Foes of Savage fail to deter MSNBC
Despite protests, the cable channel plans to go ahead with the conservative's new talk show.
By David Bauder
Associated Press

NEW YORK - Before it even debuts this weekend, talk-radio star Michael Savage's MSNBC show has attracted more attention than anything the struggling news network is telecasting.

Advocacy groups, led by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, have begun a letter-writing campaign to keep Savage off the air. The syndicated radio personality fought back by calling his critics "stinking rats who hide in the sewers."

His show, The Savage Nation, will run at 5 p.m. on Saturday despite the furor, said Alan Winikoff, an MSNBC representative.

The brash, tough-talking Savage, who broadcasts out of the San Francisco area, is probably the second-hottest talk-radio host in the country after Sean Hannity, said Michael Harrison, editor of the trade magazine Talkers.

"He is, in many ways, the quintessential shock jock," Harrison said. "He's a very aggressive, clever, street-smart everyman. He flies in the face of political correctness. He's what works on talk radio."

A group Savage formed, the Paul Revere Society, advocates closing borders, deporting illegal immigrants, mandating health tests for immigrants, eliminating entitlement programs, and making tax cuts permanent.

GLAAD said Savage spews "hateful, defamatory rhetoric" against virtually everyone except white men. He has referred to gays and lesbians as perverts, said Joan Garry, GLAAD's executive director.

"Read what he's written and listen to some of the things he's said, and you can't sit idly by," Garry said. "You have to raise concerns. You have to question why a news channel would give this guy a platform."

Savage calls gays and lesbians perverts because homosexuality is perversion.

Winikoff would not comment on why Savage was hired. Savage, rehearsing his debut, was not immediately available to comment.

"What people are forgetting is the show hasn't been on the air yet," Winikoff said. "What Savage says he wants to do on this show is focus on serious issues. Stuff that [his critics] are complaining about won't be a focus of the show. Just give the guy a chance before jumping to conclusions."

They're not jumping to conclusions, they only want "freedom of speech" when it comes to teaching children to become homosexual. But if anyone says anything opposing homosexuality, gay militants are up in arms.