Only small men where cowboy hats, indoors, on-air, in NYC

Imus might have just told his last not-funny, actually pretty insulting racial "joke". For those of you who don't know, Don Imus is a daytime nationally syndicated radio show that is simulcasted on MSNBC. Many years ago he and Stern were the battling local shock jocks, and after Stern pretty much beat his brains in ratings, Imus took a strange, more "respectable", political turn, but kept its high school level of humor. He couldn't run with Stern, so now he does his same lame material (jokes about blacks being monkeys and women being dumb whores, funny stuff) but with Senators and Tim Russert. Stern gets George Takei and fined millions for cursing; Imus gets Joe Lieberman, does comedy consisting of racial slurs, and is seen as a "get" in the cable news machine.

The recent controversy is over him calling the Rutgers women's bball team a bunch of "nappy-headed hos". You see, that's the joke, funny right? The big problem for Imus this time though is this isn't the first time and he might have finally exposed himself in a way that isn't easy to dismiss. Cause see, calling a bunch of black women athletes hos isn't really funny, that was a trick! It really isn't being, gasp, non-PC! Its sort of like also laughing as your guest rifts that "The more I look at Rutgers, they look exactly like the [National Basketball Association's] Toronto Raptors": it's a bigoted, insulting, and, the most important, NOT FUNNY!

Is the big old bad National Association of Black Journalists piling on by calling for a boycott of his show? Even after his wonderful apology where he said the comments were "ill-conceived" and "inappropriate"? (By the way, your mother is subhuman and you are a skank. You know what, that was ill-conceived, let's move on!) There is this lovely section from Imus's wiki page:

Imus and his crew, Charles McCord and Bernard McGuirk, are frequently accused of racism, misogyny, and homophobia. Imus referred to sports columnist Bill Rhoden as a "New York Times quota hire" and PBS anchor Gwen Ifill as a "cleaning lady".[5] Imus has repeatedly referred to Arabs as "ragheads."[6] He has berated many female newsreaders, most recently being his last one, which caused her, Contessa Brewer, to quit the show. After she quit or was fired, depending on who you believe, Imus went on a tirade. “With that fat ass she’s got, she wouldn’t be one of ‘em,” (a beautiful woman). Imus said on the air, "That skank has to spend three hours with makeup in the morning." That tirade was also tied to comments that were overheard of Contessa calling Imus “a cantankerous old fool” at some dinner in a restaurant in 2005, when she was the newsreader.[7]

There was an interesting story on On The Media about Imus's game of serious/racist split. The "shockingly bad taste" here is saying the Williams sisters are "animals" that should be in National Geographic instead of Playboy.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Earlier this summer one of Imus's second bananas, Sid Rosenberg, made a joke in shockingly bad taste about tennis players Serena and Venus Williams. Imus fired him. And then promptly re-hired him. He explained that back in the bad old days of his own drug and alcohol abuse, people gave him about 50 second chances. Imus is all about forgiveness. But he admitted in an interview with Mike Wallace a few years back that he hired his staff to make racist jokes.

MIKE WALLACE: You told Tom ANDERSON, the producer, in your car coming home that Bernard McGuirk is there to do "nigger" jokes.

DON IMUS: Well I've n-- I never use that word.

MIKE WALLACE: Tom?

TOM ANDERSON: I'm right here.

DON IMUS: Did I use that word?

TOM ANDERSON: I recall you using that word.

DON IMUS: Oh, okay, well then I used that word, but I mean-- of course that was an off the record conversation-- [LAUGHTER]

MIKE WALLACE: The hell it was!

The fact this On The Media story was from 2001 (!) you get the idea Imus might have reached the end of all the morning zoo forgiveness. Al Sharpton is going to start picketing his studios tomorrow, and I'm not to sure Imus's response will be reasoned and measured. Especially when Sharpton says about Imus's apology,

"I accept his apology, just as I want his bosses to accept his resignation,"

Then again, we should never underestimate the lack of concern of slurring blacks in the national media. Chris Matthews, Senator McCain, see you soon!



UPDATE: Atrios provides an example from THIS MORNING that proves my point above. Howard Fineman, a Newsweek columnist, says its a "different time" because Obama made a lot of money, and Imus exposes the hypocracy of the NABJ for not being interested in his fight against sickle cell anemia!

Yes, this is the weak stuff he's bringing. I think he's going to dust off the good ol' I'M NOT A RACISTS, THAT'S WHAT SO INSANE ABOUT THIS!