More on Imus

Well, MSNBC dropped Imus and CBS Radio says they're keeping him on. Maybe his income will drop from 10 million a year down to only 8 million or so. That'll teach him.

The blog world isn't as fixated on Imus as cable news shows are, but we're still talking about it.

Ed Brayton compares Imus to rap singers.

However, there are two other aspects of the situation that have gotten a lot of attention. One is that it is hypocritical of some people to criticize Imus for using a phrase like that while praising rappers who call women the same thing and worse in virtually every rap song. Dead on accurate. And it's been disappointing to me to see even some otherwise intelligent people not grasping this idea.

Ed thinks he's getting it right, but he's not. Song lyrics are basically a form of fiction. References in song lyrics aren't to individual people, they are references to fictional people, to things that are in the mind, not flesh and blood. Imus might have used the same words that some gangsta-rap singers use, but there's a big difference in that Imus directed his words at specific, identifiable, individual people. That makes it very different.

I agree with him in the other part of his complaint.

The other aspect is the inevitable spectacle of watching Imus prostrate himself before, of all people, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Of all people, we're going to listen to Jesse "Hymietown" Jackson about saying racially insensitive things? We're going to have to say penance to a shabby race pimp like Al "Please don't bring up Tawana Brawley" Sharpton? It's long since past time that we stopped paying attention to these men. There are serious civil rights leaders who deserve our respect and whose counsel we should keep in situation like this; Jackson and Sharpton are not among them.

Alec Baldwin actually makes what I think is a somewhat rational observation,

Imus is an entertainer. He is not Tim Russert. In order to appeal to a crowd that is a notch or two above Hannity's, however, he must combine a bit of Russert to his persona. He must walk a line between informed, reliable broadcaster and witty madman. Jon Stewart walks that line effectively, or one similar to it. Letterman walks it better than anyone. Intelligent, yet free. Sometimes even loopy, but always in a controlled way.

Imus said something that sounded racist without really being a racist. His only crime was that he didn't walk that line very carefully. And that's his job. Don't fire Imus because he's racially insensitive. His employers should have let his audience decide that. But, perhaps, fire him because his talent is diminishing. Imus was once one of the smartest guys in radio. Maybe he's just another radio host now. Like when the Jayson Blair scandal made people realize that the New York Times had, basically, become just another newspaper. Imus isn't a bad guy. He's just not the old Imus anymore. He's no longer that guy who always keeps that line in the corner of his eye.

Ann Althouse seems to think that Imus is holding too many racist thoughts in his head.

Now, Imus wasn't drunk, but he was doing ad lib comedy. How can you do that but to let go of the inhibitions that allow ordinary people to function in social situations? He's got to take that risk to give a comic performance. But what comes out must in some way be in there. He's funny -- when he is -- because he's got a mix of interesting things in his head, some of which are the bad and unkind thoughts that may make us laugh because they are things that we hold in too.

Okay, so maybe Imus is racist, maybe not. I really don't think that even matters. Apparently neither does Ann.

We are all flawed, and we do need our comedians. We should talk back and express outrage about some things, but when is the censuring too much? How long must a man abase himself and apologize? How much do we want to see a man grovel?

I'm starting to get sick of the cable news talking heads going on and on about how this is an opportunity to have a public dialogue about race relations in this country. Nonsense. This Imus stuff pretty much ensures we won't have such a dialogue. You can't have a dialogue when one side of the conversation is constrained in a way where their number one concern is not saying something that might offend somebody.

If we really want to have a dialogue we need to start ignoring some of the thin-skinned twits that yell for firing everyone that offends somebody.

Observations on Imus and his nappy hair

Should Imus be fired?

I don't know, I don't really care. But the whole thing sure is interesting.

I often watch Imus on MSNBC and although I missed the day of the nappy hair comment I did notice that during the week before that he was apologizing about something almost every day.

An example is some comments he'd made about General Motors. They had donated a few hundred thousand dollars worth of trucks to the Imus Ranch, his wholly owned charity subsidiary, and Imus made the comment on the air that they'd given the trucks to the ranch because they couldn't sell them.

No, no, no, Don.

The next day he was apologizing for it every 20 minutes or so. Two days later he was still apologizing every half hour or so. He even brought in a GM marketing VP as a guest and interviewed him about what great vehicles GM was making and how the news about a possible bankruptcy was all a misunderstanding. I was actually embarrassed for Imus.

Then he came up with his nappy headed hos. What a twit.

He apologized, and apologized, and just won't shut up about it.

On Tuesday he made the absurd claim that he's not running a PR campaign about the issue. He should be fired for saying that, of course he's running a PR campaign to try to frame it as a "good man who did a bad thing". To pretend he's not is just insulting. Every interview he did Tuesday was centered on what they thought about Imus's public relations problems. Every one.

He did an interview of Bill Maher that started out with what happens to people who say something stupid on the air. Bill Maher certainly knows about that. After a minute or two of that Maher tried to change the subject to politics, what the show is supposed to be about. Imus was having none of that. Everytime Maher brought up Bush Imus changed the subject to race relations in the US and what Imus was on record with about race relations in the US. Pathetic.

For two weeks Imus has been hyping an appearance by his wife to promote a new book she's written. It was supposed to be yesterday. She didn't show up. Imus mumbled some excuse. Even his wife is deserting the sinking ship.

The really funny part of all this, that I haven't seen any TV commentator comment about, is the basketball team's press conference on Tuesday. I guess they waited until Tuesday to meet the public so they could all go to the beauty shop. None of them had nappy hair.

I'm watching him right now (Wednesday morning) and he's relating a story about how he sent some kids with cancer home from his charity ranch because they were calling the girls "bitches and whores". Sent them home. Is he suggesting he should be sent home? Maybe that's how this all will end up.

Some other blog comments on Imus:

The Trouble With Imus' "It's Not Fair, Other People Do It" Defense

Sponsors yanking ads from Imus

Firing Imus is Too Good

When is an apology not enough?

Meet Al Roker, Fired-Up Blogger

The Spocko Effect

Imus Should Get Sirius

Don Imus and Megan Kanka In A Soundbite Nation

Re: Don Imus and the Rutgers Basketball Team

Department of huh?


From the NYT

More from NYT

USA Today on Imus

Real race issues (not about Imus)

Prom night in Georgia

UPDATE
Wednesday Imus keeps re-running clips of the basketball teams press conference. Over and over. Including the speech the team captain made where she talked about the biggest problem being all the unwanted media attention they are getting as a result of all this. Good thinking Imus. Just exploit the hell out of those girls, fill your airtime with their pleas to be left alone. Then apologize. That ought to work.