On his nationally syndicated radio show yesterday, ultramegaconservative Michael Savage had this to say about children with autism.

Now, you want me to tell you my opinion on autism, since I'm not talking about autism? A fraud, a racket. For a long while, we were hearing that every minority child had asthma. Why did they sudden -- why was there an asthma epidemic amongst minority children? Because I'll tell you why: The children got extra welfare if they were disabled, and they got extra help in school. It was a money racket. Everyone went in and was told [fake cough], "When the nurse looks at you, you go [fake cough], 'I don't know, the dust got me.' " See, everyone had asthma from the minority community. That was number one.

Now, the illness du jour is autism. You know what autism is? I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is.

What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, "Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot."

Autism -- everybody has an illness. If I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, "Don't behave like a fool." The worst thing he said -- "Don't behave like a fool. Don't be anybody's dummy. Don't sound like an idiot. Don't act like a girl. Don't cry." That's what I was raised with. That's what you should raise your children with. Stop with the sensitivity training. You're turning your son into a girl, and you're turning your nation into a nation of losers and beaten men. That's why we have the politicians we have.  [via <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200807170005">Media Matters</a>. emphasis ours.]

Now, this is Michael Savage we're talking about here, so it's not exactly surprising that he would make such racist, misogynist, offensive, ignorant and ridiculous comments.  Although, that's part of the problem too, because people are more likely to brush this off as 'Savage being Savage' rather than taking action to make sure there are consequences.

So nice to know that in Michael Savage World:

~Only children of single mothers can get autism.

~Only boys get autism.

~It doesn’t matter that girls don’t get autism, since simply being a girl is a horrible affliction that should be avoided at all costs.

Obviously most of the focus of the reaction to these comments has been on the "autism is a fraud" portion.  But it's also interesting to read into the comments and see that Savage essentially views 'being a girl' as a disorder.

Comments like these really make us wonder if there's anything Savage could say that would get him fired.

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