Wednesday, April 11th, 2007...6:27 pm
Imus Be Going
MSNBC has just discontinued his show, and CBS may do the same soon. So, I’m trying not to pile on too much, but I’ve always been lost on the fascination with Don Imus. He seemed to be always a run of the mill curmudgeon, a dime a dozen in any decent sized media market. What made him different, I suppose, was that so many national media and political figures thought that he was a good pal to have around.
It really shouldn’t have suprised anyone that talk like this has come out of his mouth. Slate magazine ran a piece today detailing his various racist and misogynist musings. They neglected to include the sometimes worse statements of his producer and jerk-de-camp Bernard McGuirk. I’ve never found what they said interesting or funny. It has always sounded more like a conversation that you overhear at a bar between two old drunks ticked off at the world.
So, why was this guy considered such a talent? It seems that his real talent was convincing mainstream political and media figures to grace his studio and lend him a credibility that he never earned with his dubious talents. Maybe the very fact that these guys kept showing up despite his statements in the past is what made him think throwing racist statements at college students okay. What is even more disturbing is how many of these guys have come to Imus’s defense, including John McCain.
(By the way, some of these mainstream media figures that used to show up on Imus get mad that all those college kids watching Jon Stewart instead of “serious news.” Go figure.)
Anyhow, we’ll see if these standards start getting applied to folks like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin. I won’t be holding my breath.
3 Comments
April 12th, 2007 at 7:17 am
Brilliant how you try to play Imus as some type of conservative when he most certainly was not. He was popular among Washington insiders for the same reason that the Daily Show is now. Politicians (mainly Democrats) could make “of the record” statements publicly on his show. To be honest, his audience appeal outside the beltway was very low. He has mostly escaped criticism to this point precisely because he was not a conservative. With the Daily show, he is pretty much irrelevant anyway at this point.
I missed Ann Coulter’s radio show. What station can I get that on again? Rush Limbaugh is in trouble on an almost weekly basis with some sort of outraged liberal cause. Most of it is silly and overblown which is why he is probably inoculated against more serious accusations. Malkin runs a blog, which as I can attest to, the barrier for entry and sticking around is quite low.
I would ask you the same thing about Randi Rhoades, Al Frankin, et al., but tree, forest, no one around. . .
I do agree with you, however, Imus was just about the worst drek in talk radio.
April 12th, 2007 at 7:41 am
Framer-
Tell me again when I called Imus a conservative?
You’re right that neither Michelle Malkin nor Ann Coulter has a radio show, but both are interviewed as “political experts” when they rarely have anything to offer besides insults and iffy accusations.
Limbaugh, for all of the hemming and hawing, hasn’t taken much of a hit in his wallet despite his racism and sexism. The crude shots taken at Michael J. Fox didn’t lose him any sponsors or stations, near as I can tell.
Could you please point out for me when Al Franken or Randi Rhodes have made racist statements? They take political shots, but you’d be hard pressed to find anything like the homophobia of Coulter or the misogyny of Imus and Limbaugh.
April 12th, 2007 at 10:21 am
My mistake then, I thought that curmudgeon was liberal code speak for conservative.
As far as racist or sexist remarks, let’s see:
Letter from the ADF castigating Rhodes
Imagine a possible Republican Senate candidate saying something like “Coleman, says Franken bluntly, is “one of the administration’s leading butt boys” about his Democratic challenger. Do you think that there would be much outrage? What if Rush Limbaugh said it?
I wasn’t really that pressed at all.
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