Matthew Yglesias (April 11, 2007) - What More Can I Say? (Media)

"I don't see US Senators and major political journalists doing guest appearances on rap albums and praising misogynistic rappers as praiseworthy sources of information on weighty topics."

Except for this one.

Posted by Petey | April 11, 2007 2:51 PM

Nor do you see many presidential candidates secretly brainwashed into robotic killers by evil Communists and/or corporations.

Except for these ones .

Posted by lemuel pitkin | April 11, 2007 2:56 PM

Politicians ... shy away from rappers for precisely this reason.

I may be inventing a memory, but didn't Timbaland host a Hillary fundraiser a few weeks ago?

Posted by UberMitch | April 11, 2007 2:57 PM

Steve Sailer/Udolpho - Matt just used the word 'status', confirming what you say - this whole affair has nothing to do with black people, but the quest for oneupmanship in the white vs white status game.

Posted by adrian | April 11, 2007 2:58 PM

Here it is: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-ushill015154254apr01,0,4204774.story?coll=ny-uspolitics-headlines

Posted by UberMitch | April 11, 2007 2:59 PM

Now will MY post about Marcotte's racist man hating rants? How about Jackson or Sharpton or the legions of lefties who jumped on that Duke train? Hmmmm?
What "punishment" should be doled out to them Matt? Or that lying nappy haired ho, their heroine?
But more importantly what does all that say about the lefty media that fed on and nourished that hatred and prejudice?
What, no self masturbatory "analysis" from your pinhead devotees? No mea culpas?

Posted by Southie | April 11, 2007 3:04 PM

The reason you should shy away from rappers is it reduces your odds of getting shot. That and avoiding paper cuts from the C-notes they always seem to be throwing around. Of course, you'd have to rethink things if you wanted to rub elbows with their nappy-headed hos............

Posted by steve duncan | April 11, 2007 3:11 PM

Mr. Iglesias, it appears that you are focusing on a slim portion of this issue, which is the politicians' reaction to Imus' comments. Of course any single person or politician can boycott the Imus show in reaction to his comments. The greater issue is the disparity in reaction within the black community (or at least among their self-appointed spokesmen) between the Imus comment and thousands of far worse comments made in hip hop records. Much like the reaction to the Bell shooting, it smacks of disingenuousness. You cannot endorse or accept behaviour when it is engaged in by your own group and expect heads to roll when it is engaged in by another. Sharpton and co. don't just want Imus to be boycotted by listeners, they want him to lose his job over an off-hand comment that was at most a poor attempt at humor. Meanwhile they will be more than willing to march and campaign with hip hop artists who endorse murder of black men, and the abuse of black women. Have they ever called for an artist to lose a record contract or endorsement deal? No sir, and they never will. They cannot have it both ways and I will never take them seriously, even if a clueless MSM (and apparently some in the B-sphere) will.

Posted by laborliber | April 11, 2007 3:18 PM

I don't really see the comparison between Don Imus talking about "nappy headed hos" and hip-hop artists rapping about "bitches" and "hos".

I find it hard not to see some comparison. Sure, there about a million meaningful differences between Don Imus and hip-hop culture, and I don't think anyone is trying to suggest otherwise. But there's also one very important big-picture similarity: a deep strain of misogyny directed particularly at black women.

There are also some smaller-bore similarities that seem relevant. For example:

Imus specifically referred to the team as "nappy-headed hos." This is, shall we say, a bit of phraseology not typically employed by craggy, middle-aged white men. If the parlance of hip hop has traveled this far, it seems fair to conjecture that some of the attitudes have exported as well.

To suggest that Imus is a media power broker in a way that hip hop artists are not seems pretty willfully ignorant of the state of the culture today.

Finally, Imus' original excuse -- "Everyone relax, it was a joke, and who cares what some jackass on the radio says" -- isn't actually all that far off from the defense employed by a lot of hip hop artists. We can talk about "speaker/author" distinctions all day long, but doesn't a lot of that eventually boil down to the same thing in practice?

