Efforts by the makers of Rockstar Energy Drink to suppress the association between their company and the father of its CEO and founder, right-wing extremist radio talker Michael Savage, appear to be backfiring. Rather than stifling the company’s family connection with Savage, publicity generated by Rockstar’s aggressive legal strategy is helping to spread news that a boycott of Rockstar is underway.

Michael Savage’s real name is Michael Weiner. His son, Russell Weiner, is Rockstar’s CEO.

In the past few weeks, Rockstar’s lawyers have caused a stir by contacting online outlets that promote or report on the Rockstar boycott. They forced Facebook to shutter a boycott-oriented group and threatened to sue news sites, including Alternet, Gaywired, So Cal Voice, Change.org, Gaysocialites.com, Wiqaable.com and the gay news site, the Bilerico Project.

Charles Tsai, a would-be boycott organizer on Facebook, claims on his blog, dontdrinkhate.wordpress.com, that Rockstar lawyers forced Facebook to shut down his group, which was called “Don’t Drink Hate. BOYCOTT ROCKSTAR.” Facebook allegedly replaced the boycott group with a group called “ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK FANCLUB!”

Tsai writes that the new Rockstar fanclub page included sniping at the Weiners and their lawyers:

“Yes, this is a cave-in. It was decided it was not worth any legal repercussions to [sic] we now FULLY endorse Rockstar Energy Drink in every way! GO ROCKSTAR! YAY!”…

“Please let’s all focus on the AWESOMENESS that is ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK (as ordered by lawyers). Any past negative comments concerning ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK originatin [sic] from this group were WRONG, LIES and SLANDER! GO ROCKSTAR!”…

“Once again, we APOLOGIZE publically for any slander towards ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK and salute them as the world’s most powerful energy drink! Go Rockstar!”

According to Bil Browning, an editor at the Bilerico Project, Rockstar’s lawyers demanded that he retract statements written by guest blogger Michael Jones, an editor at Change.org, that contained mischaracterizations of Savage’s role in Rockstar:

Rockstar’s lawyer complained to me that Michael [Jones'] article contained two inaccurate sentences and that the gist of the article was “Michael Savage is a filthy creep and he has deep connections with Rockstar energy drink.” While the attorney made it perfectly clear he agreed Savage was a disgusting pig, it was unfair to the company to link Rockstar with Savage just because Michael Savage’s son, Russell Weiner, is the current CEO of RockStar.

The two sentences they specifically disputed are:

“It [Rockstar Energy Drink] was co-founded by conservative radio host Michael Savage.”

[And:]

“Michael Savage is reaping profits from the selling of Rockstar Energy Drink.”

But is it “unfair” to connect Michael Savage with Rockstar? While Savage has no public or active role in Rockstar’s operations, Rockstar is a privately held company that is controlled by two of Savage’s closest family members. Not only is his son the CEO and founder, Savage’s wife Janet Weiner, is its corporate secretary and treasurer. Rockstar and Michael Savage’s production company share both a business address and the same corporate secretary and treasurer: Janet Weiner.

In late May, Savage’s son Russell told the San Francisco Chronicle that he started the company with $50,000 of his own money and that “[it] has nothing to do with my dad. He’s not an officer….he’s not the founder or the creator.”

In an email to the Chronicle, Savage described his relationship with Rockstar this way:

“I had nothing to do with the founding or creation of Rockstar. These are my political enemies, trying to hurt me through my son,” [said Savage]. He calls it a “McCarthyesque smear campaign.”

The fact that Savage says that mischaracterizing him as a founder of Rockstar constitutes a “smear” against Rockstar suggests that he understands that his radio persona is tainted in the mainstream commercial marketplace. But focusing on who founded Rockstar is also a deflection. Whether Savage was a founder of Rockstar is irrelevant. The real question is, who controls the company now.

Is Michael Savage a stockholder in Rockstar? If not, his wife, as an officer in the company, likely is — and as such she receives a share of Rockstar profits, which, if true, means Savage is indeed “reaping profits from the selling of Rockstar Energy Drink,” albeit indirectly from his wife.

The Rockstar boycott is not the first controversy in which Savage’s rhetoric has come back to haunt him this year. In early May, the government of Great Britain officially banned Savage from entering the country. The U.K. home secretary described Savage as “someone who has fallen into the category of fomenting hatred, of such extreme views and expressing them in such a way that it is actually likely to cause inter-community tension or even violence if that person were allowed into the country.”

Savage also once told a caller into his radio show to “get AIDS and die,” and has said that the sight of gay men kissing made him “want to vomit,” that “human rights” means “someone wants to rape your son,” that “children’s minds are being raped by the homosexual mafia,” and that in 99 percent of autistic cases, “it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out.”

At Bilerico, Michael Jones reported that Russell Weiner’s political views do not fall far afield from his father’s:

• Fact #1: At a Rockstar-sponsored concert at Concord Pavillion in 2004, Russell Weiner warmed up the crowd by chanting “Who’s heterosexual and proud? If you’re not, hopefully you will be soon.”
• Fact #2: Russell Weiner co-founded the conservative Paul Revere Society (with his father). In 2006, the organization had its tax-exempt status revoked.
• Fact #3: Among the positions championed by the Paul Revere Society, and presumably by Russell Weiner? (1) Support for traditional marriage only; (2) deportation of all illegal immigrants; (3) eliminating bilingual education in all states; (4) requiring health tests for all foreign born people; (5) ending affirmative action; (6) closing off the borders; and (7) make tax cuts permanent and end class action lawsuits.

The true source of this controversy is, of course, money. Energy drinks are primarily marketed to people in their twenties and thirties — a demographic that consistently polls in favor of liberal social positions, especially gay equality. The Weiners are right to be concerned that an association between the family’s two brands — “Michael Savage” and Rockstar — could be toxic to the latter among its core consumers.

But if the Weiners’ objective was to separate their two brands in the public mind, sending highly paid lawyers out to threaten editors of liberal news sites was, at best, misguided. Reporting on the threats by Rockstar’s lawyers has drawn more attention to the Savage-Rockstar connection than anything the boycott’s promoters — who have no funding and no resources other than their online soapboxes — could have done.

So who are Rockstar’s lawyers? Charles Tsai, the former Facebook group admin, says the law firm that contacted him was Glaser, Weil, Fink, Jacobs, Howard & Shapiro, LLP. One of the partners in the firm is Robert Shapiro, who became internationally famous as a member of the “Dream Team” that defended O.J. Simpson. More recently, Shapiro co-founded LegalZoom.com and served as the company’s spokesperson in television ads.

Instead of lawyering up, a smarter — and cheaper — strategy would have been to hire a PR firm that specializes in damage control. But as this article is being prepared on June 12, editors of the website the “Truth about Rockstar Energy Drink,” are reporting today that they have been contacted by Rockstar’s lawyers:

We too have been sent letters warning us to take down our website and apologize or they will take action against us, but we’re not going anywhere. We have told no lies and the attempt that Rockstar is making to silence us will not work.

Paradoxically, the Weiners’ intimidation-by-lawsuit strategy will almost certainly produce the very outcome they seem desperate to avoid: making the Rockstar boycott a headline story and the subject of endless chatter on cable news.