Bob Grant | Combative radio host, 84

Conservative radio host Bob Grant, 84, whose style became the template for broadcasters such as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, died Tuesday in Hillsborough, N.J., after a short illness.

"Remember this: If you are offended during the next two hours, it's nobody's fault but mine," he said at the top of a broadcast featured in a 2010 tribute. "Because somebody's got to say these things. It has to be me."

He was born Robert Ciro Gigante in Chicago in 1939 and began his career there in the 1940s at WBBM. He moved on to radio and TV jobs in Los Angeles and was named afternoon drive-time host at WABC in New York in 1984.

Over the years, Mr. Grant offended some by referring to former New York Mayor David Dinkins as a "washroom attendant," calling Bill Clinton a "sleazebag," and suggesting women on welfare should be sterilized.

In a 1993 broadcast, he lambasted the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as "that slimeball."

WABC mostly defended his right to voice his opinions. But he apparently crossed the line in 1996 amid early reports that there was only one survivor of the crash of a plane carrying Commerce Secretary Ron Brown in Croatia.

"My hunch is that he [Brown] is the one survivor," he said. "I must have a hunch. Maybe 'cause at heart, I'm a pessimist."

Two weeks later, he was off the air. He moved to WOR before returning to WABC in 2006.

He is survived by two sons and two daughters. - AP