Right-wing political commentator and radio personality Neal Boortz claimed in a recent interview with TV host Sean Hannity – who never met a Reaganism he didn’t like – that teachers unions are more dangerous to America than a nuclear capable al-Qaida. Boortz, who is a registered Libertarian but is a good friend of the political right wing, seemed to get some support from Hannity in his crazy assertion, which dealt another black eye to the conservative causes both men claim to support.
Given Boortz’s logic, it’s not too difficult to imagine him having the following conversation with God.
God: OK, Neal, I checked out the Hannity interview the other night, and maybe you’re right. I’ll get teachers unions banned, but in exchange I’m going to kill the entire population of Albany, NY with an atomic weapon. Sound fair?
Boortz: Well, God, this tenure situation sure has gotten out of hand. Let’s nuke ‘em.
Then, as a mushroom cloud forms over New York’s capital, the terrible screams of death rising over the city, you’d have cretins like Sean Hannity defending Boortz’s decision.
Unfortunately for conservatives, Boortz’s comments were followed in close succession by an unfortunate decision by conservative commentator Ann Coulter to call presidential candidate John Edwards an offensive slur for gay people. The word Coulter used is the gay population’s equivalent of the N-word in the African American community. And, had she used that word, American society would be justified in insisting that she be removed from mainstream political dialogue.
Coulter, an unoriginal thinker whose regurgitation of old political mantras would be completely ignored if she didn’t look like a Barbie doll, showed a lack of compassion toward John Edwards’ family and toward gay people, for which she has been thoroughly unapologetic. But perhaps Coulter and Boortz could better stomach offering a much-deserved apology to their conservative colleagues, to whom they are causing great harm.
When people like Coulter and Boortz justify their existence, they undoubtedly reason that their place in society is to advance political causes. Instead, they have the opposite effect and actually set back the very causes they espouse. One of the stereotypes that conservatives, and Republicans by extension, have been labeled with for years is that they are culturally and racially insensitive, and that they have what almost amounts to contempt for America’s diversity.
As conservatives seek to shake this label, people like Boortz and Coulter wander onto the scene and equate labor unions with al-Qaida, or spew hurtful slurs, reinforcing these negative stereotypes. Are you more or less likely to vote Republican after hearing one of the party’s most visible pundits use an uneducated slur against John Edwards? Are you more or less likely to support conservative causes when you hear a well-known personality say blowing up Albany wouldn’t be as bad as allowing teachers unions to continue?
The true test is this: if you were planning the Republican convention for the next presidential election, would you feel comfortable having Coulter speak? If the answer is no – and it is – she’s clearly not an asset to conservatives. The only people who get excited about Coulter or Boortz are people who already vote along conservative lines – everyone else just gets turned off, and that amounts to a great deal of squandered support.
In short, conservative and Republican causes would be better served by a little less help from their “friends.” Such figures are so obsessed with their own public profiles that they are content to sell off or destroy, brick by brick, the very structure they claim to be helping to build.