So, yeah, setting aside the trivially obviously point that there are some might big differences between Imus and your average rap star, I don't particularly see why the Imus incident can't be used to open up a larger discussion about these issues.

Posted by Adam Stein | April 11, 2007 3:23 PM

Laborliber, I hope your handle doesn't mean you're affilaited somehow with a union. We really are better off without guys like you.

Someone whose reaction to the police shooting of an unarmed man (sean Bell) is anger ... at Al Sharpton? Someone who hates black people so much taht any insult, any atatck, on them is justified? Someone who's fogotten that it wa sonyl a few years ago that "nappy haired hos" were being beaten, attacked by dogs, jailed, raped and killed for rights you take for granted. Whereas all the Al Sharptons of the world have ever done to you is challenge your self-regard.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | April 11, 2007 3:24 PM

LL:

Umm... okay. Meanwhile, googling "Al Sharpton rap music" comes up with this open letter of his, where he contends that "[t]his generation has also learned through rap music and videos that to be a 'real man' means using, abusing, and discarding women as insignificant sex objects," that "corporate rap that uses violence to hype record sales is polluting young American minds", it "represents the same old chains that we have been trying to break free from for the past 400 years," and it "is contributing to the breakdown of society." Just in case you were curious.

Posted by S. Tarzan | April 11, 2007 3:26 PM

laborliber, the "ho's" that rappers sing about are CHARACTERS IN SONGS. The Rutgers basketball players are REAL PEOPLE. Do you have difficulty in telling the difference between fantasies about made-up characters and insults directed at real human beings? If so you may want to seek professional help.

Posted by Bloix | April 11, 2007 3:30 PM

Oh, and all the people saying "rappers do the same thing all the time" -- yeah? For example?

Remember, what upset people here was the public insulting of some actual individuals They even have names! Like Matee Ajavon, who says "I've dealt with racism before, but for it to be in the public eye lieke this is something I'll tell my granddaughter." Or Kia Vaughn, who syas, "I'm not a ho, I'm a woman. I'm someone's daughter." Or Essence Carson who says, "Can you imagine how many people think there is some truth behind the joke?"

These women have probably had harder lives than most of us, and on the day of atheir big accomplishment someone goes on national radio to remind them that no matter how good they may be at what they do, they're just "nappy headed hos." Can you imagine how you'd feel, laborliber or Adam Stein, if that were someone in your family? But of course, they're blacks, they just complain, they don't really have feelings like we do. Right?

Posted by lemuel pitkin | April 11, 2007 3:34 PM

Great comment Adam Stein.

Posted by Mark Adams | April 11, 2007 3:35 PM

I don't particularly see why the Imus incident can't be used to open up a larger discussion about these issues.

But what you and otehrs are doing isn't "opening up a larger discussion," it's changing the subject/b>.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | April 11, 2007 3:37 PM

Please Mr. Pitkin, no need for personal insult. Your better off with me, trust me. There is no need for those associated with Labor to have knee-jerk liberal responses, particularly on social issues. You did not respond substantively to my arguments so... be well. In response to Tarzan, I am aware that Mr. Sharpton has objected to rap lyrics so there is no need for condescension, but not with any force or actual objective. Again, he has never called for anyone to lose their livelihood and is more than willing to march with those who advocate violence.

Posted by laborliber | April 11, 2007 3:49 PM

But what you and otehrs are doing isn't "opening up a larger discussion," it's changing the subject

It is? The subject here is Don Imus, nothing more? Forgive me, then. I thought we were talking about something actually important.

To me, the subject is the prevalence of racism-tinged misogyny (or maybe misogyny-tinged racism) in popular culture. Who cares about Don Imus?

Posted by Adam Stein | April 11, 2007 3:49 PM

Here's a deal. First, we get Imus' head on a stick.
Then, we talk about problems with popular culture. How does that sound?

