Shmuck of the Week: Peter Boyles

Peter Boyles's show isn't popular for its intelligent discourse. Sure, the longtime Denver radio shock jock is a smart man himself and he gets plenty of intelligent people on his program, but things typically devolve quickly. As with most radio shows, ratings trump reason. But Vagina DeJette? Seriously, Peter? That's...

By Westword Staff

February 20, 2009

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Peter Boyles's show isn't popular for its intelligent discourse. Sure, the longtime Denver radio shock jock is a smart man himself and he gets plenty of intelligent people on his program, but things typically devolve quickly. As with most radio shows, ratings trump reason.

But Vagina DeJette? Seriously, Peter? That's how you roll?

On Wednesday, Boyles (pictured here with a member of the fairer sex) was talking with previous Shmuck of the Week award winner and state senator Dave Schultheis of Colorado Springs and Independence Institute hero/villain Jon "Bitch Slap" Caldara about how Barack Obama mispronounced U.S. Representative Diana DeGette's name on Tuesday as "DeJette" (which, by the way, was the second time the president has done so; the first was at a rally in Denver last year).

Then Boyles, amid snickers, started calling her "Vagina DeJette." Why? The answer can be explained in language that Boyles will surely understand: Because he is a Shmuck.

We're not above name-calling; in fact, we enjoy it. But it's just a few months after an election that saw two women come very close to becoming president and vice-president of the United States, and that's what Boyles has to offer? In an era when women like DeGette continue to stand out as what are too few-and-far-between role models for young girls, it looks like fourteen-year-old boys everywhere have found a new leader.

On Friday, according to a Denver Post story, a programming director at Clear Channel (which owns 630-KHOW) said Boyles would no longer use that term.

For previous Shmucks, see our archive.

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