Radio shock jock Don Imus should really get this year’s Darwin Award for calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team a bunch of “nappy-headed hos.” Talk about evolution in reverse. He won’t be surviving much longer if he keeps this up.
I mean, the guy’s a media veteran and should know that the unforgivable sin in America today is making “offensive” statements about African-Americans.
Imus’s comments were out of line and stupid. There was no need for them and he was making a poor attempt at being funny. But Imus’s idiocy was like blood in water: once the media got a sniff of what he said, they and every savvy politician and pundit came swimming like a swarm of sharks, looking for someone to devour.
Honestly, I don’t know. Imus apologized, saying he made a “stupid, idiotic mistake,” and that he’s not a racist. For his words, Imus will be suspended from the air for two weeks, a judgment he deemed fair.
But apparently it’s not fair enough. In a world where a contrite apology will get you out of any sort of trouble, Imus is finding that the standards are unreasonably high in his case.
Democratic Senator from Illinois and 2008 Presidential hopeful Barack Obama called for Imus’s firing and said that Imus’s comment is “one that I’m not interested in supporting.” Man, you gotta love Obama and the strong stances he takes on issues.
And, of course, the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson were there from the beginning also calling for Imus to be fired. Sharpton pitted Imus’s statement as “racist” and “diabolical.” I wonder if Sharpton would consider the time he was convicted of libel when he falsely accused a white district attorney of raping a black woman to be “racist” and “diabolical.”
Jackson was indignant over Imus’s two-week suspension, calling it a “slap on the wrist,” and demanded that Imus undergo “serious sensitivity training.” I wonder if Jackson, while campaigning for the Presidency in 1988 called New York City “Hymietown,” will consider accompanying Imus to therapy sessions.
I don’t know who appointed these two goons – Sharpton and Jackson – as God the Father and God the Son when it comes to racial issues. Sharpton and Jackson have all the freedom in the world to criticize Imus and his lack of judgment, but it’s a just a bit like the pot calling the kettle black. (Pun intended.)
By the way, why weren’t Sharpton, Jackson, Obama, and others calling for Rosie O’Donnell’s head when she compared conservative Christians to Islamofascists? That’s a fairly “insensitive” and “offensive” statement; why did she get off the hook but Imus is being reeled in and gutted?
Speaking of Rosie…she weighed in on this whole fiasco and, ironically enough, came down on Imus’s side.
Well, maybe it’s not so ironic. Maybe Rosie is still worried about her job because, after all, her comments were more vitriolic in nature than Imus’s. But on the April 11th edition of “The View,” Rosie made strong and emphatic comments in support of Imus.
Said Rosie, “But the point of the story is, if it impedes on free speech in America, democracy is at stake. Because democracy is based on freedom of speech and freedom of the press. So we really have to worry about that in this country.”
Moments later she added, “. . . it’s not a freedom if you outlaw certain words or thoughts, because then the thought police come and then before you know it, everyone’s in Guantanamo Bay without representation.”
Gosh, I’ve seen it all, now. Take me home, Lord, for I just found myself agreeing with Rosie O’Donnell.
There’s certainly something to be said about freedom and responsibility, though. Imus is a doofus and should have thought before he spoke. Even Obama said (what is wrong with me today? First Rosie and now Obama?), “We all have First Amendment rights. And I am a constitutional lawyer and strongly believe in free speech, but as a culture, we really have to do some soul-searching to think about what kind of toxic information are we [sic] feeding our kids.”
It remains to be seen how many kids actually listen to Imus, but most Democrats usually end up making everything about the kids.
I feel sorry for Imus – not because of what he said – but because of how he’s being treated. It seems that the mainstream media and members of the Left hold whites, Christians, Jews, etc to a different standard. The Rosies, Sharptons, and Jacksons of the world can get away with anything and, it should be noted, don’t even care to apologize.
Imus apologized; he’s going to serve a two-week suspension, but it still isn’t good enough. What ever happened to tolerance? To free speech? It’s one thing to criticize and condemn comments like Imus’s, but firing the guy?
I think Someone once said, “He who has no sin, throw the first stone.”
