Radio host Savage always up for a fight

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By Jennifer Harper

The battle rages.

Shouts, warnings, directives, threats, a stray explosion or two. There's sudden silence, eloquent commentary, a plaintive oath — then a fierce laugh born of old New York. It is tough and merry, both wise and wise guy.

Batten down the hatches. Duck and cover. Michael Savage is on the airwaves, delivering his rapid-fire message over 400 radio stations, three hours a day, five days a week. He has fought the good fight for 15 years, flanked by his 10 million weekly listeners who now consider themselves the "Savage Nation."

Savage Battalion, more like.

They rally behind the laserlike takes on immigration, white males, cheeky liberals, wimpy conservatives, media bias, cultural wars, porous borders, Iraq, Afghanistan, terrorism, same-sex marriage, corrupt Hollywood, junk science, big medicine, big government, scurrilous officials. Mr. Savage is generous with personal memories. He pouts. He is giddy.

The loyal audience steps to the Savage drumbeat, they salute a man who is often at the center of a lawsuit, a boycott or public outrage.

"I do it because I do it. I speak, therefore I am," Mr. Savage says.

And that is it, the whole battle plan.

"People come to me because they know I will tell them the truth. The price is that you give your heart and soul every day. Every day. And in order to get there, you get thrown in the cauldron," he continues. "And a man emerges from that cauldron, and he is case hardened."

Mr. Savage has been in many, many cauldrons over the years.