My WSB colleague and guru, the Talkmaster Neal Boortz, created a bit of controversy this past week over comments he made about shooting thugs in Atlanta.

The controversy actually blew up because of Ed Schultz at MSNBC who claimed Boortz was advocating the murder of urban youths in Atlanta.

In fact, you can see this screen shot from the Schutlz show highlighting Neal Boortz’s controversial comment:

There’s just one problem here. In both the screen shot and the accompanying audio, Ed Schultz doctored Neal Boortz’s quote. See, Boortz said those things, but in the middle there was this bit:

You need to get a permit to carry that gun. And you do in fact need to carry that gun and we need to see some dead thugs littering the landscape in Atlanta. We need to see the next guy that tries to carjack you shot dead right where he stands. We need more dead thugs in this city.

The full quote is below the fold. But this is the relevant portion for purposes of Ed Schultz’s monologue and it is clearly references self-defense, not wanton murder of thugs. In fact, when Schultz then interviewed a Hillary Shelton, Sr. of the NAACP about Boortz’s comment and Mr. Shelton brought up Boortz making the comment in terms of self-defense (around 11:02), Schultz jumped in and pushed the guy away from Boortz’s context and moved on to bashing the tea party movement.

This was a wholly dishonest editing of Boortz’s quote and his context, without even using ellipses in the on-screen text, to accuse Boortz of advocating murder instead of self defense.
Here are Boortz’s full remarks:

You know what? I, for one, am tired of putting up with this crap. And you want to know why I moved out of Atlanta and only spend a couple of weeks a year in this town? That’s one of the reasons. Carjackings, violence, people getting shot. It’s ridiculous. This city harbors an urban culture of violence. And I want you to look around. You drive into the city. The railroad overpass is on the downtown connector covered with graffiti. And that– That is just an advertisement for everybody coming into this town that we really don’t give a damn about those who would screw up our quality of life around here. We really just don’t care. We don’t care enough to paint over graffiti on the overpasses that come into our city, advertising welcome to Atlanta, here’s some of our finest graffiti, from some of our finest urban thugs and their little gang signs. And pick up the paper tomorrow morning. Read about all the carjackings. Read about the innocent people shot for the pure de-hell of it.

This town is starting to look like a garbage heap. And we got too damn many urban thugs, yo, ruining the quality of life for everybody. And I’ll tell you what it’s gonna take. You people, you are – you need to have a gun. You need to have training. You need to know how to use that gun. You need to get a permit to carry that gun. And you do in fact need to carry that gun and we need to see some dead thugs littering the landscape in Atlanta. We need to see the next guy that tries to carjack you shot dead right where he stands. We need more dead thugs in this city. And let their — let their mommas — let their mommas say, “He was a good boy. He just fell in with the good crowd.” And then lock her ass up.