On Neal Boortz's retirement announcement

I can understand his wanting to call it a day.  He was one of the modern pioneers of talk radio, starting in 1969.

No one can deny that his has been an interesting life.  He did a few things, such as sell jewelry, before getting into talk radio.  He didn't decide to become an attorney until the mid-1970s, attending law school while doing his daily show out of Atlanta.  He's subsequently dabbled in real estate.  He has interesting hobbies: airplane piloting, motorcycling, motorboating, travel.

He calls himself a libertarian, but he has been ostracized by the official Libertarian Party for his foreign-policy views, which more resemble those of a neoconservative.  In general, he has gone it alone as far as affiliating himself with any kind of ideological institution.  While he occasionally appears on various Fox News shows, he's not known for contributing to the flagship journals of either the libertarians or conservatives, or attending the big think-tank conferences.

He has what I consider to be some very annoying on-air habits: repeating himself (I've always wondered if this didn't start out as a rhetorical courtroom device from his lawyer days), dead air (which I've always been told is a radio no-no), and punctuating his points with an acerbically delivered "okay?"

His basic schtick - being "the High Priest of the Church of the Painful Truth" who turned "a nasty personality disorder into a lucrative career" - invites problematic scenarios.  Someone who delights in being thorny and prickly is going to draw callers who ignite those traits.  A lot of talk-radio hosts go after callers who combine ridiculousness and provocativeness, but Boortz is, for example, the only one I've ever heard directly and personally call them names, or tell them to go to Hell.

Yes, he seems to be personally personable.  His call screener Belinda seems to have a relationship with him based on mutual respect and amiability, as was clearly the case with his other on-air associate, the late Royal Marshall.  I have to believe that he tried their patience over the years, though.

I'll venture an assertion here: The main reason he never broke into the field's top tier is the fundamental inconsistency of his worldview.  As I say, it looks like he put that worldview together on his own on the basis of eclectic reading and observation, rather than discerning the great bodies of tradition in thought that comprise conservatism, libertarianism, or even any type of collectivism, such as Communism or progressivism.  He doesn't just minimize the importance of what are nowadays called "the social issues," he sneers with contempt when he mentions them.  It's clear that he thinks pro-life activists or those who place primary importance on what Western societies for centuries have considered a real marriage and family are silly in the extreme.  He will not permit callers to discuss abortion, but he reserves for himself the right to indulge in his own diatribes about it when it suits him.

And so, ultimately, he can't substantiate his own supposed championing of freedom. He's not an atheist.  I think I've even heard him declare a belief in God, even make mention of some periods in his life when he attended church.  It rings a little hollow, though, when he joins the ranks of those who want to defend the centrality of freedom to human well-being solely on the basis of logical argument.  It's as if he would consider it a sign of weakness to bring up the "endowed by their Creator" phrase from Mr. Jefferson's thunderous document when, in fact, the divine origin of our rights is the strongest argument for their fierce defense one can make.

All in all, his contributions to our cause - that is, conservatism - have been positive, but the record shows that they fell short of those of the true greats in significant ways.