Posted by Jim W | April 11, 2007 3:55 PM

S. Tarzan:

Thank you. There were a whole lot of letters in my paper this morning to the effect that "why don't these black leaders denounce the same type of comments from rappers/comedians?" when in fact plenty of them DO denounce such comments all the time. People just seem to start with their assumptions about what black leadership is like without bothering to research anything they do or say.

Posted by Chilly | April 11, 2007 3:55 PM

I don't really want to pull the plug on Imus OR hardcore rap. I just don't want Joe Lieberman and Maureen Dowd to think it's still cool (not that it ever was) to appear on his show. If Lieberman and Dowd show up to guest-rap on 50 Cent's next record, I'll deplore that, too.

Posted by kth | April 11, 2007 4:15 PM

It's his status as a media and political power-broker and member of the "respectable" establishment that's totally bizarre here.

I think there are at least three reasons for Imus's status as a power broker. First of all, he sells books. Dollars speak loudly. But beyond that, I don't think those in the "establishment" think offensive comedy routines are that big of a deal. I think it's a generational thing for baby boomers. Historically, people that got bent out of shape by comics saying vulgar things were squares. Finally, as Frank Rich noted a couple years back in an interview that has circulated in the last few days, Imus is a very good interviewer who allows his guests a significant amount of freedom to speak at length about important issues.

Posted by Led | April 11, 2007 4:29 PM

It's obviously time for Imus to go. Not that I'm personally bothered by his remark, but I'm shocked by his stupidity. What thinking white man in today's day and age would think that he could get away with uttering "nappy-headed hos" on the public airwaves?

Forget about judgment, right now I question Imus' sanity. Thrity-five years is a long time on the air – say goodbye Don.

Posted by Yehuda Cohn | April 11, 2007 4:44 PM

By the way, had he made a similarly severe remark about Jews he'd already be gone.

Posted by Yehuda Cohn | April 11, 2007 4:47 PM

Am I the only one who stopped reading after "Mr. Iglesias..."?

Posted by Ziggy | April 11, 2007 4:53 PM

To me, the subject is the prevalence of racism-tinged misogyny (or maybe misogyny-tinged racism) in popular culture. Who cares about Don Imus?

Judging by the newspapers and television, a lot of people care that it was Don Imus and not some rapper. And justifiably, because Don Imus is a member of the media establishment. The white media establishment. And his comments point to an awful truth about American culture, that it's still struggling to overcome its racist past.

Don't think that's not why so many of the media are working so hard to tell us what a good guy Imus really is, because God forbid! any of them be exposed for something other than the "we're past all that" enlighted fellows they think they all are and need us to believe. I don't doubt that Imus, like most of us, isn't an active racist and he tries to live his life looking past race. The sad fact is, as we all know from our own experience, we think, say, and do things that don't always fit that illusion. But when a member of the media pops the bubble right there in public, all hell breaks loose and it probably should.

And that's why Imus saying it is completely different than a voice out of hip hop culture saying it. And while a larger discussion of "these issues" is no doubt called for at some point in American discourse, it looks just a bit suspicious to me when, right at the moment that things get a little embarrassing right here on Main St. (and that's Imus's address, it ain't in Harlem), you folks start running around pointing out that all of a sudden it's time to take a look at what's going on up town, where it's real bad, don't you know?

Save the thought, we can all get to it when you solve the problem at hand.

Posted by pblsh | April 11, 2007 5:00 PM

"I don't see US Senators and major political journalists doing guest appearances on rap albums and praising misogynistic rappers as praiseworthy sources of information on weighty topics."

Good point. Also a good example of Joe Lieberman's hypocricy.

For years Lieberman has ranted about "smut" and Hollywood evil in general. And yet Lieberman is a regular guest on Imus.

Posted by DonB | April 11, 2007 6:06 PM

Kicked to the curb, he was.
Kicked to the curb, I say.
Kicked to the curb, he was.
For Imus, a very bad day.

