Anatomy of a scandal: Don Imus spends years developing a talk radio career where his cranky, always-irritated demeanor turns into revenue gold for his employers; on one particular morning he makes a stupid, bigoted remark about a bunch of young, talented college athletes; a liberal watchdog-type website blasts the remark all over the internet, prompting the media to turn it into a firestorm; Imus makes a bunch of clumsy, cranky, always-irritated attempts to apologize; and before he can even begin to start serving his self-described “two week suspension with dignity”, he loses it all. First, his cable news employer cans him and then, his bread and butter, the radio network, says good-bye, I-Man.
Whew.
A few good things have come out of this train wreck. Any time an issue isn’t split down predictable party lines, that’s a good thing. Liberal blowhards like Rosie O’Donnell and Bill Maher rushed to his defense while conservative blowhards like me agreed that Don Imus should probably lose his job.
I know that any of us who make a living in front of a microphone could invoke the, “There but for the grace of God” response. But once in awhile, it’s not hard to keep from defending the indefensible. Talk radio is an intimate medium. If we hosts are any good at it, our listeners know us. And it’s pretty doggone tough to listen to a cranky old man with a ridiculous-looking oversize cowboy hat perched on his head and know that when he watches an NCAA basketball team comprised of black students, the phrase “nappy-headed ho’s” even enters his mind. I’m a pretty simple guy when it comes to something quacking and walking and looking like a duck and therefore probably being an actual duck.
Only a bigot would say what Imus said.
But what about the other bigots in this story? What happens to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton now? Does anyone really believe that they’re the moral arbiters when it comes to the subject of Don Imus? How many reporters will ever have the courage to ask Rev. Jesse Jackson how he could dare criticize “nappy-headed ho’s” when he has yet to apologize for calling New York City “Hymietown?”
And when is Rev. Al Sharpton going to apologize for ruining the life of an Upstate New York policeman who was falsely accused of rape by a lying scoundrel named Tawana Brawley?
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