No losers? 

No losers?

What are we to make of this Michael Savage brouhaha? Is it possible that anybody didn't see this coming? Is it possible that MSNBC somehow didn't anticipate this happening? I don't think so. I think they anticipated, maybe even hoped for something like this all along. And it's worked out well for them.

They hired Savage back in March, at the same time they were firing Phil Donahue. War fever was in the air, and MSNBC wanted to position itself with the "patriots." Savage was their man. They got a lot of ink, most negative, but ink nonetheless, free advertising for what was then and remains now a minor cable network. Savage's ratings never caught fire, drawing just a fraction of his radio audience.

You get the feeling that with a show that was essentially a flop on their hands, the network suits were just waiting for Savage to do what he did. They had to know it was coming. He says similar things and worse on his radio show all the time. He says worse things to his staff, on the air, than he did to the caller.

So the network, at the first chance, fired him. And they come out looking good, because they showed that they are sensitive to the wishes of groups like GLAAD. From a business standpoint they win because they dumped a loser of a show. GLAAD and the other actvist groups that nattered for Savage's removal come out feeling like winners because Savage is off the air and they think they can take credit for it. The caller that Savage cut lose on? He was a publicity hound. He struck gold. And Savage? Let's face it, he never belonged on TV in the first place. He has a uniquely untelegenic face; he was lucky to ever have had a TV show in the first place. He is a con man pretending to be a right wing wacko who has extended his fifteen minutes of fame far longer than he had any right to expect he could. Every day he still has a job is a good day for him.