Michael Savage is a Punk

So why do I listen to him? Generally I do not, but it seems like all the local radio stations go to commercial at the same time, so I channel surf, and sometimes I listen to Michael Savage for a few minutes. Never longer than that. He is a punk.

Even when I agree with the content of what he is saying, I cannot stand his sneering, condescending tone. But this post is inspired by a content disagreement. Last night he said six American soldiers dead in Fallujah is too many. He says America should have simply bombed the city into nothingness, and then sent in the soldiers (he didn't explain why we need soldiers to guard rubble and corpses). He says six soldiers may not seem like very many, but if you're the mom or dad of one of those six, it's too many.

Death is, of course, a tragedy. But it seems Mr. Savage and I disagree on that point. I said death, not just American death. I disagree with the inference that a million dead Iraqis is somehow better than six dead Americans. [Note: oddly, it seems that liberals agree with Savage on this point]. What is it about Americans that makes their blood so much more precious than anyone else's?

I also think Savage's approach is strategic lunacy, given that we're trying to establish democracy, not conquer. If the goal was conquest, plain and simple, then massive ordinance would be the simple and effective way to go. But this is a different kind of war, with very different rules, and to at least some degree the common criticism that "every time you kill a terrorist you breed another" has some kernel of truth. It's not necessarily a neat one-to-one ratio, but if you kill Ahmed's dad, Ahmed won't be too happy about it. The pacification of Fallujah (with the military defeat of murderous thugs living in Fallujah) is far better calculated to bring about democracy than massive destruction could possibly be.

But everything in the preceding paragraph is only ancillary to my main objection. Savage's provincialist views are arrogant, condescending, and counter-productive, as well as hopelessly Liberal. I suppose that's probably the worst insult I could hurl at him, so I'll let it go at that.