Boortz Issues apology over McKinney smears

Summary: Neal Boortz issued an apology for his remarks that Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) looks like "a ghetto slut," saying, "I've known Cynthia McKinney for a long time, and there is no way in the world that that word should be used to describe her or her hairdo or any woman."

On the April 3 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program, Neal Boortz issued an apology for his remarks about Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), stating, "I've known Cynthia McKinney for a long time, and there is no way in the world that that word should be used to describe her or her hairdo or any woman." As Media Matters for America noted, Boortz said that McKinney, "looks like a ghetto slut" during the March 31 broadcast of his radio program, and later added that he didn't "blame them [Capitol police] for stopping" McKinney during a March 29 incident at the Capitol because she had a "ghetto trash" haircut and "looked like a welfare drag queen [that] was trying to sneak into the Longworth House Office Building." In issuing the apology, Boortz added that it "won't mean anything to people who consider any negative comment or criticism of any type at any time about anybody who is not white to be racism."

From April 3 broadcast of Cox Radio Syndication's The Neal Boortz Show:

BOORTZ: OK, folks, let's admit it. I stepped in it big time on Friday, and I am here to apologize. In fact, I apologized almost -- I put an apology on my website almost as soon as I was off the air on Friday. But I haven't been on the air since then, and it was during this hour that I screwed up. So I will apologize to you here.

Now, this apology really isn't for the people that hate me. It's for the listeners that actually like me that I disappointed, and for Cynthia McKinney. I had something very unflattering to say about her hairstyle. You see, now why is her hairstyle an issue? In this whole mistaken-identity case, her hairstyle may be an issue because it might be the reason that the police officer did not recognize her. I said on the air -- to some disagreement from my colleagues, I might add -- that her old hairstyle of the braids had class and it easily identified Cynthia McKinney, and the she goes to a new hairstyle, she doesn't get recognized, and all of the sudden, the cop is a racist.

At any rate, the new hairstyle --kind of wild and crazy, every-hair-going-in-a-different-direction thing. And I said on the air, and this is where I was wrong, I wrote on my webpage that it looked like ghetto trash and I said it made her look like a ghetto slut. Well, I've known Cynthia McKinney for a long time, and there is no way in the world that that word should be used to describe her or her hairdo or any woman -- unless she really is -- or her hairdo. And I was totally and absolutely wrong, and I was overboard, and I apologize to Cynthia McKinney for that statement, and I apologize to any one of my listeners who were disappointed in me for that. I apologize to you also.

Now, if you were listening to me last week, you probably heard other comments, like the fact that on a personal basis I find her rather engaging and endearing, but that doesn't count when you use a word like this. So I was wrong, and when I am, folks, I will admit it with absolutely no hesitation whatsoever. Now, this apology will mean absolutely nothing to those people who consider every word ever uttered by somebody who is not a liberal to be hate speech. And it won't mean anything to people who consider any negative comment or criticism of any type at any time about anybody who is not white to be racism.

—B.F.