On August 10, Boortz producer Belinda Skelton told the host about a bilingual Parent-Teacher Association meeting she had attended, remarking that she had been unable to tell how many of the families in attendance spoke English. Boortz apparently couldn't help himself:
You can look at the parents and tell, because the ones with sombreros can't speak English. ... The ones with the bandoliers full of bullets across their chest.
6 comments:
Neal really puts the "boor" in Boortz.
I drive a lot in the course of my job and wind up listening to Boortz several times a week; he cracks jokes more outrageous than that all the time. But if you are familiar with the show, you know he was just trying to annoy the mess out of Belinda.
There must be a lot of annoyance-provoking producers and sidekicks in right-wing radio, because I've heard this same kind of crude characterization and mockery from other talkers.
Not so long ago, the GOP intended to bring Hispanic voters into their fold. But Rove's strategy of pandering to the base coupled with the rise of immigration as a foreground issue probably made this impossible. Thus a sizable and growing segment of the population will be lost to the GOP.
The "base" is probably the only group this brand of "humor" appeals to.
More specifically, there is an insoluble conflict between the talk radio, xenophobic wing of the GOP and the big money wing, which likes the cheap labor.
You know, it's not actually xenophobic to insist that your government control your country's borders--and, in the process, avoid exerting a net drag on the wages of working men and women in this country.
I do agree that there's a substantial part of the Republican Party that's short-sightedly interested in cheap labor. I disagree that it's xenophobic to want to do something about it. Controlling the borders and immigration is a normal governmental duty, carried on by every nation around the world.
I don't disagree with you, Dan, but I certainly haven't heard any constructive discussion on talk radio. It's all about inflaming the base.
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