Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Don Imus The Gelding Whinnies Again

Radio talk show host Don Imus is in the process of learning a bitter lesson, not only about race relations, but all areas of human relations. That lesson-the longer you kiss people’s asses, the more likely they are to shit all over you.

Here is his latest faux paus, a statement concerning the latest arrest of Dallas Cowboys cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones, the sixth such run-in with the law Jones has faced-

During a conversation about Jones' run-ins with the law, Imus asked, "What color is he?" Sports announcer Warner Wolf said Jones — formerly known as Pacman — is "African-American." Imus responded: "There you go. Now we know."

So, you can take this two ways-

*The law is targeting Jones for racial reasons
*Jones, being black, is an obvious troublemaker

Imus obviously meant the first, but the PC crowd, intent on reading the other definition into his remarks-whether they really believe that’s what he meant or not, by the way-have started yet another controversy. As for Imus, his response to the accusations is almost as sickening, if not more.

"What people should be outraged about is that they arrest blacks for no reason," Imus said Tuesday. "I mean, there's no reason to arrest this kid six times. Maybe he did something once, but everyone does something once."

No reason to arrest “this kid” (a professional football player) six times? Well, there might have been a reason. There might have been six of them, you fucking old fool.

A pretty good indication of Jones's character might be his own response to the controversy-

"I'm truly upset about the comments," Jones said. "Obviously Mr. Imus has problems with African-Americans. I'm upset, and I hope the station he works for handles it accordingly. I will pray for him."

So, I am sure, will Al Sharpton, who has "not yet decided" what he's going to do about this.

What the fuck ever.

Here’s real the problem with Don Imus. He started out in the early seventies, with a cutting edge, take no prisoners approach to radio and, as one of the original shock jocks, built an audience based on skewering the establishment, which at that time was more or less relatively conservative. As he got older, the establishment became first more liberal, and then more mixed. To be sure, he has tried to stay relevant, and so keep his head above water, by going after such liberal luminaries as Ted Kennedy. Some of his comments pertaining to Chappaquiddick are in fact sadistically hilarious.

Nor has he been unfairly brutal to conservatives, in my opinion. He has, throughout his career, been an equal opportunity offender. This was true up until the time he crossed paths with Al Sharpton, who handed Imus his hat and his ass, but never quite relinquished his balls. Imus has never recovered, nor is he likely to do so.

In effect, Imus passed up a golden opportunity. He could have easily landed a spot on XM or on Sirius, at that time two separate entities, and used this as a vehicle to tear into the race baiting, racial hustling monolith run by the Sharptons, the Jackson, and others of their ilk, and his ratings would have been through the roof. He could have skewered the corporations, politicians, and other apologists who have enabled these two-bit con artists. He would have been controversial, of course, but Imus is used to nothing if not controversy.

So, why didn’t he do that? Does anybody really believe for a minute that he honestly, sincerely believes he was in the wrong, and that he feels compelled to make amends? Nonsense! The true reason is his attachment to the celebrity and the persona of a man who hobnobs with the great and the near great of politics and journalism, who would quickly turn their backs on him if he didn’t toe the line. In other words, this is a textbook case of a man selling his soul for all the world to see-or rather to hear, which is fortunate. To see it would be to see an old mangled, bloody and bruised wreck of a man, dismembered and scattered along the road to perdition. Hearing it is quite enough, thank you, if you can even stomach that much.

If Don Imus was a real man of integrity, he would stand up for himself and blast the Sharptons and Jacksons, and all their enablers, and do so with no apologies. He could easily find a format if he just had to start out on nothing but a web site and podcast. He would soon enough find another more traditional format, either on satellite radio or cable television, or both. His audience would quickly grow to much more than what it is now, and very likely to greater numbers eventually than he has ever enjoyed. Nor would he have to depend on Klan types for an audience. You don’t have to wear white robes and pointy little cone hats, or a swastika, to be profoundly sick of the race based and for that matter the myriads of other forms of political correctness that has turned American discourse into an exercise in walking on egg shells.

If he did stand up for himself, then he might one day finally be able to wear his grapefruit sized asshole like a badge of honor. Instead, unfortunately, he’s just going to do what all old cowboys eventually do, fade into the sunset and soon be quickly forgotten, while the herd just keeps grazing on in their abject stupidity.

2 comments:

Rufus said...

I think some of them just figure they won't be as popular on satelite radio. Howard Stern does pretty much the same stuff on satelite, gets paid more, and doesn't have to deal with the FCC- but I'd bet he doesn't have the same audience size.

SecondComingOfBast said...

True, plus Imus is so bound up with people that won't appear on his program if they feel they'll be criticized for supporting him if he don't play by their rules. John McCain, for example, and John Kerry before him, and a plethora of other top name politicians of both parties and journalists, were regular guests on his old show and he wants to keep them coming back if he possibly can. I understand his point to an extent, but that would be awful galling to me to have to put up with that.