The Savage Lamb Bout

In one corner we have Michael Savage, in the other corner, Brian Lamb.

Michael Savage:
I had never heard of Savage until maybe, 6 months ago. I listen to his radio show some. I am unable to get the show here in the shoddy trailer park but I can get it in the car. On his website he is described as a conservative who is…

Trained as a scientist, he holds Masterâ€™s degrees in medical botany and medical anthropology and earned his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in Epidemiology and Nutritional Science. He spent decades searching and saving tropical rainforests.

So, he’s not a dumb guy. Actually when he talks about science, it’s some of the most interesting stuff he does. He does a lot of “this country is going to hell in a hand basket” type of bombastic rants also. This stuff is pretty entertaining, to me, but in small doses. I love a good rant but after a few minutes, I’ll switch to something else, kind of like death metal. The last time I tuned in, Savage was going on about some speech that C-Span refused to air and I switched to a ballgame or something.

Brian Lamb:
Lamb is the ramrod of C-Span. He founded it and it’s his show. He’s not a dumb guy either. Through the years, I have heard people say that the network is too conservatively biased and others think it’s to liberal. I have watched C-Span through the years but I’ve never been a big fan. I like the sessions of congress and every once in a while I’ll watch some speech they show. Late at night sometimes I’ve watched sessions from the British Parliament. That’s a hoot.

But, for the most part, C-Span irritates me because it’s production is so poor. Crappy video, crappy sound and even the more traditional T.V. shows like that book thing Brian Lamb does have crappy lighting and sets. Stuff like that bugs me.

So, I’m not really on the bandwagon for either side. This morning, I saw this video from liveleak.com, you’ve got to see this.

What! Did I just hear Brian Lamb say “ass loser communists”? And, “Have a nice day dickhead!”

So, Savage says he’s being censored and Lamb says this (from politico.com).

â€œAnd the decision to not carry the speech was made by our programming department, our vice president of programming, Terry Murphy, and the reason was that Mr. Savage does not appear in person. He sent a DVD of an 11-minute speech, and we have offered him, in lieu of that, an opportunity to cover a speech he might make — the same speech, if he wants to — if he gives it before an audience out there in the Bay Area where his program operates.”

This is a response from one of Savage’s people. Savage is on vacation and can’t be reached.

C-Span lies when they say they offered to show the speech if Savage would present it in a theater. No such offer was ever received by Michael Savage. Moreover they lie when they say they never run a speech presented on a DVD. Numerous such speeches at events have been broadcast by little man Lamb.

Lamb is evidently pretty torqued because he has been inundated with response’s from the fan’s of Mr. Savage. This is the funny part; more from Lamb.

“We are not a taxpayer organization,” said Lamb. “We have told our audience that many, many times. We get no federal funds, state funds, local funds. We get our money from you. You give us a nickel a month when you pay your bills, and that’s how we operate here.”

Evidently, all of the Savage heads think that C-Span is a government funded operation and are calling for that funding to be stopped. You know what, until a conversation with a friend a few months back, I always thought C-Span was Government funded. I always assumed that because it looks so crappy. Nothing against Government workers, but C-Span doesn’t look like it’s put together by T.V. people.

I think they are doing that on purpose. Think about this, the network is supported by the entire cable industry and it’s on every basic cable package. So, if every cable subscriber is paying a nickel a month, that’s a lot of damn money. It shouldn’t look like it was put together by a postal worker or former Smithsonian security guard.

So, the bottom line is Savage is drumming up controversy because it doesn’t much matter if the speech get’s shown on a network that hardly anyone watches. He’ll get more mileage out of it this way. Lamb can allow/disallow anything he wants, C-Span is his show. He ought to take some of those nickels and dress up the place maybe people would watch.