The end of an "error"; Colin McEnroe finally canned by WTIC

There are wonderful days, and there are more wonderful days. But the news that WTIC's longtime voice of the far left, Colin McEnroe, is gone from the AM airwaves. The very thought reminds me of the scene in the Wizard of Oz when hundreds of munchkins came out to sing, "Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead." Happy, cheery faces, celebrating the downfall of their most dreaded foe. And so it is, Colin McEnroe (although not literally) is dead.

It's hard to image what might have been McEnroe's downfall. The socialist world thought of McEnroe as the true poster boy for Connecticut liberalism. I have to admit that I would listen to his program from time to time just to get the left's perspective on issues of the day. McEnroe was usually on target every time with the Democrat Party's official positions, which made me assume that he often would be briefed on what to say and what not to say. McEnroe never strayed from the party line.

But generally speaking, his program lacked depth. Much of his time was embarrassingly spent counter-arguing Rush Limbaugh's comments from the day's earlier time slot. Hearing him say "Rush said this" and "Rush said that" sort of irked me because I'm not a fan of Rush Limbaugh either and could care less about what Rush thinks, let along what Colin thinks of what Rush thought. I used to find myself saying, God buddy, can't you find your own material or are listeners doomed to listen to you rehash what Limbaugh spewed for three hours. Ahhgggg!

McEnroe also spent hours and hours engaging in character assassination of President Bush. It was more of the same drab, boring dialogue that often forced me to hit the scan button. Anyone can read other people's blogs or stories and try to make them their own. Sort of the lazy-man's version of a radio personality. Hearing him chat with "Lucrutis" sort of became stale and old after the 90th time.

There are a number of times over the past several years that I happened to spar with McEnroe on his program. But I stopped calling when he decided that it was best to handle me by changing the topic and becoming unnecessarily rude, and cutting me off. Of course, this was fairly typical behavior by him when he realized that he was either outwitted or didn't have an counter-argument to the facts at hand.

Part of the problem with McEnroe's style is that rarely would he allow someone of a different opinion to sway him on even fairly-neutral topics. McEnroe's best (if not only) strategy to any caller who was kicking his rear or counter-arguing him on points was: 1) Go to commercial (he would only take on bright repeat callers at the end of a segment) so he could make a quick off-topic remark and hide behind the traffic report, or 2) poke fun at the caller and hang up.

McEnroe was never interested in the truth which is why Republicans had such little respect for him. He was simply the mouthpiece of the Connecticut Democrat party. His attempts to make people like Bill Curry respectable news sources on issues of the day was comedy in itself. For McEnroe, it was never about dialogue, it was about singing the party line to the audience.

Off-mic, he was deemed socially inept. And people who worked with him often quit, or found "better" jobs. While I can't go into that detail without exposing individuals, I can only say that their arguments were a replication of what we often heard on the air... name calling, back-stabbing and completely untrustworthy behavior. As one person told me, working with McEnroe meant dealing with a five year old that would stab you with a steak knife if you weren't looking.

But what I miss most is probably - McEnroe's mumbling incoherent garble on the microphone. With nowhere to go (often admitting it on air) we'd hear rambling sentences that simply didn't make sense at all. What he lacked in knowledge, he also lacked in personality and show content. It's sad that it took WTIC so long to realize that the Colin McEnroe show was non-revenue bearing gibberish taking up space in the afternoon between more successful shows.

What's hard for Connecticut liberals to realize is that if McEnroe were truly successful, he wouldn't be getting the boot.

Today, Connecticut is a better place without WTIC 1080's daily broadcast of a mean-spirited 1960s throwback. Don't be surprised if he shows up elsewhere, there are still enough stations that need cheap filler between 3 and 6.

Just thank God those stations don't have 20 thousand watts.

Colin McEnroe