David Sirota leaves AM 630 KHOW

The Rundown with Michael Brown and David Sirota on KHOW, AM 630 Denver
The Glo Show with Gloria Neal on KKZN, AM 760 Denver

Without fanfare, David Sirota has left the Denver talk radio scene. Neither he or his former bosses at Clear Channel are willing to talk about it. I have mixed emotions about this, but Budge will certainly be happy to learn of his demise, having long ago had an icy me moment with him.

Sirota is one of those voices that grates on me, like Thom Hartmann, on and on and on and would you get to the point? But I liked his morning show here in Denver, as he was not standard fare. He took Democrats to task as easily as the mirror party, and had controversial guests on like Chomsky, sports writer David Zirin, science journalist Gary Taubes and many others. He was no Democrat, and though it was never said out loud, I assume he went down at 760 because of his repeated attacks on Senator Michael Bennet, who steered the local schools into a financial disaster when employed there; and Governor John Hickenlooper, a Republican who ran as a Democrat and whom Sirota called “Howdy Doody.” I loved it when he played that theme music. I could just see “Hick,” as the Denver Post affectionately calls him, steaming.

Power, real power, never acts in the open, and Sirota was allowed to carry on, but I assumed he would go down one day. He was indeed removed from AM760 and replaced by “Glo,” a very rank and file Democrat. She is known for intelligent rejoinders when someone disagrees with her such as “Well, we all got our opinions, honey.”

Democrats steered clear of the Sirota show (except Jared Polis). They don’t like hard questions. And sure enough, the first day Gloria Neal took over the show, her first guest was Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, who had refused many requests from Sirota for unscripted interviews. A new day had dawned, and talk radio would survive in Denver in its purest form, pabulum.

Sirota in the meantime moved to another Clear Channel outlet, AM 630, which carries Glenn Beck. He and Michael Brown, an ideological opposite, teamed up to present a back-and-forth dialogue reminiscent of the old Fairness Doctrine days where every side got an airing. Brown is a nice man, it seems, and was hung out to dry in the Katrina debacle by the Bushies. He seemed accepting of that role, the designated hitter. He understands politics more than most in talk radio. He seemed to get along well with Sirota. I only listened to the show for a brief while and then gave up, as the callers were so dumb and predictable. Sirota was out of his element and wasting his talent.

He is back now in what he calls “journalism,” meaning that he’ll write articles and books that I cannot read. I don’t know why. I have the same reaction to Hartmann – I can only listen for a short while and can never seriously read their work. It just grates on me as it never seems to penetrate down into substance.

But I wish David Sirota well, as I see in him a clean heart and fiery soul. I like fighters. I don’t mind head banging at all, and expect that when someone is a real deal, he’ll soon go down. It is, after all, a fake democracy with a heavily thought-controlled media.