Albans/News
Curtis Sliwa (above) leaves WABC on Monday and will be replaced by John Batchelor seven days a week.
Posted on 11/30/2009 5:02:13 PM PST by neverdem
Albans/News
Curtis Sliwa (above) leaves WABC on Monday and will be replaced by John Batchelor seven days a week.
Whether you think Curtis Sliwa is a street-smart good guy or one of local media's all-time great self-promoters, WABC (770 AM) won't sound quite the same without him.
John Batchelor, who moves into Sliwa's old 9 p.m.-1 a.m. slot starting Monday night, likes to have fun and play music. But he also takes a methodical, scholarly approach to international geopolitics, often with an emphasis on the Middle East. Compared to Sliwa, he sounds downright professorial.
Having Batchelor in the late-evening shift also gives WABC a full national lineup, both in focus and in sound, since Sliwa was the last weekday regular who talked like New York.
That's clearly the strategy favored by WABC's parent, Citadel, which is struggling financially. But WABC program director Laurie Cantillo notes that the station does feature several local hosts on weekends.
As for why Sliwa is leaving WABC, he says only that "it became clear we weren't going to agree on a new contract, so we mutually decided it was time to split up."
"I can't go into details, obviously," said Cantillo. "But it became clear Curtis really wanted a prime-time shift and we just don't have any of those available."
Rumors are already swirling that Sliwa will become the morning host at WNYM (970 AM). "The Apple" has a solid syndicated lineup, including New York veterans Dr. Laura Schlesinger and Mike Gallagher, but it has yet to make much of a ripple here, and Sliwa could give the station a local marquee name.
Doing mornings there would also give him a rematch with Imus. When Sliwa and Ron Kuby co-hosted mornings on WABC and Imus was on WFAN, Curtis and Kuby had more listeners. Unfortunately for them, as Imus has pointed out, Imus drew a lot more ad dollars.
In any case, Sliwa says "nothing is signed" yet for his next gig. Cantillo says Sliwa will do two more weeks of shows from WABC for his syndicated affiliates.
After that, she says, WABC will offer those affiliates the Batchelor show, in which she says "we've already gotten a lot of interest."
Batchelor will start off doing seven nights a week, though Cantillo says he eventually will cut down to six.
While Cantillo declined to characterize Sliwa's departure as the "end of an era" for WABC, she said, "Curtis has made great contributions here. He has an opportunity now and we wish him well."
He's been "very professional" through the separation process, she added. "It was amicable on both sides."
"WABC has been a big part of my life and mine of WABC's," said Sliwa. "To be part of the No. 1 news-talk station in the country has been like playing for the Yankees for 18 years."
Oh nooooooo..... just when we were admiring Curtie, he quits. Darn.
Great news, Sliwa is a stupid doofus, and Batchelor’s show is always hard to find.
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Wrong. Sliwa is from Canarsie...nothing inner city about that at all.
Hannity is a nice guy, but very stupid. His low intelligence has always limited his uninformative copycat of a show.
On his first point, Curtis is correct: all Guardian Angels worldwide patrol unarmed, even in really dangerous places like Cape Town and Mindinao. There are excellent reasons why we do this, and in fact we prefer to patrol unarmed. That is just how our methodology works: and it has worked this way for 30+ years.
On his second point, it is a statement of fact: had Curtis been shot with an assault weapon rather than a .38 revolver he would have been ripped limb-from-limb.
On his third point he has stated a personal preference for gun collectors to collect Remingtons rather than AK-47’s, for safety reasons. Certainly that shows some bias against “assault” weapons — but I’m quite unclear how any of this equates to “gun-grabbing”. Did he say all guns should be banned and seized? No.
In my opinion that Cantillo woman is destroying WABC.
I love Curtis! Love his total New York attitude and way of speaking! He cracks me up and I get him! I'll miss hearing him. Mostly enjoyed his show...
I must say, I am pleased with this development. Sliwa is your standard issue liberal who hides behind the tough guy persona.
I’ll never forget how he and his engineers made fun of a birther (who, admittedly, was not a good spokesman for his cause) by laughing at him and blasting over what he was saying with “music”; totally disgusted me.
I’m listening to the show now. he is continuing from last night, talking about Tareq Salahi(White House party crasher) being on the board of the Amerian Task Force for Palestine, and that the couple had met Obama previously at an American Polo event... they know each other.....Funny, haven’t heard this connection any where on tv or radio today.
Hope I'll be able to find it on my AM dial here in Boston.
One nightly segment I always liked was his book segment. usually history related, he'd have the author on the program and they would discuss the subject. Excellent radio.
Whatever floats your boat. That does nothing to excuse Sliwa from shilling for gun grabbers about so called "assault weapons."
That's the right of the people, not the right of the militia.
On his second point, it is a statement of fact: had Curtis been shot with an assault weapon rather than a .38 revolver he would have been ripped limb-from-limb.
