Don62 said:
Let's see those same thugs who went after Imus' insulting remarks go after those million $ rap stars who use the "ho" word in every other verse.
The silence is deafening.
Frankly, I am seeing this used a lot as an excuse to give Imus a free pass for his comments. "Fine, you can fire Imus after you also fire all the rap stars" seems to be a refrain used in particular by the Fox News folks and the right wing talk shows. Let's get real for a moment. All of these comments from Imus came on what is ostensibly a NEWS network (counting the television side here), not on a shiny CD with a parental warning label on it. There is supposed to be a major difference between a news network and an entertainment product. I think it's a convenient tapdance argument being used to avoid confronting the issue head on.
First, I personally don't think Imus is a racist or that he needs to be fired, but a two week break did sound like a plan to me. There needs to be some consequences for all of this. As I wrote in another post, you do the pro-firing side no good to have Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton be the paragons of virtue on the issue of race and fairness considering their respective pasts.
Second, the bigger issue here is watching everyone try to grab a piece of the agenda pie here to push their respective causes and cash in wherever possible. It's revolting:
1) The Faux News froot loops this morning were advancing their conspiracy theory agenda that Imus would be given a free pass on NBC because Imus is a liberal (really???) on a liberal network, and if a conservative said this, he would have been fired. And Bill O'Reilly complains about Rosie? This one was the biggest stretch of them all and exposes the one trick pony Faux News enjoys riding hour after hour in show after show (Olbermann really must tick Ailes and friends off to the point where the spat has become an obsession for the "fair and balanced" network.) And, surprise, they were wrong even on their Krazy Fakts - Imus was booted off MSNBC.
2) Rev. Al's gi-normous cash-in (and Jesse Jackson beatdown as he becomes Mr. Also-ran at the hands of the Reverend Sharpton) makes him the agenda king. A groveling Imus at the microphone of the invisible "Keeping it Real" radio show Sharpton runs paid Imus no dividends. And Sharpton refused to sit in the studio alone with Imus during commercial breaks - that helps to keep the dialogue open real well. Any race issue that can be demagogued for attention (or better yet a cash settlement) and Sharpton is there.
3) The Rutgers team played their press conference to the hilt. I'd like to honestly know how many of those players even listen to AM radio, much less listen to or even know who Imus is. I would have been far more impressed had they met with Imus before holding the press conference. They remain, however, the only ones that will ultimately come out looking the best, as they should.
4) The claims of hand-wringing and self congratulatory back slapping by the folks at NBC and MSNBC was so transparent, birds were crashing into it thinking it wasn't even there. Does anyone here disagree that the real reason Imus was shown the door at MSNBC today, just 24 hours after MSNBC officials were spinning that his apology was sincere and that a two week suspension was appropriate, is that advertisers fled the network today? And they didn't just leave Imus - sponsors cancelled entire dayparts, and in droves.
But NBC conveniently decided to dump him today (hmmm... with a statement that just so happened to be coming right in time for "breaking news" on the NBC Nightly News) after "talking with employees to get their opinions," and "considering whether Imus was right for a national news network," and "looking at how this impacted the victims." OH PLEASE!!! Like NBC makes programming decisions based on the input of the office mail guy and the secretary. And Imus was apparently "right" for a network that's had him running for over a decade (along with endless reruns of Dateline, trash from Rita Cosby, wall to wall Anna Nicole, and a range of other decidedly non-news programming). The only thing NBC looked at was their bottom line.
5) "I definitely think we should stand behind Imus right up until they point we shouldn't!" The oh-so-brave "media analysts" and "pundits" and "media elites" who spent the last 24 hours showing their light as a feather allegiance to Imus until a light breeze turns them around. Steve Abugharib, Abu Dhabi, YabbaDabba or whoever the heck he is on MSNBC/Scarborough was the absolute worst, nearly breaking out in tears with his pride in being a part of a news operation that gave up the money and the ratings all to do the right thing for the American people and their employees. Gag!!! The only prostitutes actually involved in this entire affair turned out to be the pundits who will tailor their opinion to yours, for the right price!
Howard Fineman who yesterday was defending Imus up and down today pulled an Alberto Gonzalez, telling MSNBC audiences (who no doubt had whiplash from the instant turnaround) that he was on vacation, was scheduled to appear on Imus' show yesterday and wasn't really aware of what was going on. Yeah, here's someone we want helping to put news into context - the guy who was literally on vacation and out to lunch when the NHW bomb was dropped. He didn't know, he wasn't involved. Today, on cue, he flip-flopped to the hand-wringing corner.
And the list goes on and on. And as they run for cover as the S.S. Imus sinks, to protect their own tainted reps after getting Imus ooze on them, the rest of America will now have to endure another one of these hand wringing "race relations in America - a closer look at what's wrong with America and what you can do" obsessions in the press. And you can bet the same pundits and media elites that were giving high fives to Imus and making excuses for him will later this week be lecturing the rest of us on how we the people (you know, the powerless masses who don't run the corporate media that cancelled news on cable news) have allowed our culture to degenerate and look the other way when racism rears its head. Yeah, it's all our fault.
The real story here is that this country only obsesses about this issue when someone opens their mouth and says something stupid, be it Jimmy the Greek, Mel Gibson, or Don Imus. But the story is never really about them - it becomes about the collective we, the American people. If I got ahold of their halos, I'd beat them about their heads with them.
6) CBS Radio is now playing an episode of Survivor with itself. The island is getting mightly lonely now that MSNBC left. Now you know the real issue they are struggling with this evening - whether it's better to dump him overboard now, or wait for the ad dollar bonanza in two weeks (conveniently at the start of sweeps) when he'll be back from his vacation and America will listen in droves to hear what he says next! Proctor & Gamble may have yanked the Downy and Tide ads from MSNBC mornings, but on radio Oreck will sponsor anything and CBS knows it!
The whole thing is just amazingly pathetic. At the heart of it for the players involved is cold hard cash and media attention. It's the only altar they worship at.
