Dear Michael Berry…

Really?  Really?

I confess I don’t listen to your radio show, but if Houston’s Leading Information Source is to be believed you said on the air Wednesday that you thought it’d be a good thing that any mosque built near the site of the September 11 attacks in New York City be bombed:

“I’ll tell you this — if you do build a mosque, I hope somebody blows it up.” Berry added: “I hope the mosque isn’t built, and if it is, I hope it’s blown up, and I mean that.”

Really?

I see that you posted a message online the next day insisting

“I did NOT advocate bombing any mosque.”

and provided the audio there so people can listen for themselves.  Good.  But the words say what the words say: “I hope it’s blown up, and I mean that” do not convey the same message as “I hope the mosque isn’t built.”  And

“I hope the mosque isn’t built, and if it is, I hope it’s blown up, and I mean that.”

teeters right on the edge of encouragement.  I expect better from someone serious about the responsibility attendant to using the public airwaves.  (Yes, I know there are plenty of others who aren’t…but if Johnny jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge…)

I respect your apology for the poor word choice, but what’s really beneath you is playing the victim: accusing the Council on American-Islamic Relations of trying to intimidate you?  Telling your audience, “If that means I have to go off the air because I have an opinion that offends them, then that’s what that means.”?

(Does that kind of thing really sell on the air these days?  Really?)