The so called "assault weapons" in question are semi-automatic firearms, i.e. they fire one round per pull of the trigger, like many standard hunting rifles. AK47s and M16s do not fire full power rifle ammunition such as the 7.62 mm NATO round. AK47s and M16s which can fire as an automatic weapon like machineguns require a special licence from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. At the time of that article, fully automatic AK47s and M16s may well have been outlawed in New York and New Jersey already. They are now.
On his third point he has stated a personal preference for gun collectors to collect Remingtons rather than AK-47’s, for safety reasons. Certainly that shows some bias against “assault” weapons — but I’m quite unclear how any of this equates to “gun-grabbing”. Did he say all guns should be banned and seized? No.
He was carrying the water for gun grabbers who wanted to ban weapons for simply cosmetic reasons. The militia, i.e. the people, are supposed to have weapons equal in quality to weapons of standing armies as far as small arms go. We have law on the books in the USA for the "unorganized militia."
The gun grabbers in the USA are either evil or useless idiots who don't appreciate the harm they do. Our Founding Fathers had exceptional foresight to have included the Second Amendment in our Bill of Rights. The left absolutely hates the Second Amendment and our Founding Fathers.
Did you ever get a straight answer from a leftist? If you did, that's pretty rare in the USA. Just look at the BS about global warming. The left just wants control. They can't get that when a free people are armed.
> The so called "assault weapons" in question are semi-automatic firearms, i.e. they fire one round per pull of the trigger, like many standard hunting rifles...
...you are talking at odds with what Curtis actually said, which was this:
>> He said he was "cut down with a conventional weapon, a .38 handgun," but "had it been an assault weapon -- not just single-shot capacity but automatic ability -- I would be ripped limb from limb and be six feet under."
You are talking about semi-automatic firearms, and in this case he was talking about automatic submachine-guns.
For the record, there are many Guardian Angels who are pro-Second Amendment, some of them are very senior. One of them trained me to be a Guardian Angel.
If Curtis were truly a gun-grabbing liberal, surely he would use his influential organization to further his own gun-grabbing agenda, no? It would be easy enough to do. Yet interestingly he hasn't. You yourself said:
> The left absolutely hates the Second Amendment and our Founding Fathers... The left just wants control. They can't get that when a free people are armed.
As I said, I do not know Curti Sliwa's personal view on the Second Amendment: he has not seen fit to share that with me. Neither has he seen fit to use his influential multiple-award-winning community-based Guardian Angels organization to advance a "gun-grabbing" agenda, as a Liberal would do (a la ACORN?). This tells me, in no uncertain terms, that he is neither a Liberal nor a typical "gun-grabber".
Do you see any flaws with that?
In Sliwa's gift for self promotion, he was letting himself be used by the gun grabbers for their attempt to ban "assault weapons" in the early 1990s. In that and some other instances such as his promoting Giuliani before Giuliani had his conversion to the benefits of the Second Amendment during his campaign for the GOP nomination in 2008, Sliwa was being a "useful idiot."
Anyone who wants to shackle Second Amendment rights gets my radar going.
> Anyone who wants to shackle Second Amendment rights gets my radar going.
Fair enough too — that’s healthy, and that’s the only way America gets to keep the Second Amendment.
And, IIRC, Curtis still has a bullet or two in him. He was in a cab but it was a setup to kidnap/kill him. All doors were locked - he broken open a window and jumped out. Don’t remember the whole story but it was not good!
Ummmm, Canarsie is a neighborhood in Brooklyn and Brooklyn is a NYC borough. That’s about as inner-city as it can get.
What exactly drives your visceral dislike for
Sliwa? Even if you think he is a self promoter—which we all are—why are you investing so much emotion in dissing him?
In the absense of any other info I think there is more to your dislike of the man than you’ve revealed.
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A. Canarsie is a neighborhood of mostly single-family owner-occupied houses that cost up to $600k. Just because a neighborhood is in one of the five boros does not mean that it is inner city. That is about as ridiculous statement as I've ever heard. By your definition a $40 million Eastside townhouse is inner city, just dumb.
B. I made no comments about Sliwa at all so I have no idea what the rest of your silly post is about.
Follow the link to see a house for sale in Canarsie....
http://www.trulia.com/property/1081529689-10557-Flatlands-8th-St-Brooklyn-NY-11236
Looks pretty suburban to me. You really don't know what you're talking about do you? Come on, admit it. It's ok.
I can show you any number of inner-city neighborhoods with blocks of homes just like that. You can find them around Broad St. and Girard Ave. in Philadelphia. Ditto for Camden, Patterson, Jersey City etc. Row homes and apartment buildings are not the only type of inner-city dwelling. But, perhaps you are not from an inner-city environment.
In any case, you have invested much too much emotion—and time—on your dis Sliwa crusade. You need to move on and so do I.
I wish you a sincere happy and blessed Christmas.
>I do not know who “Frank” is, or what his problem is, but there isn’t much balance in that website.<
There isn’t much balance on the website you are currently on, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
I guess you don’t consider lying to the police(and other people) a serious matter. I do. I seem to remember a few posts on this “balanced” website about the importance of a president lying in a deposition in front of a federal judge.
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