HANG 'EM HIGH

MICHAEL SAVAGE


Right wing radio host Michael Savage was at it again, this time calling former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright a traitor who should be hung. From his Monday radio show (via Media Matters):

In my opinion, [Albright] should be tried for treason, and when she's found guilty, she should be hung. And when she is hung, maybe the other quislings in our government will get the message that we're going to crack down on them, and that our safety and the safety our children mean something to us.

Wow, that's quite a mouthful there. In the context of what he's saying here, I think he feels that Albright's and, by extension, the Clinton administration's efforts at diplomacy with North Korea's Kim Jong Il, were nothing short of a treasonous offense. And this has been parroted over the last few days as news of NK's nuclear test has been disseminated. See, to the nutjobs on the Right, we must never attempt any sort of diplomatic exchange with those we deem to be unacceptable world leaders. And as Glenn Greenwald pointed out in a great post on Tuesday, when one eliminates negotiation from the table, that basically leaves only two options - endless war or doing nothing.

If we remove [negotiation] from the list -- as Bush followers want to do in almost every case and as the administration repeatedly does -- it means that only [war] and [do nothing] remain. And where [war] is not viable -- as is the case with the U.S. vis-a-vis North Korea (mostly because we already chose [war] with two other countries and are threatening to do so with a third) -- then the only option left is (3) -- do nothing. That is exactly what we have done while North Korea became a nuclear-armed power, and we did nothing because we operated from Rubin's premise that diplomacy and negotiations are essentially worthless, which left us with no other options.

So, getting back to Savage, I'm certain that he'd like nothing better than to nuke NK back into the stone age, regardless of the sociopolitical consequences of such actions. Of course, given all that Savage has said through the years, one would be a fool to expect him to give deep and well thought out opinions. The guy knows his audience and these people wouldn't understand nuanced foreign policy anymore than I understand why it's important in electing a president that he's the kind of guy you'd want to have a beer with.

Of course, I'm sure that I'm not the only one who chuckled a little bit as he ranted about protecting our children since his side of the aisle seems to be more interested in blaming Democrats than protecting children from sexual predators like Mark Foley. I also shuddered a little over his bit of eliminationist rhetoric, as he claimed that by hanging Albright it will have something of a chilling effect on "quislings" - read: anyone who thinks diplomacy is a viable foreign policy tool.

One other thing I've noticed - did Savage's mommy not give him enough love as a child because he sure has quite a misogynistic streak going on. As I noted in a prior post, Savage believes that Congress was a much nicer place before all those damnable womenfolk went and got elected. Now he's calling for for Albright to be hanged (this after calling her a monster in a dress and a hag back in November of '04). Seriously, I think the guy's got mommy issues.