DON IMUS - A DISASTER BOUND TO HAPPEN
I admit it, I have NEVER liked Don Imus. My friend from college Joe, used to swear up and down to me how great he was. I gave him a few chances on Joe's recommendation and I got such bad vibes from this guy. He just oozed misogyny and racism to me. I am pretty liberal about everything but this guy? No class - and I can't deal with crude people. Sorry.
Yeah I know - I am a huge Howard Stern fan. But Howard for some reason, comes off to me as a guy who's just being honest about how a lot of men think of women. He's funny and he actually respects women - a bit too much LOL - in my opinion. (And no, I have no intention of going to Sirius and riding the sybian.) I could listen to Howard riff on the news all day. Even when I don't agree with him - he makes me laugh. A lot. Howard is no Imus. Baruch Hashem.
Now Al Sharpton... well, calling for Imus' outster - o.k. I can see that. But Sharpton is so full of himself it makes me think he just jumped on this circus train the way so many jumped on the late Anna Nicole Smith's death. Sharpton is a media whore - there's no doubt. This is the same guy that backed Tawana Brawley and got up into the Crown Heights riot debacle. Then Sharpton shilled for LoanMax - a company that was later accused of predatory lending. What a surprise... not. Sharpton chastizing Imus - well that's two way hypocrisy isn't it.
Back to Imus... his shows on every network have been loaded with racism, misogyny and homophobia. Guys like him ALWAYS try to tell the world "I am a good guy - I just made a mistake." Bullcrap. (like Terrorists saying THEY are the Victims... Abusers do the same thing!) It's who you are Imus. You're a viper trying to convince the world you're just a garden snake.
My big question now is: WHERE WAS THE OUTRAGE WHEN IMUS MAKES CRUDE REMARKS ABOUT THE JEWS??
It was just a matter of time before he shoved his Tony Lamas down his 66 year old throat.
Don Imus, Suspended, Still Talking
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
Don Imus was suspended. But it looked as though NBC had suspended the suspension. This scandal-harried radio host and MSNBC star was free to appear on “Today” yesterday and explain himself again and again: His interview with Matt Lauer and his debate with the Rev. Al Sharpton, their second, were shown simultaneously on the MSNBC show “Imus in the Morning.”
The Rutgers University basketball players, fresh from a Rocky-like rise to the N.C.A.A. women’s championship game, held a news conference to explain that the slur-heard-round-the-world robbed them of their “moment.”
Mr. Imus’s moment keeps going into overtime.
NBC said Mr. Imus’s two-week timeout would begin next Monday to allow Mr. Imus to hold a call-in pledge drive for several of his charities for sick children. The radiothon begins on Thursday, leaving Mr. Imus more time to lobby to keep his job — and receive testimonials from longtime guests like the Newsweek columnist Howard Fineman and comrades in political incorrectitude like the comedian Bill Maher.
The network had time to showcase its disgraced star and wring every last drop of attention from the latest ado about verbal insensitivity.
Hypocrisy aside, the network’s decision to delay Mr. Imus’s punishment was useful. There are no laws to adjudicate racial harmony; morning television is the forum in which grievances are aired and sympathies are marshaled. Politicians weighed in (Rudolph W. Giuliani supports Mr. Imus; Senator Barack Obama does not), but television, or more specifically advertising, is the arbiter. The hosts of “Today” in particular serve as America’s test family, one that reflects many of the veiled tensions about race that exist throughout American society.
Mr. Lauer, reclaiming the role of father figure after Katie Couric left for CBS, was at the top of his game as he even-handedly quizzed both Mr. Imus and Mr. Sharpton about their positions. Meredith Vieira, who positions herself as a stay-in-the-studio mom, was assigned the task of interviewing the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and was not nearly so agile or forceful as her co-host. She gingerly raised Mr. Jackson’s infamous description of New York City as “Hymietown,” in the 1984 presidential race but avoided following up on Mr. Jackson’s evasive answer.
Mr. Jackson said the Imus incident should be used to desegregate the media, complaining that MSNBC and CNBC have no African-American anchors. Ms. Vieira was silent, apparently forgetting that the parent network’s stars include Lester Holt and Al Roker, the weatherman on “Today.” Mr. Roker, who is usually cast as the fun uncle, all sunshine and cooking demonstrations, was not part of the discussion on the air about Mr. Imus. But he is the only African-American host on “Today,” and he made his feelings known on the “Today” show blog.
“What he said was vile and disgusting,” Mr. Roker wrote about Mr. Imus, whom he urged to resign. “A two-week suspension doesn’t cut it. It is, at best, a slap on the wrist. A vacation. Nothing.”In this polite but sometimes strained community, Mr. Imus is the cranky, aging neighbor who can be relied upon to shovel snow off the sidewalk but occasionally blurts out words so offensive and insensitive that it makes everyone regret inviting him to the block party.
He tried to explain his remark as a momentary slip, describing himself as a “good person who said a bad thing.” But there is a deeper dichotomy behind his disgrace: Mr. Imus wants to be both a shock jock and Charlie Rose, and the two roles inevitably collide. He is a radio star whose early popularity rested on sophomoric and outrageous humor. But Mr. Imus also staked his claim to gravitas, inviting journalists and politicians on his show and discussing —with considerable skill — news and political affairs.
He told Mr. Lauer that his racist remark about the Rutgers players came out in a comic context. “I’m not a newsman,” he said rather testily from his radio talk-show desk. “This is not ‘Meet the Press.’ ” Actually, it is: “Imus in the Morning” is the place where fans who don’t watch Tim Russert’s talk show get a chance to hobnob with writers for The New York Times, NBC correspondents and Newsweek columnists.
Shock jocks are aptly named: They fulfill the fans’ expectation of verbal transgression first by saying the kinds of disgusting things that are forbidden almost anywhere else and then by laughing off critics and scolds. Mr. Imus’s many acts of contrition are both not enough and too much: by admitting he was wrong, he surrenders any claim to the shock jock’s dispensation. And the penalty for ordinary public figures is usually stiffer than a two-week suspension.
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