Posted by Petey | April 11, 2007 6:31 PM

Imus ain't gonna play Sun City
Imus ain't gonna play Sun City
(Everybody Say)
Imus ain't gonna play Sun City
(No baby)
Imus ain't gonna play Sun City

It's time to accept resposibility
Freedom is a priviledge nobody rides for free
Look around the world baby it cannot be denied
Why we're always on the wrong side

Imus ain't gonna play Sun City
Imus ain't gonna play Sun City
(Everybody Say)
Imus ain't gonna play Sun City
(No baby)
Imus ain't gonna play Sun City

Posted by Petey | April 11, 2007 6:36 PM

Another difference is that people can choose not to buy rap albums (I've never bought one), but when you're listening to the free, over-the-air radio or television, you're at the mercy of the person who is speaking on the airwaves. One could argue that you could always change the channel or turn the dial, but that may come too late -- after the offensive words have been said. In the case of indecent language over-the-air (e.g., curse words), the Supreme Court has stated that it is unfair to expect consumers not to watch television or not to listen to the radio in order to avoid such language; the burden is therefore on the over-the-air broadcaster to prevent indecent language between the hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. The same general idea (from an ethical, not legal, perspective) should apply to racist and sexist language -- television viewers and radio listeners are captive audiences, and should not have to be subjected to unexpected slurs. If Imus wants to do his racist/sexist shtick, he should move to satellite radio, where people pay to hear that stuff, and therefore don't have any excuse if they hear something offensive.

Posted by Lisa S. | April 11, 2007 7:17 PM

It appears MSNBC has dropped the Imus simulcast for good. Perhaps now they’ll finally consider moving the brilliant and highly talented Joe “six pack” Scarborough (I kid you not: he’s a veritable everyman) and his highly rated television program to mornings.

I don’t know what a “teachable moment” is (this is what the witless bobbleheads on MSNBC called it; it sounds like one of those rancid cliches that if not already repeated with abandon by a deaf and illiterate mainstream media will - like “closure” - shortly be) but I do think that this might have been a fine opporunity for black leaders to demand some valuable airtime for a UNCF fund raiser if not a meaty donation from Imus and his corporate overlords to that or another worthy cause (that would do far more real good for real people than Al Sharpton has ever done).

But, alas: in America apologies are not enough, and atonement not worth mentioning (I gather your average petty dope dealer has far more potential value to society as a businessman and teacher than being ass raped in prison every other day of his 30 year sentence at exorbitant taxpayer expense). Nothing short of destroying a man’s career (talent is irrelevant to the left as intelligence is to the right) will suffice.

Posted by Mulligan | April 11, 2007 7:24 PM

Yehuda Cohn-
In 1998, Imus called Howard Kurz a "boner-nosed, beany-wearing little Jew boy."
I don't know what your hypothetical point was supposed to be -- Jews control the media? anti-Semitism is less socially acceptable than racism? -- but whatever it was, it doesn't really stand up to the facts, does it?

Posted by Bloix | April 11, 2007 7:40 PM

There's been a million times the indignation over what Imus did than over

(1) the false accusations leveled against the "Duke 3", and what a politically ambitious DA did with them.
(2) the shafting of 3,400 Circuit City hourly employees by a CEO that makes 545 times their salary
(3) the continuation of the idiotic Iraq war which has cost $1/2 trillion and many lives
etc. etc. etc.
Could America save at least a little bit of indigation for stuff that's of real consquence? Fat chance.

Posted by kafka | April 11, 2007 9:18 PM

The point is not that Imus should lose his show for a rancid remark, but that Sharpton doesn't throw the same fit over rappers who use that same sort of language. Why doesn't he demand that BET and MTV2 stop showing their videos, that major labels cancel their contracts (if they have a major label behind them), that promoters stop promoting them, that consumers boycott them--in the same way that he's demanding Imus be punished? Apparently he and his crowd don't get the point that as long as blacks use that kind of language, it's acceptable for whites to use it. If a black can talk that way, so can a white--and it's just as racist to say they can, as to say that black women are "hos".

