Bye Bye Boortz! Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

Today is the last day for Atlanta's own Neal Boortz as part of the conservative and neo-conservative talk radio propaganda circuit.

I know that's bitter of me to say it like that, but it is the bitter truth for a man that started his career long before names like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or Eric Erickson ever existed.

When I first moved into the Atlanta area back in the early 90's, I was introduced to Boortz's morning show. He was refreshing because he debunked a lot of the political sacred cows. He said what needed to be said back then. I still have his "Graduation Speech No One Wants You To Hear". I also have "The Fair Tax Book" that he helped write with Congressman John Linder, which still makes far more sense to fix the tax system than anything proposed by anyone else.

His debates with former Congressman Bob Barr were great in showing the difference between a libertarian and a conservative, and those debates actually helped convince Barr to change his political stance when it came to things like the perpetually-failing War on Drugs.

But then 9/11 happened... and the libertarian Boortz was replaced with neo-con Boortz.  And when Boortz started finding himself in the Oval Office along with Hannity and Limbaugh and the other conservative personalities having closed-door lunches with Karl Rove and President Bush Junior, that's when Atlanta lost the Boortz it grew up with.  Boortz stopped being part of the solution and instead became part of the problem.  That's when I stopped listening to him regularly.

And this difference became apparent in 2008 when Boortz not only supported John McCain over Barack Obama, but also recited the "wasted vote" mantra to libertarians... a slap in the face to the very Libertarian Party that used to count on his on-air support.

For the past four years, Neal Boortz became a one-man venom machine, characterizing Barack Obama as being nothing short of the devil incarnate in everything that goes on.  Obama cannot even say "good morning" without Boortz claiming it was part of a communist plot. 

This is venom that did not exist when Bill Clinton was in office.  Even at the height of the Clinton scandals... when Clinton was actually impeached for lying about getting oral gratification from an intern... Boortz wasn't characterizing Clinton in the same way as he has been doing with Obama... a man who has not been impeached nor even faces a single Independent Counsel for anything his White House staff has done!

For the record, I've got my issues with Obama as well, but that's with what he's DONE, not with some fictional ulterior goal that only exists in the demented narcissistic minds of conservatives and neo-conseravatives.  You rally against the problems going on in the real world, NOT with the problems that only exist in some fear-mongering propaganda straight out of George Orwell's library!  If you can't do that then you need to be dismissed as just another nut-job "one-word-order black helicopter" wacko with the tinfoil hat.

So I CHEERED when Boortz decided that he's had enough.  In fact as far as I am concerned, he should have removed himself from the scene when he was caught hypocritizing himself in 2008.  Certainly the Boortz that I used to listen to in the 90's would have been the first person telling the Boortz of 2008 that he was being part of the problem instead of being part of the solution.

So that's it.  Boortz is done.  He's a broadcast memory.  His radio show will be taken over by Mr. 9-9-9-Tax-And-Pizza Herman Cain and by Limbaugh.  In other words, the anti-Obama venom will continue on-air, and the real problems will not be addressed.

But what Boortz USED to stand for... what he USED to promote when he was good... that's coming back.

But it's not going to come back through Cain or Limbaugh.  They wouldn't know how to deal with real issues if it doesn't promote the GOP.

No, the voice of common sense and reality is not going to come back through them.

It's going to come back through Internet radio...

It's going to come back through ShockNet Radio's "Brutally Honest - LIVE!" on Monday nights at 8pm ET, 7pm CT on ShockNetRadio.com

It's going to come back... THROUGH PEOPLE LIKE ME!

So thank you for finally leaving the dial Boortz.  Don't let the studio door hit you on the way out.  And if by some chance you remember what you used to support when a lighter-skinned Democrat was in the White House and you wonder whatever happened to those causes, don't blame Obama or 9/11.  Blame yourself for selling your broadcast soul for lunch with Karl Rove and George W. Bush. 

Believe me, your younger self would be telling you the same thing.  That's why I used to listen to him.