As NewsBusters previously reported, sex advice columnist Dan Savage on HBO's "Real Time" Friday said he wanted to perform violent hate sex on Rick Santorum.
On Monday, the former Pennsylvania Senator responded on WOR radio's Steve Malzberg show (video follows with transcript and commentary):
STEVE MALZBERG, HOST: What’s your reaction to this filth?
RICK SANTORUM: It’s just that. It’s filth. It’s, you know, this man has, has gone out there and tried to destroy my integrity. I mean, you’ve heard the whole issue of the Google issue. That’s Dan Savage. You know, it’s, it’s the lowest, you know, debasement of public discourse. It’s, it’s offensive beyond, you know, anything that any public figure or anybody in America should tolerate, and the mainstream media laughs about it. They, they, they kid about it. They write about it. They say, “Oh, Santorum’s got a Google problem.”
For those unfamiliar, Savage initiated a campaign in 2003 to associate Santorum's name with a sexual act. As the gay activist alluded to on "Real Time" Friday, a santorum in perverted parlance now despicably refers to "the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex."
That's the kind of animal Savage is. Let's continue:
SANTORUM: And then when you see this kind of even over the top, you know, not even, beyond that, the Google is worse than, than what he said there. They, they laugh about that, too. Why? Because it’s a liberal beating up on a conservative. And that’s okay. Whether it’s Rick Santorum or Michele Bachmann, it’s the Left making fun of someone who believes in the values that built America. It believes in traditional marriage. How outrageous. How bigoted. How hateful that you actually believe that, that, you know, raising children and, and, and families with mothers and fathers is something to be encouraged. That you’re, that, that, just because you hold those opinions, you are subject to the worst form of, of, of, of vulgarity on the internet, on television, and everywhere else, and they get away with, not only do they get away with the mainstream media, but they are applauded by the mainstream media. They are made, they are celebrated by, as you mentioned, in New York, by taking on these, these people who believe in these outmoded virtues, and, the bottom line is I stand and I wear it as a badge of honor that someone as vulgar and as, and as disgusting and as hate-filled as Dan Savage sees me as public enemy number one. To me, that tells me I must be doing something right.
MALZBERG: Well, listen, God bless you, and you know you have friends here, and this man, again, I, I, I would like to see the organizers of the Gay Pride Parade to denounce him.
Readers are advised that the man saying this vile stuff on national television - who also said he wished Republicans "were all f--king dead" - was the Grand Marshall of last month's Gay Pride Parade in New York City.
They should be so proud. But I again digress:
After saying goodbye to his guest, Malzberg gave his own opinion on this issue (audio available here, relevant section at 10:00):
MALZBERG: I mean, when I saw that, and I saw that on, on, on NewsBusters.org. I mean, I don’t watch - I don’t even have HBO. I wouldn’t give these people a dime. I stopped subscribing to HBO when they ran that series. It was after the Sopranos. It was after Curb Your Enthusiasm. It was, and it was, well, I think, I guess Curb is still on, but, it was when they made that military series about us fighting in the War, and it turned my stomach. I said, “That’s it – no more HBO.” So I dumped HBO, and boy oh boy, am I glad I did. To pay Bill Maher’s salary? How does he get away with this? How does the media allow this? How? I mean, to say that they, to have a show. To me, this is worse than what he got canned on ABC for saying when he reportedly got canned for saying that, as we played the other day, that our, it’s cowardly for us to lob rockets out of planes, but it’s not cowardly, and I’m paraphrasing, for the terrorists to stay on the plane. In other words, our troops are cowards but the terrorists were brave. That’s how I interpreted it. And he got canned.
This, making jokes about having someone, I don’t know. It’s, and then the attack on Santorum. Can you imagine a conservative attacking a liberal presidential candidate in that manner? I’d like to blank the blank out of him. Are you kidding me? But, Santorum has it read properly. He’s right on target. This is, this is what they do, and the people who run the Gay Pride Parade, and anybody who participated in the Gay Pride Parade in New York City, if they don’t come out and denounce this in my view animal, Dan Savage, then they approve of him, and there’s no difference between them.
As KSFO's Brian Sussman told me Monday morning, if he or any conservative radio host made this kind of a comment about any liberal, he not only would be immediately fired, it would be the end of his career.
But so-called comedian Marc Maron and Savage can make such vile comments about conservative presidential candidates on national television, and neither them nor anyone associated with the show got admonished in any way.
Exactly how did we get here as a nation where such invective is accepted and applauded by one side of the media while meeting with the harshest consequences on the other?
As I wrote in my reports about Friday's "Real Time," it may have contained the most vile political discussions ever aired on national television.
Given the absence of announcements by HBO addressing what occurred on their program, it appears the powers that be at the cable network are just fine with this kind of discourse being aired by them.
Makes you wonder how much worse it's going to get before they step in and stop it - or is there no such point?
