Sometimes you just wish certain people would stop talking and go away. Even when they’re supposed to be on your side politically. Michael Savage is someone who needs to take a long walk off a short bridge.
On his nationally syndicated radio program last week, Savage called autism “a fraud, a racket … In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. … They don’t have a father around to tell them, ‘Don’t act like a moron. … Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.’ ”
Savage is now hitting the airwaves to defend his assertion that autistic children are, for the most part, brats who haven’t been raised properly.
Michael Savage, the incendiary radio host who last week characterized nearly every child with autism as “a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out,” said in a telephone interview on Monday that he stood by his remarks and had no intention of apologizing to those advocates and parents who have called for his firing over the matter.
“My main point remains true,” Mr. Savage, whose radio audience ranks in size behind only those of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, said in the interview. “It is an overdiagnosed medical condition. In my readings, there is no definitive medical diagnosis for autism.”
While I am certainly no fan of “new age” parenting or the excessive medicating that has gone on in recent years, to suggest that autistic children are actually just behaving badly and need a role model is absurd. Savage, who has been no stranger to controversy in the past, may have finally gone a bit too far over the line. If Don Imus was fired for “nappy headed hos” then I can’t imagine Michael Savage keeping his job after calling all of the autistic children of America spoiled brats. Then again, we are talking about the same host who, on national television, told a gay man that he hoped the man would contract AIDS and die.
The dictionary definition of autism is “a pervasive developmental disorder, characterized by impaired communication, excessive rigidity, and emotional detachment.”
Perhaps Savage is just slightly autistic himself?
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Michael Savage is not autistic, he is just a freaking retard!
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:27 pm
i SAID THE SAME THING TO MY WIFE—Michael Savage is an extremely smart man that just has no clue when to shut his trap or speaking appropriately to his audience—I would say he would be defined as a boarderline Aspergers case myself—so his dad was correct for calling him a putz
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Yeah, he doesn’t know when to shut-up. And to think he had his own show on MSNBC. How the hell did that happen?
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:07 pm
He’s probably just doing it to get attention. It’s an election year and he has nothing to say, so he’s trying to rise above the din with something totally insane.
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:29 pm
I completely disagree with Savage. He is an idiot for what he has said. I will not, however, call for his firing. He has free speech. Any consequences for his stupid comments should come from listeners. Let the free market and free speech work they way they are intended.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:12 pm
As a parent of a child on the autism spectrum, I am sad for Michael Weiner Savage. He will stand before God someday and answer to Him about the pain he has heaped on parents of these special children — and the damage he has caused these precious kids.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:31 pm
he’s just an idiot and embarrasses us all!
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:29 am
Wow! Besides being the Most-Obviously-Closeted-Gay-Man-In-America, “Micheal Savage” may be the dumbest, too!
July 23rd, 2008 at 6:04 pm
I don’t care about what Michael Savage thinks. Unfortunately he has a microphone where he can influence people who do not understand autism. His comments are so incredibly insulting to all of the children with autism as well as the parents who love them. He should be fired. No one should have any right to make such inaccurate and inhumane remarks.
July 24th, 2008 at 12:17 am
My mother always said if you don’t know what you’re talking about shut up, and this man should do the same. I’m not worried about my son hearing his comments because he doesn’t understand negativity because he’s AUTISTIC. His feelings wouldn’t be hurt because he doesn’t understand bad/good feelings because he’s AUTISTIC. I worry more about those parents who might suspect their children could have autism but now are hesitant to have them tested as a result of this ignorant man’s remarks. I’m not about to screw with the 1st Ammendment but ethics should come into play somewhere. We all need to be held accountable for our actions. He needs to spend a day at his local Regional Center and see what Autism really is. I don’t know how he’ll learn how to be human.
July 25th, 2008 at 12:57 am
Please be careful with language. I think Michael Savage’s problem is a character issue, not a developmental issue. I try to remember that “idiot” used to be just a description of a mentally challenged person. Now it’s used as an all-purpose put down. I hope the word “autistic” doesn’t go the same way, because it can be a helpful description. When I am nasty and call names, I just call people like Michael Savage anuses.
July 25th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
I think the man should be terminated and that is not a violation of his right to free speech. If the government would ban him and demand his firing, then I would agree that it would be a violation of his rights. The government has no right to censor. However, he is working for a radio station with the understanding that he is to generate ratings and sponsorship. If he fails to do that and what he says looses ratings, sponsorship and profits for the radio station, they have a right to fire him. No body would be violating his free speech…he isn’t being told what to say, just being told someone else is not going to give him such a big platform to say it.
July 25th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Right. The right to free speech only applies to the government as you stated.
July 27th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
>>>I will not, however, call for his firing. He has free speech. Any consequences for his stupid comments should come from listeners. Let the free market and free speech work they way they are intended.
Is him getting fired a consequence of the free market and has no relationship to free speech? Why is it that no one seems to understand what the 1st Amendment grants us?
July 31st, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Michael Savage ? His quest for ratings allways backfired.
He lives in one of the most liberal state, California, he lives in the most liberal City, Marin and he went to the most liberal University, Berkely and he walks around the liberal elites in San Fran.
What else can I say, if live in a pig pen, you wallow in a pig pen, you feed in a pig pen, even if you bark like a dog, your a PIG .
Mike, his just there for the Mullah, and those who take his words us gospel are ignorant baboons.
Honestly, I listen to this duffus, his entertaining
August 1st, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Let’s get this hate monger off the air for good. There’s nothing wrong with conservative radio. But we will stop hate radio.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
I would say that the real idiots are the ones that have posted here already, I would also say that if you want to talk about hate mongering well the mirror would be a fine place to start. The point of Dr.Savage was that the disease is misdiagnosed 99% of the time and that medicating our children is out of control. He said that children with the REAL DISEASE need all the help and compassion we can muster. Now I admit he could of said it a bit more tastefully so as not to offend all of you soft heads but his point is valid.
September 6th, 2008 at 9:09 am
Goodhearing for your imformation Autism is NOT a disease,and it’s obvious that you also have absolutely no understanding to what this condition is.
You say that the real idiots are the ones that have posted here already, maybe YOU need to take a closer look in the mirror.