Michael Savage, towel-snapper

From the Daily Hampshire Gazette's editorial "Who's listening to this All-American jerk?":

I was flipping around the radio dial one afternoon when I heard a familiar voice.
The last time I heard that voice was to the accompaniment of a leering grin and towels snapping in a locker room.

"Gotcha!" the voice had been saying. Snap! "Gotcha good, didn't I, queer?" Snap! "That'll teach you to mess with Mike."

Mike was the terror of my high school locker room. Snapping towels at young boys' private parts. Getting freshmen in a headlock and rubbing their faces in his armpits. Calling all the boys "queers!" and "wimps!" He was a class act then. Now he's the voice of America.

". . . another thing these limousine liberals who are perverting America want you to believe," he was telling his talk radio audience...

Strangely enough, "Mike's" last name is not given. Yet, "Mike" is identified as having "millions of listeners nationwide" and we're told that "his book is a best seller." It certainly sounds like Savage, doesn't it? Who else could it be? So, unless the author is non-wimpy enough to come right out and say who he's referring to, let's assume he's referring to Savage.

And, let's look at this article a bit closer:

There he was revving his Camaro and screeching past some VW, shouting "queer!" When would he grow up? Thank God we'd never have to see him again after high school.

So, the author went to high school with Savage, and Savage drove a Camaro in high school.

But, let's do the math. According to this article, Savage is 60, meaning that he would have been about 18 in 1961.

The Camaro was introduced in 1966.

The editorial is, of course, intentionally obscure regarding "Mike's" identity. Yet, it's pretty obviously that he intends it to be Savage. So, was he confused about the make of the car? How many high schoolers in 1961 in The Bronx drove cars anyway?

Maybe the "Mike" referred to by the article and Savage are not the same, and the author is just trying to say they're mentally and emotionally the same. Perhaps this is a leftie-smear-by-characterization. But, that can't be, can it:

People tune in to hear him rant about liberals and "wimps" and immigrants...

As far as I know, Savage is not opposed to legal immigration, just the illegal kind. But, as I've pointed out many times before, that appears to be an easy mistake for a "liberal" to make.

So, who is this "Mike?" A fictional character? Or, more likely, this is just a "factual account," leftie-style.

Politics · Wed, 06/11/2003 - 18:16 · · Importance: 1