More On The Most Overblown Story Of The 21st Century Thus Far
Boy, this Imus thing is being totally overplayed, isn’t it? William F. Buckley, while pointing out the double standard involved, seems to think the sacking of Imus was some sort of great moment of triumph for civility:
Some years ago, Cokie Roberts, faithful to her profession and to the proposition that those engaged in public discourse, at whatever level, should be left free to do as they liked, stopped short. What did it was a speech at the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association dinner, an annual affair at which, in 1996, 3,000 guests ate and drank in the company of President and Mrs. Clinton and listened to Don Imus.
After that night’s performance, Ms. Roberts changed her mind. “I really don’t think it would be appropriate for any of us to ever go back on (Imus’ show),” she said. Imus’ monologue “was profoundly rude not only to the president of the United States and the first lady, but also to our colleagues.” Two days later, we learned from Mike McCurry, the president’s press secretary, that National Public Radio’s Elizabeth Arnold, who sat between him and the first lady on the dais, was trying to incite a mass walkout. In retrospect, McCurry wished he had backed her up instead of sitting there for 25 agonizing minutes. “I was getting prepared to send a note down the table saying, ‘Let’s go,’ when mercifully (the speech) came to an end,” McCurry later said. “I think we would have gotten a standing ovation if we’d done it.”
Well, 11 years later, “it” was done to Don Imus, and the sense is of the restoration of clean air. Not universally — nothing like that. The world of hip-hop, one learns, is untouchable. The language there is heavily coarse, profane and perverted. It is ironic that although hip-hop is disproportionately black, it was an anti-black crack that finally undid Don Imus.
One of his specialties, over the years, was cracks aimed at Jews. It is revealing that these he managed to get away with. Every now and then there was a rebuke, but he stayed on the air. This tells us interesting things about current U.S. culture. One of them is that anti-Semitism is not as mortal as one hoped. Another is that millions of Americans, though they show no evidence of inclining to acts of racial or religious persecution, did not much mind it when Imus broke the basic protocols; it was just a part of his act.
…[W]hen the cocked guns began to go off on Thursday, it gave some satisfaction that there are reserves of decency in the land that sometimes assert themselves.
Fortunately, we’ve got the Minute Man to restore some sense of proportion:
Sen. Obama explains that we are all to blame for Don Imus, rap music, Grand Theft Auto, and a general coarsening of the culture.
“I think that all of us have become a little complicit in this kind of relaxed attitude toward some pretty offensive things,” Obama said. “And I hope this prompts some self-reflection on the part of all of us.”
Good point! I will henceforth desist in referring to women as bitches and never again will I refer to Condoleeza Rice, or anyone else, as a ‘nappy headed ho’.
Hear, hear!…
I think the story is overblown, too. And I think that Obama’s intent isn’t to blame everybody. Rather, it’s to say that some of those who feigned such righteous indignation over this whole Imus thing should do some soul-searching, and realize that this isn’t going to solve anything, one way or the other. Treating it as an isolated incident, if you’re really so worried about it, doesn’t help anyone.
Grand Theft Auto is unfairly tarnished in his argument. If you’ve played the different games in the Grand Theft Auto series, you’ll find that you get to steal cars and beat up hookers as a member of many different races. It’s culturally diverse!
It would be a better story if it contained more (or all) truth. For example, the folks that employed Imus deserve no credit at all for firing him: they simply acted in their financial self-interest not on some overwhelming moral imperative. That Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are held up as arbiters of civility and all matters related to racial equity is a joke. The real denigration of the Rutgers basketball team happened when they allowed themselves to be convinced they were victims and to be paraded around by their coach and school in order to extract a seven figure donation from Imus.
But, then, I’m all for not allowing the Imus faux-crisis to be the end of this, though I believe his firing is the end. I can only do what one person really can: refuse to participate by ignoring these folks. I don’t listen to O’Reilly, Olberman, Stern, Imus, O’Donnell, Limbaugh, Coulter, and anyone else that makes a living by being shocking and offensive.
William F. Buckley is wrong in this case. There is too much interest in favor of broadcasting this sort of thing and calling it “edgy”.
Seems to me that leading off your list of “shockers” with O’Reilly isn’t quite accurate. He’s neither as politically extreme or intellectually inane as the others.
Well, to each his own I guess. It is a question of degree of offensiveness too, in that Coulter is much worse than O’Reilly. There is no significance to the order of the list, I just find him offensive in terms of his style and the substance (or lack thereof) he brings to his chosen topics. If it helps, I should have put Matthews (Chris) on that list too – he’s offensive in the sense that he doesn’t shut up and let his guests answer the questions he asks.
Regardless of your political alignments, I think I found something amusing, to say the least, featuring the Democrats vs. the Republicans in old-school, knockdown drag-out superhero glory…
The Challenge Of The Super-Duper Friends!
Pretty okay Flash animation, and Karl Rove as the Joker really takes the cake.
Check it out. :p