Anger Over Michael Savage?

The Weekly World News, in my opinion, is America’s best supermarket tabloid. While the others rely on celebrity gossip, WWN adds more bizarre stories about space aliens, devil worshippers and human oddities. Over the years, they have featured a hilarious political column by a writer using the pen name Ed Anger. Ed’s column was titled “My America,” and it was clearly inspired by Archie Bunker.

In the 1980s when I began reading the WWN, Ed Anger first appeared, following a predictable format. His would jump right in to his subject, explaining that some event or person had got him mad. He described how mad he was in a colorful, yet rube-like way, for example: “I’m madder than a LaToya Jackson in a talent contest.” When he was angriest, he would declare himself “pig biting mad.“ Then he would detail the outrage that upset him and how it impacted his family. Some of his recent column titles include:

America Should Be a Bad Ass Cowboy
Molesters Should be Butchered Like Hogs
Put the Gipper’s face on the $100 bill

In 1996 he published a book titled, “Let’s Pave the Stupid Rainforests & Give School Teachers Stun Guns.” It featured those two classic essays plus:

Fry Death Row Creeps in Electric Bleachers
Keep World Cup Soccer out of the US
Let’s Drop an A-Bomb on France

Ed Anger was a hilarious send-up of the far right. It is funny, not because it’s true, but because it represents the perception of middle America that the extremist liberals on the coasts have. They think we are ignorant hicks, racists, and thugs who believe might makes right. They see no difference between mainstream Christianity and radical Islam. When exposed via an Ed Anger parody the results are often hilarious.

Recently, some friends and I engaged in an e-mail string about talk show host Michael Savage. Some suggested that Savage was dangerous to the conservative cause, as ignorant people that are his fans have come to be true believers in his cult of personality. Maybe this is true. I’d prefer to think that people listen to him for the same reason they read Ed Anger. To me Savage’s rants are no different than this beauty of Ed‘s:

Well, folks, I say it's high time for Uncle Sam to proudly tell the world he is a cowboy. A bad- ass cowboy who's not afraid to shoot first and ask questions afterward is exactly what the world needs right now to get rid of tough hombres like Saddam and all those murdering terrorist thugs. Let's come right out and say there's a new sheriff in town, buckaroos. And I'm not talking about a squeaky-clean lawman like the Lone Ranger who used to shoot the guns out of bad guys' hands with a silver bullet. I mean a modern-day Clint Eastwood-type cowboy who growls, "Make my day" before pumping six shots into some creep's back. Or remember Walking Tall, where that tough sheriff Buford Pusser kept moonshine-making hillbillies in line with his trusty 2 by 4?

Well, Uncle Sam oughta do the same thing -- only instead of whacking heads with a big stick, clobber sense into them with a nuclear missile. I mean it, gang. From now on, any of these fool countries step out of line, we shove the biggest nuke in our arsenal right up its old wazoo. It's no more Mr. Nice Guy. Nice guys finish last -- just ask Jimmy Carter.