Herman Cain to replace retiring Neal Boortz on radio

[BrainGlutton]

You can’t make this shit up.

ATLANTA (AP) — Conservative talk radio host Neal Boortz announced his retirement Monday after four decades at the microphone, saying he will be replaced by former GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain.

Boortz said during his morning talk show that his last day will be Jan. 21, 2013, the day of the presidential inauguration. The 67-year-old Boortz said he is in good health and plans to enjoy retirement by traveling with his wife.

“This has been a stress-free job for me. It’s just been a total and absolutely joy,” he said. “I’m going to miss everything associated with doing a talk radio show.”

Boortz’s show is syndicated across the country through Atlanta’s WSB radio, drawing about 6 million listeners on 230 radio stations.

Cain, a 66-year-old Atlanta businessman and former WSB radio show host, dropped out of the presidential race in December after allegations arose of sexual improprieties, which he denied. He will take over Boortz’ timeslot and be distributed to the same radio stations.

“We tell people the cold, hard truth and the facts,” Cain told Boortz during his show Monday. “I want to continue to express my views and help educate people about what’s going on in this country. It’s like you say: the dumb masses are ruining this country.”

[Robot_Arm]

Will he only be on 99.9 FM?

[VinylTurnip]

What’s unusual about it? Cain used to have his own radio show on the same network.

[BrainGlutton]

@VinylTurnip

What’s unusual about it? Cain used to have his own radio show on the same network.

Well, Ben Adler of The Nation thinks it’s funny.

It is ironic that Boortz has chosen an African-American successor, given that he has a long history of overt professional racism. Before he got into broadcasting Boortz worked as a speechwriter for Georgia Governor Lester Maddox, an ardent segregationist. Maddox first gained political prominence by chasing African-American would-be patrons out of his restaurant with a handgun. In 1976 Maddox challenged his nemesis Jimmy Carter for the presidency by running on George Wallace’s former American Independence Party line. Time called Maddox a “strident racist.”

On his Atlanta-based radio show Boortz has frequently indulged in vulgar race baiting. In a 2009 disquisition that would have made Maddox proud, Boortz called for removing the voting rights of certain recipients of government aid. “Everybody still living in a hotel or a trailer after Hurricane Katrina: no votes,” he declared. “Can’t vote again ever, ever. Nobody living in Section 8 housing should be allowed to vote.” Boortz seems to harbor a particularly strong antipathy for Katrina victims. As Media Matters reports, in 2008, “Boortz made disparaging remarks about Hurricane Katrina victims, stating, ‘When these Katrina so-called refugees were scattered about the country, it was just a glorified episode of putting out the garbage.’ Boortz also described New Orleans as ‘a city of parasites, a city of people who could not and had no desire to fend for themselves.’" In 2006, Media Matters noted a sexist and racist attack Boortz made against Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA). “Boortz said that McKinney’s ‘new hair-do’ makes her look ‘like a ghetto slut,’ like ‘an explosion at a Brillo pad factory,’ like ‘Tina Turner peeing on an electric fence,’ and like ‘a shih tzu.’”

Cain will make an interesting replacement for Boortz in other ways as well. Whereas Boortz delivers his curmudgeonly assertions in an angry, dyspeptic growl, Cain puts a happier, more comical face on hard right conservatism. Their politics are not identical. According to a slobbering, wholly uncritical profile from Monday’s Atlanta Journal Constitution, “Younger listeners have no way of knowing, but Boortz has actually mellowed over the years.” Boortz claims to be a libertarian who has given up his “doctrinaire” social conservatism. He says he has no problem with gay marriage. Clearly race is an exception to Boortz’s supposed mellowing, although Boortz’s record of making racially inflammatory remarks is not mentioned in the AJC story. Cain adheres to all the mainstream socially conservative bigotries, including those against equal rights for gays and lesbians.

<snip>

The only strange thing at all about Cain’s current situation is his remarkable resiliency. Here is a married man who was accused by multiple women of having affairs and sexually harassing employees. In the same week that the entire country chewed over its disgust with John Edwards, Cain got a new talk show. That probably tells us something about the difference between conservatives and liberals. While the former supposedly stand for family values, they’ve repeatedly shown that they don’t care at all whether their own leaders practice what they preach. Just ask one of Cain’s former rivals in the campaign, like Newt Gingrich, or one of his future rivals on the airwaves, like Rush Limbaugh.