Love -- or an acceptably heterosexual version of it -- filled the air as Savage drove onto the stage in a classic red Cadillac convertible. He warmed up the audience by riffing on the day's news, joking that "Shiite" should be spelled with one "I" and calling Muqtada al-Sadr "a fat bastard in a burka." Dressed in a calfskin jacket, slouch hat and blue jeans, Savage was at ease, swearing freely and peppering his speech with "Hey, mans" that evoked his days as a North Beach beatnik wannabe. Whatever was in his coffee cup was certainly helping. When it ran dry, he called out, "I need a drink!" and a young woman sauntered over and poured champagne into the mug.

Like everyone else these days, Savage was fixated on Iraq and the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal. He managed to combine the two dominant conservative takes: The first being Rush Limbaugh's insistence that what happened in Abu Ghraib was a harmless prank; the other being Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe's assertion that the prisoners got what they deserved.

"These are tough interrogations?" Savage asked. "My father put me through tougher interrogations when I was 16!" He portrayed now-infamous Abu Ghraib prison guard Lynndie England as a poster girl for the war on terrorism -- an embodiment of the idea that kicking Muslim ass can be fun. "Let's hear it for Laurie [sic] England!" he cheered. "The leash chick! Hey man, she had a great time over there!" He couldn't understand why liberals were so outraged. After all, he said, the acts of sexual humiliation and degradation that took place in Abu Ghraib were no more perverted than typical homosexual behavior. Try to follow his tortured logic: Savage was saying he didn't mind the Abu Ghraib abuses because they were good clean fun, like gay sex, which he openly abhors.

Savage moved on to another of his favorite topics: bombing the bejeezus out of Iraq. Just a few days before the Uncensored event, he'd been ranting on the radio about dropping fiery death on civilians throughout Iraq and the Middle East. "I don't give a damn if they hide behind their women's skirts," he foamed. "Wipe the women out with them! Because it's our women who got killed on 9/11! And it's our women who are gonna get killed tomorrow unless we get rid of the bugs who are destroying us!" Tonight, Savage continued to elaborate on this disturbing vision of how to win the war in Iraq. He said he fantasized of being woken up by the sound of B-1 and B-52 bombers flying over his house on their way to the Middle East. Imagining bombers overhead at 4 a.m., he gushed about these nocturnal missions, "It's better than an orgasm -- it is an orgasm!"

Savage continued the psychological striptease, peeling off more layers of mainstream conservatism to expose his raging right-wing id. Though he has long billed himself as the original "compassionate conservative," his brand of conservatism does not share George W. Bush's pretense of caring about Muslim hearts and minds, much less lives. It appears that for Savage, the war in Iraq has nothing to do with spreading democracy or respecting human rights. It is about asserting American power by any means necessary, and screw what anyone else thinks. Predictably, and sadly, this notion went over well with the audience. When Savage blurted out, "Does anyone in this crowd give a shit about the Iraqis?" he was answered with a deafening "NO!"

But if the first half of the event showcased Savage's ability to stir the faithful, the second half was an object lesson in how a performer can take his audience -- and his talent -- for granted. Basically, he bombed. He spent nearly 20 minutes sitting in a stuffed chair in front of a television set, free-associating as he channel surfed. Seeing footage of Jordan's King Abdullah, he screamed, "Kiss my ass! Shut the hell up!" To a soccer match in Spanish, he quipped, "Reminds me of my gardener." It was about as entertaining as watching a middle-aged man yelling at his living room TV. Savage eventually realized things weren't going well. "You don't like this shit," he said. "It's a bad act."

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