I owe an apology to my readers.

As many of you might have guessed, my article two weeks ago was hastily written and only edited by other Daily Nexus staff. So, of course, what should have been a masterpiece of environmental commentary turned out to be a confusing denunciation of a popular cartoon. And while belittling beloved fictional characters such as Snoopy, Bugs Bunny and God is a personal hobby, I feel that I have a journalistic responsibility to do more than that.

Specifically, to make money – which the Nexus editors say I can’t continue to do unless I take better care with my articles.

Thus, today I will embark upon a journalistic voyage to the land of respectability. To reach this wonderful place, it is said, one must scale great cliffs of importance after finding one’s way out of the bogs of inanity. I shall rely upon my brilliant halo of purpose to turn away the icy grip of the zombies of Paper Margins and Patriotic Cheerleading that dwell therein.

Once I reach this land, I will have to win the hearts of the hostile natives, who are said to be vulnerable only to carefully crafted arguments and the infectious blankets of rhetoric. These blankets are the favorite tools of many best-selling authors, but I dare not touch them for fear that they will damage my mind as irreparably as that of pundit Michael Savage.

How can I undertake such a difficult journey with only half of my space left? Not by using unnecessary sentences.

Getting to the point, what I’d like to accomplish with this column is to spread disrespect. It’s not a nice thing to do, but healthy nonetheless. Respect for the opinion of many pundits, especially Michael Savage, will leave you with a very strange worldview.

What does this man do that makes him so unworthy of your attention?

For one, he exaggerates to the point of being ridiculous. Hence, my ridicule of him. According to the Savage Truth, not to be confused with truth, you must support state-sponsored religious monuments to like God. You must be against gay marriage in order to like your family, and you must support the current administration’s policies to like America. He actually claimed – and this is a paraphrase because I would have felt soiled had I purchased the book for reference – that liberals are against God, against family and against the country.

That leads nicely into Savage’s next mistake: the creation of imaginary enemies. Savage claims that it is the goal of liberals and the courts to disrupt God, family and country. It is common and, sadly, effective to attack a person or his motives rather than his policies. Boost this deception with some hollow but pretty language, such as “liberal media” or “politics of hate,” and you too can be a hack columnist.

But this isn’t about Michael Savage, or even conservatives; Howard Dean was playing the same game when he suggested that the Bush administration had purposely let 9/11 happen. While possible, it is improbable and therefore misleading to focus upon.

Most of the opinion articles out there are manipulative, intentionally or not, and there is only one way to protect yourself. That, of course, is to listen to me.

But just this one time. From then on, harden yourself to name calling and fear-mongering. Listen to reason alone, lest you fall victim to madness – or worse yet, conservatism.

Fear-mongering, whore-mongering, chinchilla-mongering…. Daily Nexus columnist Loren Williams has hardened himself to all these vices.