Opinion - Justice Neal Boortz?

Sure, Georgia is becoming a joke among states. Southern states have never been “tops” at doing what’s right for their people, but at least there were glimmers of enlightenment in North Carolina, Florida, and Georgia. We could always say, “We’re not Mississippi.” Sadly, in recent years, Georgia has been racing to the rear. Schools have been eviscerated in their funding. Transportation planning is a joke. Politics is an ethical cesspool from the Gold Dome to Atlanta City Hall — and, yes, even Mississippi now has higher ethical standards than the goobers in Georgia.

So, it’s entirely appropriate that Cox Radio (WSB 750-AM) hate talker Neal Boortz was nominated — briefly — to the Georgia Supreme Court. His latest attempt at self-aggrandizement sputtered. He’ll likely not tell the truth why, but it could be that he lives in Florida most of the year — there’s no income tax there, and Boortz is loathe to pay his fair share. Or, maybe how buffoonish he would look when all of his outrageous eruptions were played to those considering the judicial nominations.

But even if Boortz won’t be Justice Boortz, he still defiles the public’s airwaves. Georgia is a state with many “low information” residents. That’s polite dog-whistling for some real stupid people — especially those who credulously believe what they hear on Fox News and talk radio.

Those media personalities aren’t journalists or even honest public intellectuals — rather, they’re the “Three Stooges” multiplied by many score. A stooge is a shill for someone else, and the people pulling the strings are the corporate masters. It’s money that commands the Goebbels Brigade to unrelentingly and deceitfully claim that global warming is a myth or that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 or that President Barack Obama might not be an American. It’s money that keeps the constant vomiting of racism and hatred on the air. Keep in mind that Cox Radio’s potentate is Jim Cox Kennedy, one of the most right-wing and misanthropic people in the nation (Montanans once called Kennedy the most “hated person” in the state).

In other words, Boortz is merely the monkey doing rhetorical pratfalls. That would be merely distasteful — if he hadn’t briefly tried to snare a seat among the Georgia Supremes.

What would have we have known about Boortz as a judicial wannabe? For a start, he clearly disdains the law. In a 2009 AJC column about surveillance cameras, Boortz opined: “I think they should equip some of these cameras with sniper rifles. Don’t you just love the idea of a little red laser dot appearing on the chest of some goon.”

And to be clear that Boortz wants black folks to be subject to summary executions, he said last year: “We need more dead thugs in this city. ... Let their mommas say, ‘He was a good boy. He just fell in with the good crowd.’ And then lock her ass up.” Boortz has routinely compared the president to the 9/11 terrorists and, just a few weeks ago, to Syrian President/mass murderer Bashar Assad.

Racism is Boortz’s staple. He might embrace Herman Cain. But as most on the right chuckle, Cain was merely an entertainer that could be disregarded — and Cain himself willingly played the black stereotype minstrel.” Cain didn’t make the right less racist; he just gave the racists a facade to hide their white sheets and hoods.

A few years ago I made a cottage industry out of calling Boortz on his serial prevarications. After awhile, I got tired of it. It was too damn easy. But here is the best anecdote about Boortz and why any ethical media company would give him the boot — and why now he shouldn’t get within a mile of any court unless as a defendant.

Boortz for years claimed that he didn’t go to Vietnam because of poor eyesight. Sometimes he claimed it was asthma. That made me curious because 1) in the 1960s, you had to be virtually blind to avoid the Army, and 2) Boortz has a private pilot’s license — so he should have decent eyesight. I called his alma mater, Texas A&M University (he was kicked out, although he generally obfuscates that fact), and the U.S. Selective Service. Boortz never had a medical deferment. Nope, no way, no how. Rather, when he first started college he claimed an “ROTC deferment” because he enrolled in some military course. As the university officials explained, even those courses likely wouldn’t have been sufficient for the deferment. More than that, Boortz dropped out of the military classes, yet he never told Selective Service, which was illegal.

I recounted that story because Boortz was one of the legion of “chickenhawks” — a cowardly group that included Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, and innumerable others who had ducked military service during Vietnam but nonetheless were clamoring to send troops to Iraq. Someone of Boortz’s hypocrisy doesn’t deserve a soapbox or judicial robes.

On the other hand, let’s be fair: Boortz is good at what he does — if you can call mendacity and hatred an art form.