Talent La Penna Prolifica™

Don Imus Versus Michael Savage: Whose comments are worse?

By La Penna Prolifica™ | 2008

Do you remember this gem? “That’s some nappy-headed hos there. I’m gonna tell you that now, man, that’s some — woo. And the girls from Tennessee, they all look cute, you know, so, like — kinda like — I don’t know.” That was talk radio’s favorite old guy Don Imus’ seeming nod to Snoop Dogg and Ludacris in reference to the Rutgers Women’s Basketball Team’s looks and personhood on April 4, 2007.

It was the slur heard around all corners of the globe, (wait… globes don’t have corners… they’re globes). But, I digress. Nearly a whole 30 seconds after Imus uttered those stupidly joking words, every media outlet since the Pony Express ran with those words to advertisers and activists all over world and of course Imus’ radio affiliates. Imus was subsequently fired and later he apologized to all parties who were offended which also included a very personal apology to the Rutgers team.

However, almost 15 months after his less than poetic ode to hip hop, Imus is back on the air. Yet there remains one shock jock radio ranter who continually offends his public. His name is Michael Savage. Savage said the following on the July 16 edition of his radio show Savage Nation:

[Autism] is a fraud, a racket.” …”I’ll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. That’s what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they’re silent? They don’t have a father around to tell them, ‘Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.’ ” Savage concluded, “[I]f I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, ‘Don’t behave like a fool.’ The worst thing he said — ‘Don’t behave like a fool. Don’t be anybody’s dummy. Don’t sound like an idiot. Don’t act like a girl. Don’t cry.’ That’s what I was raised with. That’s what you should raise your children with. Stop with the sensitivity training. You’re turning your son into a girl, and you’re turning your nation into a nation of losers and beaten men. That’s why we have the politicians we have.”

He continued: “[W]hy was there an asthma epidemic amongst minority children? Because I’ll tell you why: The children got extra welfare if they were disabled, and they got extra help in school. It was a money racket. Everyone went in and was told [fake cough], ‘When the nurse looks at you, you go [fake cough], “I don’t know, the dust got me.” ‘ See, everyone had asthma from the minority community.”

Folks, where can we go from these arguments. Let’s analyze. First, we have Don Imus, an elderly man with a disheveled look using a African-American slang as if were on tour with Cedric the Entertainer. If one were to playback the comments, it would be obvious that this man was trying to get a laugh where no humor could be found. Unlike Ludacris, he has no credibility with the word “hoes”to the tune of Luda’s,”I got in hoes different area codes.” That’s not to say that ludacris’ credibility in itself doesn’t present a problem, but that’s a topic for another day…. It’s just altogether sad.

Savage, by contrast, has a rage filled quality to his tone. Even in print he provokes the thought of a fire breathing dragon and from the episodes I’ve heard, the rest of his views are very similar, from condemning Islam as a religion of “slavery and chattel”, to ranting that th Latino community in the U.S. needs to stop forcing America to learn Spanish. This man, whether out of showmanship or not, is continually and most vehemently enraged. His show runs a disclaimer at the top of each show saying, “Warning: This show contains adult language, adult content, psychological nudity. Listener discretion is advised.” Yet, for all his radicalism, Savage’s national audience is nearly 8.5 million strong and is consistently in the top three shows among the talk radio crowd, behind Rush Limbaugh’s and Sean Hannity’s programs and despite many claims of hate speech by his detractors, he remains on the air.

Note: In rubuttal to Savage’s claims about autism being a fraud, I’d like to state that I have a few people in my immediate inner circle who have some form of autism… one quite severe case. Autism is without question a real thing. Secondly, I also have it on good authority from the lips of my own mother who is a registered nurse that roaches can carry asthma causing agents and because of this fact, poor living conditions in the minority community can have a direct effect on the asthma rate therein.

So in closing, there are very few things left to say. Who is worse? Is it the old guy who used a phrase used by every rapper in today’s mainstream? Or is it the guy who is pissed off all day at foreigners, minorities, Muslims and Democrats and probably your mom too? You tell me…. Keep it waxidocious, People!