When Conservitives collide ... Bushbots vs Savage Nation

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http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/mulshine/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/112192270134860.xml&coll=1
The Savage Nation vs. the Bushbots
Thursday, July 21, 2005

Al Franken and the other liberals are probably still wondering why they had such little luck in their efforts to start a talk-radio network to bash George Bush from the left. They didn't consider the obvious explanation. George Bush has his left flank nicely covered. It's on the right that he's weak.

That is the theory of Michael Savage. Savage is the most right- wing of the right-wing talkers on the national airwaves at the moment. He is based in San Francisco, but he can be heard in the New York area on WOR in the evenings. He is a welcome change from those Karl Rove clones Hush Bimbo and Sean Vanity.

"Hush Bimbo" and "Sean Vanity" are the names Savage has pinned on Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity of WABC. In doing so, he has sparked a war between the members of his "Savage Nation" (slogan: "Borders, language, culture") and the so-called "Bushbots," that sizable number of gullible Americans who can be convinced that whatever policy Bush adopts is a conservative policy.
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"What makes Bush a conservative?" Savage asked when I got him on the phone the other day. "On the economy, Bush has got more governmental workers than anybody before him. He's ballooned the government."

As regards the so-called "war on terror," Savage points out that you can't win a war when you're afraid even to name the enemy.

"He's never mentioned Islamofascism," said Savage.

No, he hasn't. Even the French have been more willing to defend their borders, language and culture than Bush. He's a multiculturalist and a mushy one at that. Instead of reducing the reach of Islamic fundamentalism, Bush has managed in Iraq to get 1,700 Americans killed in a war that will create yet another Islamic republic. Just yesterday we learned that the new constitution in Iraq will incorporate sharia, Islamic law.

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That's why we right-wing commentators believe the Iraq war has been the biggest blunder in America military history. As for Bimbo and Vanity, if I may employ Savage's labels, they are simply too uneducated to realize that the Iraq war represents a failed liberal exercise in nation-building.

"There is no college in Rush. There is no college in Hannity," said Savage. "He's a high school dropout. It's like listening to an uneducated, unthinking man on the radio."

Savage has a Ph.D. from Berkeley in epidemiology, an extremely challenging field. That makes him a bit overqualified for the verbal pro- wrestling matches that make up talk radio. But it also makes him interesting.

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The Savage Nation vs. the Bushbots
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The Bushbots don't think so. On their Web sites, they call Savage a bigot and a racist, two terms the employment of which generally indicate that the speaker is losing an argument. Savage is a hero on those Web sites that attack Bush's open-borders approach to immigration. "Rush Limbaugh is a direct link to his president, El Traitor, Senor Bush," wrote one blogger. "The invasion by illegals has been going on now for a long time."

"You are 100 percent correct," said another of Limbaugh and Hannity. "They are nothing but blind, rubber-stamping followers of El Presidente Bush."

All of this is a lot of fun if you don't take it seriously. I certainly don't. But I do find talk radio to be a good barometer of the nation's mood. And the nation is slowly figuring out that the Bush-neoconservative-Troskyite-internationalist view of foreign affairs has not worked out so swimmingly for the good old U.S. of A.
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"Bush is melting down our borders and making us into a polyglot nation in which no one speaks the language," says Savage.

Savage hears a lot from people who say that any criticism of Bush is a mark of disloyalty to conservatism.

"I can't stand listening to people who want me to be a lapdog for Bush," he told me. "We're supposed to be watchdogs, not lapdogs."

As for the rest of the radio talkers, "They may as well work for the Republican Party. There's nothing interesting if you can predict what a man's going to say by just going to the GOP Web site."

He's certainly got that right. Listening to an endless rehash of Karl Rove's talking points, leavened by a few Teddy Kennedy- is-a-drunk jokes, is not very entertaining.

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s for the Al Franken approach, how can a nation-building, internationalist multiculturalist get any traction by criticizing another nation-building, internationalist multiculturalist? John Kerry had that problem as well, you might have noticed.

When you attack the Bush- Rove spin from the right, however, you realize that the neocons' grand social experiment has been tried most visibly in Iraq and has failed most visibly there. People are starting to notice. Eventually even the Bushbots may get a clue.

Paul Mulshine is a Star-Ledger columnist. He may be reached at pmulshine@starledger.com.

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He is Right , Nation building doesnt work , never has ..... This is another reason why I say going into Sudan , Rwanda , and other places wont work ......
It is a In house Problem , exception of Taiwan and China , there is a clear link of difference , and one could consider China a hostile invading force on Taiwan although the USA is the only country I am aware of that views Taiwan as a soverign Nation ......

[clarker]

He is Right , Nation building doesnt work , never has ..... This is another reason why I say going into Sudan , Rwanda , and other places wont work ......
It is a In house Problem , exception of Taiwan and China , there is a clear link of difference , and one could consider China a hostile invading force on Taiwan although the USA is the only country I am aware of that views Taiwan as a soverign Nation ......Well, except in Germany and Japan, which we did rebuild after WWII.

And it is always funny and entertaining to make Teddy Kennedy is drunk jokes.

As for Hannity and Rush, they both get on my nerves and he is right they might as well work for the Republican party.

