When America Defecates

When America defecates, 8.25 million people like to turn around and smell it. At least, that is the purported weekly audience for the Michael Savage's nationally syndicated radio show, The Savage Nation. I have at times paused in my radio channel surfing to listen to a few minutes of his lunatic ravings before moving on to more saner pastures. Each time I do, I ask myself why this idiot is still on the air. The answer: he has an audience and he has sponsors.

His latest foray has him telling us the cause for autism. Forget Jenny McCarthy and her vaccine/environmental factors link, Michael Savage, with all the virulence and vitriol he could muster, has nailed the cause of autism:

You know what autism is? 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."

Moron. Putz. Crying, screaming idiot. Did he learn anything from his father??

When faced with charges of his ignorance, however, Savage is not one to back down. He says

“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.”

In fact, there is a medical diagnosis for autistic conditions - it's called autism! Or more specifically, an Autism Spectrum Disorder. What he means is that there is no identified cause, and that is a true statement. But because we don't know what causes it, does not mean that 99% of the kids who are diagnosed as having ASD are "brats" or "crying, screaming idiots".
Meanwhile, AFLAC, one of his major sponsors, is pulling their support:

Late Monday afternoon, Aflac, the insurance company, announced it was withdrawing all advertising from Mr. Savage's show. "We understand that radio hosts pick on any number of targets," Laura Kane, a company spokeswoman, said in a statement, before adding that Aflac considered "his recent comments about autistic children to be both inappropriate and insensitive.”

So, Savage's father couldn't stop him from being a moron, and AFLAC can't either. But it's good to see AFLAC finally dumping this piece of human filth. The stink of him got too strong.