AND I QUOTE / What Political Books Are Saying : LET’S BE HEARD,<i> By Bob Grant (Pocket Books: $22; 243 pp.)</i>

“Nobody’s coming to America to become American anymore. They’re coming here to set up their own little enclaves, exploit the local economy and send the money back home--like colonies, or better yet, like parasites. They don’t pay taxes or serve in the armed forces or join the PTA or volunteer at the Red Cross. They don’t care about the American way. They barely know what the words mean. . . . It’s as though your poorest, sorriest, most ignorant neighbor heard that you have a beautiful home, a real garden spot--and instead of building his own, he decided to move in with you!”

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Oh really? Not even one immigrant wants to be an American? None wants to plant a garden?

One of the pioneers of rant radio, Bob Grant is not quite so doctrinaire as many who followed. But he’s every bit as inflammatory. He suggests that reading this book is one of 10 ways to keep America great. I agree. Here is a textbook lesson in the fatuous thinking and invective that now rules so much of our airwaves. W. C. Fields could not have done it better.

P.S. On April 17, soon after Commerce Secretary Ron Brown’s plane crashed and a single survivor was reported, Grant was fired from his job with WABC in New York for saying: “My hunch is that he is the survivor. Maybe it’s because, at heart, I’m a pessimist.”

P.P.S. On April 24, Pocket Books upped the press run on this book from 30,000 to 50,000 copies.

P.P.P.S. On April 26, Grant was hired by rival station WOR-AM to host a weekday drive-time show.