I sometimes listen to Michael Savage. He’s appealing, in a cab-driver-crossed-with-roadkill-carcass-who-talks-politics kind of way. His opinions are dreadful, of course. But that’s part of the appeal. You listen, hear something outlandish, and think, “Jesus. I can’t believe he just said that.” It’s also fun to listen to him spasm over Arabs, civil rights leaders, drug legalizers, Mexicans, feminists, and the rest of the “vermin” he believes ought to be exterminated from polite society. It’s fun to see what he comes up wtih when he runs out of hyperbole.

And every now and then, the avowed warmonger, gay-hater, and defender of “language, borders, and culture” will surprise you. Yesterday, for example, he announced how much he loves flowers, and that he was delighted that the orchids he’s raising in his bathroom (!) finally bloomed. They were lovely, he said.

But that’s nothing. A couple of weeks ago, the Hollywood-hating, morals-embracing, celebrity-shunning Savage was postively starstruck. Smitten, even. The object of his affection? None other than Paris Hilton.

No kidding. Savage — I swear I’m not making this up — called Hilton “a classy gal,” and commended her on “what she’s doing for herself, for her career.” If memory serves, he even said at one point that she “really has her act together.”

What caused Savage’s on-air fawning? Apparently, he, his wife, and his son had run into Hilton and her parents at a San Francisco restaurant. His son (described by Savage as “a very handsome man”) approached Hilton and began a conversation with her, at which point Savage and his wife joined in. Paris’ mom apparently complemented Savage’s wife, which Savage found “real classy.”

The radio host apparently walked away from the whole experience floored by Paris’ “beauty” and “charm.”

Hilarious. Anyway, I was looking for the transcript of the show so I could excerpt for you. No luck. But I did come across an odd exchange on CNN’s Crossfire, in which James Carville says the following to Tucker Carlson:

“[Michael Savage] is the hero — he, William F. Buckley, and Ayn Rand are the godfathers of your all’s [sic] intellectual tradition.”

I know Rand wasn’t the prettiest thing in the world, but calling her a “godfather” seems awfully harsh. And I’m still trying to think of what political philosophy Carlson could possibly subscribe to that would claim Buckley, Rand, and Savage as forbears.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 14th, 2004 at 7:31 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.