay couples' raising of children amounts to “child abuse” and “makes me want to puke.” Later on March 1, on his nationally syndicated radio, Savage did not directly address CAA's reported decision, but he did speak to "[t]hose of you who think I'm your enemy" and those “who are spending all your days and nights attacking Michael Savage.” Savage went on to say: “You're mentally ill, and you need help. You need more help than you can imagine. ... I know you're mentally ill. I know that, and you can't help yourself. The mentally ill cannot heal themselves.”
In the same broadcast, Savage said: “How [liberals] could have such hatred in their hearts for people like myself ... how they will take the side of the Islamic extremists over the president and over the troops, how they will take the side of the enemy in virtually every interchange could only be answered with one statement: liberalism is a mental disorder, and I don't have the cure for it.” He added, “But I certainly will never relent in my desire to awaken America. With God's will -- and your listenership -- Mike shall return.”
On February 27, Media Matters noted Savage's February 26 comments about Etheridge, and CAA announced that it had signed Savage “for representation in all areas.” On the same day's broadcast of his radio show, Savage said of Media Matters: “I don't know why they're attacking me for what I believe in,” and added, “I stick by every word I wrote.” He later referred to Media Matters as “a gay website that attacks me every day.”
From the March 1 edition of Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation:
SAVAGE: Those of you who think I'm your enemy -- if you think I'm a bigger enemy to you, for example -- let's start with this. For those of you who are obsessed with certain topics, and you think that I, a frank-speaking man, I, Michael Savage, am your biggest enemy, then you're proving to me that liberalism is a mental disorder. Why do I say that? Because I do not pose any direct threat to any of you. Who does pose a direct threat to you? Our common enemy. A common enemy would hang you, cut your throat, throw you down a well, anything they could do to you.
So, a man who speaks out trying to defend all of us becomes your enemy? Why? Because you're sick. You're mentally ill, and you need help. You need more help than you can imagine. But you'll be the last person to understand how sick you are. What it's going to take to wake you up is anyone's guess. I have a pretty good idea what it's going to take. You know, it'll be like 55,000 degrees over your city, and they'll be cheering throughout the Middle East. And then one of you or two of you who are spending all your days and nights attacking Michael Savage will come to understand that you have bigger problems and bigger enemies than me.
I don't expect you to change. I know you're mentally ill. I know you're mentally ill. I know that, and you can't help yourself. The mentally ill cannot heal themselves.
[...]
SAVAGE: Do you know what I'm talking about? All you snotty liberals, who look over all of these things like it means nothing; what's wrong with you? When did you lose your soul? When did it exactly happen? Was it the pot in high school? What exactly -- was it the coke in the '80s? When do you think, as a liberal, you lost your soul? What did it to you? When was the turning point? What was that tipping point in your life as a liberal, looking back, when you lost your soul and started to hate America, and you started to hate everything that was normal and sane about this country? When did you lose your perspective on reality, is what I'd like to ask you.
See, I don't hate liberals. I've got to make that very clear. Basically, they're not bad people by and large, they leave you alone. I don't like their politics, they don't like mine, but they're not harmful. Most of them are nice people, they're just pleasure-oriented. They like nice things, and they want to be left alone. I understand that.
But how they could have such hatred in their hearts for people like myself, who spend their every waking moment, and with every fiber in their being, trying to wake America up to the danger it is in, how they will take the side of the Islamic extremists over the president and over the troops, how they will take the side of the enemy in virtually every interchange can only be answered with one statement: liberalism is a mental disorder, and I don't have the cure for it. But I certainly will never relent in my desire to awaken America. With God's will -- and your listenership -- Mike shall return.