Boortz's comments met with disdain
David Grant, CT Staff Wrtier
April 20 2007
When Richard Benson thinks about the response of students and faculty inside Norris Hall, he thinks only of courage.
"There were people in the hallways who ran through the hallways as shots were being fired to tell people to take cover, lock their doors. I can't imagine how many lives got saved because of that. One of the dead professors walked down the stairs to investigate. That took courage. How many of us would walk toward the sound of gunfire? I think this is a heroic campus," Benson, dean of the college of engineering, said.
But one nationally syndicated radio host believes that Virginia Tech students were "waiting for (their) turn to be executed."
"How far have we advanced in the wussification of America?" wrote Neal Boortz on his website Wednesday. "I am now under attack by the left for wondering aloud why these students did so little to defend themselves. It seems that standing in terror waiting for your turn to be executed was the right thing to do."
After his comments Tuesday, David Meszeros, Vice President and General Manager of WSB AM 750 Atlanta, Boortz's flagship station, voiced his concerns regarding the host's remarks.
"I was disappointed with the way he was handling it on the air. I didn't think it was the right way to go. He's entitled to his opinion, that's what talk show hosts do. I really, along with a number of our management team, had some serious conversations about the direction" of his comments, Meszeros, whose son is a graduate of Virginia Tech, said.
Boortz, syndicated on roughly 150 radio stations nationwide, wrote Thursday under the headline "Angry? Yeah· I Really Am," that "I wasn't angry with what I was saying, just with how I was saying it." After citing another author's work as doing "better than me at any rate," he concludes with, "We have produced a culture of passivity. It's a valid point, one that I wish I could have made in a more appropriate manner yesterday. I failed, and for that I apologize."
Meszeros said he was "satisfied with Boortz's apology."
"While some people are going to say, ÎWell, he still really didn't apologize,' I'm telling you he clearly was contrite and disappointed in the way he presented what he was trying to say," Meszeros said. Meszeros never considered any sort of disciplinary activity against Boortz.
Asked if he would offer a specific apology, Meszeros said, "My thing from all of us here is our prayers and our thoughts are with the whole campus and the whole surrounding area."
Boortz, contacted by the Collegiate Times through Cox Radio, the group that syndicates his show, did not respond to interview requests.
Reaction on the Virginia Tech campus was singularly disdainful.
"I just think about it, and I thank God that (Boortz) was not in any of those rooms that day," said Caroline Merrey, a senior engineering major in professor Liviu Librescu's engineering course who sustained minor injuries jumping from the window of her classroom in escaping shooter Cho Seung-Hui.
"It's rather difficult to judge people like that. One might think that someone would jump up and try to wrestle him to the ground but everybody's fearing for their life and it's not that simple," said former engineering professor Robert Heller. "People that make comments like this make you think we should have guns everywhere. That would sure help; you'd probably shoot more innocent people that way more than anything else."
Librescu's heroic actions - lodging himself against the door of his Norris classroom and ordering his students to flee - were a special point of contention for students and faculty contacted about Boortz's remarks.
"He was a Holocaust survivor and our feeling is ÎNever again,' we will never allow someone to do something that we will not defend," said Heller, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor and to whom Librescu was a "best friend."
As one Virginia Tech science professor put it: "Once you see one horrific act in front of you, that freezes you. It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman."
Calls left at United BMW of Gwinnet Place, Solomon Brothers Jewelers and Georgia Pressure and Steam, sponsors of Boortz's show, were not returned. E-mail requests filed with radio stations WNIS Norfolk, WFHG Bristol, and WINA Charlottesville, each of which syndicate Boortz, went unreturned.