But thinking people have known Sharpton to be an intellectual wasteland for years.

Posted by kishnevi | April 11, 2007 9:43 PM

Chh.

Posted by Linus | April 11, 2007 11:51 PM

Frankly, we are fast becoming the epitome of a Jerry Springer society. It seems to have become more important to have an audience and notoriety when confronting conflict than it is to attain resolve and mutual respect. That model seems to serve the needs of the exploited and those who seek to exploit; reinforcing all that relegates objectivity to the outhouse while making the frailty and imperfection of the human condition a spectacle that harkens back to the Coliseum.

This situation isn’t and shouldn’t be about whether liberals or conservatives, this race or that race, hip hop or honky-tonk, one group or another, are more offensive and therefore more responsible for all that is wrong with America. I am not capable of judging the whole of Don Imus nor am I capable of crafting a recipe to fix all of America…and neither are the countless pundits and partisans who have sought to frame it so.

I’m not a religious person…but I often find kinship with the imagery surrounding the portrayal of one called Jesus and his teachings of understanding and forgiveness. For all the banter I hear about the Bible and Christian values, it certainly seems to me that we are fast abandoning what many view as the sacred “tablets” in favor of the sacrosanct tabloids. If I’m right, all I can say is heaven help us.

Read more about the dynamics that lead a situation to become larger than the sum of its parts…here:

www.thoughttheater.com

Posted by Daniel DiRito | April 12, 2007 12:40 AM

These rappers introduce these words into our everyday vocabulary. The "hoes" part of Imus' comment is what millions of teenagers and twenty-somethings (white and black) now call their friends: "my hoes," or "My bitches." I'm willing to bet some of those Rutgers players have even called each other or other friends "my hoes" at some point. So arguing that its sexist just hit a major road block.

As for racist, type "nappy hair" into amazon and see all the books that come up celebrating this symbol of black identity politics. It can't be something worth celebrating and a epithet at the same time.

There's no question Imus' comment was mean spirited, but I'm at a loss to see how it is racist or sexist.

Posted by Dan | April 12, 2007 1:44 PM

It goes without saying that the end of Don Imus's mainstream radio career will also spell the end of all racism, sexism, homophobia, and sorrow in America if not the rest of the free world, but in the unlikely event that it doesn't let me just point out that this man was one of the few vaguely independent voices on the radio who had the audacity to challenge the Bush administration and the media concerning their bullshit surrounding the Iraq War, and the erosion of civil liberties in this country. That he also had a massive audience which almost certainly included some in the station wagon set (who don't otherwise get out much), and was as my friend Mulligan (with whom I may share a bed and some nasty habits on a regular basis) points out a huge talent is not wholly incidental, not beside the point.

The spectacle of the self-congratulatory left in this drama gives lie to literally 2/3 of everything you people have been saying in the post 9.11 era. If a wildly talented man who is doing more singlehandedly on behalf of domestic liberties than any of you will ever do but who happens to make offensive remarks on occasion is not allowed to continue to have a mainstream radio program what about the 3rd tier newspaperman in suburban Dallas earning $30 a year who has spent his short career exposing government corruption and police brutality but who happens to make an off-color remark about some sacred group in one of his columns? What about the liberal blogger on the trail of major electoral fraud by Republican officials in New Hampshire who happens on occasion to use the phrase "Christian bitches" to describe - well - Christian bitches?

The right has been carping about liberal McCarthyism for years, and much of the time it is little more than meritless whining. But if ending a man's mainstream radio career, and maybe his radio career entirely, because of an offensive remark is not something like McCarthyism I don't know what is. And liberals are foolish to think they will not reap the whirlwind for it.

