Why would Dennis Leary say such cruel things about autistic children?

I'm sure that your (and everyone else's) understanding of what he actually wrote is limited, since his book isn't being released until November 18th. He's defended himself by saying that what's being printed by some media publications is being taken out of context, which may be true or not. I think we'll all just have to wait to read the text for ourselves rather than taking a few blurbs selected for pre-release promotion as the meaning of what he's trying to say. One can't truly gain perspective on the meaning of something, when we haven't had access to the entire content. From what he's saying (according to the article below), he doesn't feel that autism is a made-up condition and supports the current means of diagnosis and treatment. As to what he meant by his statements and who they we're made about, requires more information to make that judgement.