The skies above are clear again
So let’s sing a song of cheer again
Happy days are here again — Jack Yellen & Milton Alger
Our long national nightmare is over. Thanks to the discussion board at Angels from Another Pin, I’ve just learned that Michael Savage has been fired. This, I’m sure, comes as a great blow to the five or six people watching his show every week (it helps to have a big family, don’t it, Mike?). The rest of us can just be happy that MSNBC finally came to its senses, or at least realized what most everyone else knew from the get-go: putting Savage on the air was a mistake.
I really do go out of my way to avoid cable news programs, but Savage’s presence on MSNBC has always pissed me off. As I wrote in my comments on a Salon profile back in March, “Savage is just a hate-mongering nutjob. The Salon article is interesting in that it suggests this is just the latest in a string of personas, a guise adopted by a man who wants to be noticed at all costs (and spewing hate and inane rhetoric is as good a way as any). But it’s a guise that has no business on national television.” On the rare occasion I’ve stumbled upon his program, however, what struck me most was not the hate and rhetoric but the ineptitude with which Savage spewed it. Say what you will about Bill O’Reilly (and I’ve said more than I’ve ever wanted to here), the man at least knows how to entertain his target audience. Michael Savage wasn’t just a nutjob; he was a boring nutjob. It’s genuinely nice to see him gone.