In the heat of any argument, people often say stupid, emotional, cruel things they don’t really mean (kids to parents, wife to husband, etc.), but in a TV news interview, to boldly state a violent decree that far exceeds “the crime” supposedly committed, as Penn did, a disturbing statement that shows some forethought and preparation, bothers me much more. I’m not defending Savage, just don’t know all the facts behind what he said and why he said it.

Penn’s blood-death-underwear comments against our then-president in the Colbert video go beyond “crude” or simple bad taste and enter a sicko-psycho realm – just my opinion. Penn’s rectal cancer-prison-die-painful-death comment on CBS News was in his defense of Hugo Chavez, a known tyrant, a dictator, against anyone who simply calls him a dictator. Over the top is an understatement. Chavez is a despot who also relishes silencing dissent. In context, Penn troubles me more – Savage isn’t off the hook, but I don’t know the full story.

However, how is this different from the “Savage Wiener’s” classic “you should catch AIDS and die…” and a thousand other hate and/or invective laced comments so common to his style?

Ironically it is Savage who is fast becoming known as “the rectum of talk radio.”