Hate to squeeze in between you two, but I have some thoughts on the thread topic. Ignore me, and go right back to whatever it is you two are going on and on about.
First of all, Imus (WFAN 660) seems to be the only station that comes through clearly on my work truck radio on my 70 mile (one way) trip in every day...so I sit through the first hour or so of his program just to have something to listen to. I don't consider myself to be a fan at all, and I confess to not knowing who half of his guests are.
Having said all that, I have been listening to his show for a few years now. (In fact, it was there that I learned that Gibbs was back...during Sid Rosenberg's sports report...and joined Hogs.net right after.)
I'm no expert, but I feel like a have a good handle on who this guy is.
He's not a racist.
When I say that, I don't mean to say that he doesn't make stupid statements. He used to egg Rosenberg on all the time. Sid would say something innocuous at worst, and Imus' crew would howl and laugh...because they knew it would make Sid try to go one better and say something even stupider. Imus would then just throw something in there that added to it, basically causing the whole thing to degrade into a one-upmanship pissing contest over who could get the last word in. Remember the thing with the Williams sisters? Or when he called some black sports columnist a "quota hire"? How about the Omar Minaya skits, the "cleaning lady" crack, and the Cardinal segment that seems to air every day? Apparently, no ethnic/religious/political group is spared on the program...and I've only just listed a few.
Even his brother is ridiculed. No one is exempt.
When I hear the term "racist", I define that as somebody thinking they're better or superior than somebody else because they're different in some way. Is that too narrow? Am I oversimplifying it? I don't know. It works for me.
There's no question that what he did wasn't right. There's also no question in my mind that there are other people who could say the same thing in the same (or worse) context and get away with it. You can tell when Don Imus has a bone for somebody. I have no idea who Joe Barton is, but boy...did he get his tail handed to him every morning for a while for getting in the way of a bill that Imus supported. You could hear the hate in his voice. Not so, this time. To me, it sounded like Bernard started the whole thing...and it also sounded like a bunch of old men sitting around making observations designed to get a rise out of somebody.
Professionally, Don Imus is an entertainer. His radio persona is a cranky, irritable old drunk. Personally, he's the founder of a very fine non-profit organization for children with cancer, and a major, major player in fundraising for autism research.
Can a bisexual be accused of sexual harrasment if he treats everybody the same way?
Can an entertainer be fired for making disparaging remarks, when no one group has been spared?
Can Al Sharpton ever be taken seriously? Or Jesse Jackson, for that matter? Tawana Brawley?
HymieTown?
Do we really need these two speaking for us, expressing our outrage no matter what "color" we are?
In a world that allows Howard Stern to rise to the top of his profession, do we really draw the line here?
I don't give a crap about Rutgers. I don't even know what state they play in. I don't agree with what he said. I didn't even laugh.
I'll tell you this, though. When I heard that...he had my undivided attention. I kept that station on for about an hour longer than usual.
And guess what?
That's his job.
At the end of the day, any criticism coming from anybody but Rutgers is just soapbox BS, to me.
In my view, what Don Imus needs to do now is find some way of making it up to the only people who were really hurt here...and those are the players. A scholarship in their name would be a terrific place to start. Lending his celebrity to their program (if it's still worth anything ) wouldn't hurt.
Removing him from the air hurts more people than it helps...and he'd just wind up on Sirius anyway.
This concludes my little rant. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming, "Thread Hijacking And You: Coping With A Growing Epidemic".