The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

Last night, I tuned in to Neal Boortz again, in hopes of getting some blogging fodder. And Boortz did not disappoint.

In one segment of the show, he devoted some time to one of his favorite pastimes: ragging on Hillary Clinton. The point of that day's rant against Clinton, whom Boortz has dubbed "the Hildebeast", was to inform his listeners that she wasn't a very nice person but was, in fact, downright mean and elitist. To illustrate his point, he referenced comments made by law enforcement officers who had guarded the Clintons when Bill was first running in 1992. Boortz told of when the Clintons had attended some sort of charity barbeque that while Bill waded in to meet the recipients of said charity, Hillary had shrunk back, demanding that the security men keep her away from "those people".

I don't know any more about Hillary Clinton than what I read in the media, so I could not say whether or not she's the warm 'n cuddly type, a barracuda, or something in between. But for the point of this entry, that is neither here nor there.

The point of this entry is that, in light of the other topics he spoke about in the same broadcast, and of some I've heard in the past, Boortz is hardly in a position to point the finger at others for being misanthropic and/or elitist.

Earlier in the broadcast, he sneered at a listener's email request to mention musician Dan Fogelberg's death on the broadcast. He said something to the effect that lots of people die in the same way Fogelberg did and that he should just get over it. He added that he didn't see why he should make any mention of it and did the caller want him to memorialize all the other people who had died that day as well, but who just didn't happen to be famous?

What a fucking ass. I don't think that Boortz had to mention Fogelberg's death on the air if he didn't find it appropriate, but was it necessary to jeer at the caller's request on the air? Wouldn't it have been better to have simply emailed the person back and politely decline the request? Even though the musician's death wasn't more "important" than the death of all the unfamous people who died that day, could he not have treated the request respectfully?

Later in the same broadcast, Boortz was lamenting the decline of broadcast journalism, which is a valid enough point on its own. But the manner in which he chose to express his view on the topic showed his inherent elitism loud and clear. He mentioned reports of apartment fires as an example of a non-newsworthy story. Boortz opined that no one gives a shit about the loss of an apartment complex because nothing important was lost, "just stereo systems, futon beds," and the like, which was a not-so-subtle dig at those of us who cannot afford a McMansion in a gated community and must live in apartments.

Is Hillary Clinton misanthropic and elitist? Maybe, maybe not. But I know damn sure that Boortz is both of these things, and that people in glass houses ought not to throw stones.

Thoughts?