How big a deal is this Michael Savage thing?

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I used to be an average listener of Michael Savage back in my conservative Republican days, but I eventually got bored and tired of radio show and stopped listening to it in favor of the BBC radio services and CBS news and some of the old fashioned radio shows that air at night on saturdays.

I got tired of his blatant Sinophobia (sometimes I just want to go into the show and correct him every time he calls the Chinese "communists" or calls Taiwan and "independent, non-Chinese" country and give him a history lesson on the Chinese Ming Dynasty and Kuomintang supporters (who fled to get away from the Manchus and the Maoists), and for the whole "the Chinese are communist" bit, I want to educated him about Zhou Enlai, Lin Biao and Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese Communist Party reformers who opened up China and put a stop to Maoism, gang of four and Mao's wife (who were communist hard-liners).

But let's be fair...we give too much blame to conservative white males sometimes, Rosie O'Donnell and Al Sharpton have said some pretty reprehensible things on air and they don't get nearly as much media attention that Michael Savage and Don Imus do.

Now, why don't WP members have a similar attitude towards Jenny McCarthy?

Jenny McCarthy, whose son Evan is autistic, was deeply infuriated by Savage’s heartless words. Now, for the first time publicly, in an interview with “Access Hollywood’s Nancy O’Dell,” McCarthy speaks out.


“You know, I immediately get the news the second anything happens. I read it and had to sit down and kind of breathe a little bit,” McCarthy said. “The media drove me crazy that day wanting comments and I didn’t want to give any more attention to that jerk.


Savage was hit by advertisers who pulled ads from his popular radio show. There were also demands for the shock jock’s termination. But would McCarthy like to see that happen?

she was quoted as saying:

“I think a great way for an apology is to be sat down and educated about it,” Jenny said. “I’d love to just quietly (sit down with him and) educate him on the facts. It was clear he doesn’t know anything about autism”

I don't know why there seems to me more tolerance for a acidic, blow hard, jerk and not a mother who is (albeit clumsily ((see I remembered)), just trying to do her best.

Either way, these sort of comments; uninformed or not, sarcastic or not, are presented in a wide reaching, very public manner. They affect public opinion.

In Savages' case, it could have gone either way. It may have garnered more contempt for people on the spectrum (probably did) among his die hard fans, and (in this case, it probably didn't) spread from there. Or it may have (looks like it did) blow up in his face and create sympathy and more open mindedness about autism.

From where I'm standing this looks like it had a positive out come for awareness about people on the spectrum. It was a stupid, biased, venomous thing to say. But a jerk, is a jerk, is a jerk and people sniffed it out this time.