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Well, except in Germany and Japan, which we did rebuild after WWII.
ahh i have been waiting for someone to bring that up ..... 2 different cases ... Germany and Japan were invading forces , we literaly destroyed 2 Japaneese citys , to get Japan to surrender ... Not all germans were die hard Nazi's , and not to mention we had plenty of help from the world ..... but it is still nothing on the level as a In house Problem ....... look at it is a very simple light ( I know this doesnt do justice but ) a man beats his wife , in alot of cases the battered wife will defend her husband , when the law shows up ...... a nieghbor goes and beats the hell out of another nieghbor , the beat up nieghbor wants to press charges ..... and even the aggresors family understands that the law must react ....

[Montaq]

ahh i have been waiting for someone to bring that up ..... 2 different cases ... Germany and Japan were invading forces , we literaly destroyed 2 Japaneese citys , to get Japan to surrender ... Not all germans were die hard Nazi's , and not to mention we had plenty of help from the world ..... but it is still nothing on the level as a In house Problem ....... look at it is a very simple light ( I know this doesnt do justice but ) a man beats his wife , in alot of cases the battered wife will defend her husband , when the law shows up ...... a nieghbor goes and beats the hell out of another nieghbor , the beat up nieghbor wants to press charges ..... and even the aggresors family understands that the law must react ....

Different circumstances but still nation building. ???

[clarker]

ahh i have been waiting for someone to bring that up ..... 2 different cases ... Germany and Japan were invading forces , we literaly destroyed 2 Japaneese citys , to get Japan to surrender ... Not all germans were die hard Nazi's , and not to mention we had plenty of help from the world ..... but it is still nothing on the level as a In house Problem ....... look at it is a very simple light ( I know this doesnt do justice but ) a man beats his wife , in alot of cases the battered wife will defend her husband , when the law shows up ...... a nieghbor goes and beats the hell out of another nieghbor , the beat up nieghbor wants to press charges ..... and even the aggresors family understands that the law must react ....Not all Iraqis trying to kill American troops all day. I am not saying that most of them are not pleased we are there, just most of them are killing our troops over it.

And we did encounter alot of the same problems in the post war effort to rebuild Germany and Japan. I'll admit we went to war for different reasons, but the same problems we have in Iraq now, are ones we had in post WWII.

I'm not trying to compare why we went to war, just that we did in fact rebuild two nations. So to say it can't be done is a reach. Is it easy? No.

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Different circumstances but still nation building. ???
Nation Building done by the world ...Even Russia was involved with Germany .... the 2 bombs we dropped pretty well took care of Japan ..... and did it work ? I dont know there are the Neo Nazi's ...... time will tell though

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Not all Iraqis trying to kill American troops all day. I am not saying that most of them are not pleased we are there, just most of them are killing our troops over it.

And we did encounter alot of the same problems in the post war effort to rebuild Germany and Japan. I'll admit we went to war for different reasons, but the same problems we have in Iraq now, are ones we had in post WWII.

I'm not trying to compare why we went to war, just that we did in fact rebuild two nations. So to say it can't be done is a reach. Is it easy? No.
I see what you are trying to say , But has it worked ? I would say Japan for sure , But Germany ?

[clarker]

I see what you are trying to say , But has it worked ? I would say Japan for sure , But Germany ?Did they turn out as on top of things as Japan, no, but I think Germany is fairly functioning country.

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Did they turn out as on top of things as Japan, no, but I think Germany is fairly functioning country.
That they are , But it took Russia , and Nato , and lets face it , we still cant pull out of Germany ......

[clarker]

That they are , But it took Russia , and Nato , and lets face it , we still cant pull out of Germany ......I think we can't pull out of Germany, because Putin(sp?) is a scary prick, not that we didn't build a working nation.

This might be a stupid question, but is Germany even allowed to have a military. I know that after WWII they were not, but maybe that has changed.

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I think we can't pull out of Germany, because Putin(sp?) is a scary prick, not that we didn't build a working nation.

This might be a stupid question, but is Germany even allowed to have a military. I know that after WWII they were not, but maybe that has changed.
Nope Grmany cant ..... it has nothing to do with Putin , alot of people will tell you they still dont trust Germany . a free untied Germany with no oversite ,cause some moaning and groaning .......

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Nope Grmany cant ..... it has nothing to do with Putin , alot of people will tell you they still dont trust Germany . a free untied Germany with no oversite ,cause some moaning and groaning .......I wonder why? Hilarious!

[Pat Bowlen]

The thing that I like about Savage is that he does seem to be saying what he really thinks, regardless of anybody else's opinion.

The thing that I don't like about Savage is that he is a bigot, and an insane one at that.

[Rausch]

The thing that I don't like about Savage is that he is a bigot, and an insane one at that.

Savage is just like Pat Buchanan, he's so ****ing stupid you have to laugh at the $#it he says...

[Montaq]

The thing that I like about Savage is that he does seem to be saying what he really thinks, regardless of anybody else's opinion.

The thing that I don't like about Savage is that he is a bigot, and an insane one at that.


Agreed.

I would listen to Savage over Rush any day. I may not agree with most or any of the things that he says, but at least he's not a mouth piece for the GOP.

That being said, he's a gigantic asshole. ;D