Posted by Linus | April 12, 2007 1:44 PM

Linus - good post.

I disagree greatly with Imus on Bush, The war, Rumsfeld, Cheney, etc. But with regards to this controversy, I find that to be irrelevant. I agree that he is one of the few independent voices on the air, and to force him out would be a huge mistake.

Posted by Dan | April 12, 2007 2:34 PM

Thank you Dan. Because of Imus more anti-war voices have been heard on radio more in depth and with less judgment by more people than because of anyone else.

Does anyone want examples?

In this clip Imus refers to Mr. Bush as "that criminal in the White House" in the context of excoriating the administration for the scope of Iraq War injuries. In this clip he's chatting with Tweety about the appalling press scrutiny of Bush's case for war. There are lots of other examples out there.

Posted by Linus | April 12, 2007 4:03 PM

The best case scenario here I think for Imus is that he is fired by CBS too, stuff blows over, and he is rehired by satellite radio (or more accurately dumped into the satellite radio ghetto). He keeps some if not a lot of his core audience but loses the mini van set (who by and large don't listen to satellite radio, and if they do not to "controversial has-beens" [see: as long as he was on CBS and MSNBC he was mainstream, and satellite radio is definitely as step down] like Stern) and other politically mushy types. It's the left who loses here, not the right.

Posted by Linus | April 12, 2007 4:13 PM

One last word: you can hear all the little Deaniacs saying to themselves (after following those links) that Imus should have played by their rules. Note to the kids: if Imus had played by your rules he'd be a Democratic hack and end up crushed by George Noory and Art Bell in his one A.M time spot; Democratic hacks are no good at radio.

Posted by Linus | April 12, 2007 4:29 PM

Excellent Article: "The Real Crime of Don Imus: Being White."

http://conservativetimes.org/?p=381

Posted by Sir Charles | April 12, 2007 9:10 PM

the members of the African American community (Ifil, Sharpton, Jackson etc.) who led the move to oust Don Imus now need to lead a movement to ban the racist hatred and rampant sexism in hip hop. or they demonstrate the falseness of their stance on the so-called moral high ground. their self-righteous hypocrisy is more revolting than Imus's hate speach. what Imus said was indefensible, a strong person attacking young and weak ones. others have said as much without penalty. this bleeding heart liberal says a plague on all their houses.

Posted by Stephen Berwind | April 13, 2007 12:24 PM

In neurology it is said that the effects of fetal hypoxia manifest in adolescence and the effects of neurotoxic substance abuse in young adulthood manifest in early middle age. Imus is 62, so is America, sort of middle aged. The brain is a sort of battery that is prone to discharge, as in epilepsy. But behavior is shaped by inhibition. Small inhibitory neurons shape behavior by permitting certain signals to pass and sculpting out most of the others. For this notion of "inhibitory sculpting" Sir John Eccles got the Nobel Prize in science and medicine. But inhibitory cells are the most vulnerable to "insult," hence post-traumatic seizures.

Imus was a high dose substance abuser in his younger years and it is now beginning to show. He loses control of his mouth, thus exhibiting more his crotchety old man traits than any real feelings. His apologies thus mean nothing because for over a decade his literally "brain damage" personality is beyond his control.

But more important is the fact that America is aging, just like Imus. And, just like Imus suffers from past substance abuse. As a nation, we needed to be "high on America" for quite a while. So we did everything big, but without paying for it, passing on the bill to our kids. Now comes pay back time. It all started with 9/11, when all we did to keep our oil imports cheap (so cheap that we destroyed our domestic oil industry) and our SUVs full, came back at us in the form of hateful suicide mass murder. The look on GW Bush's face-- that "tilt" stare blankly into space-- when told of the acts of terror, was pretty much that of the nation. Then, the decisions America made, after finishing with all the pretty pre-canned speeches, were characteristic of the middle aged brain damaged by years of substance abuse (cocaine and alcohol in his case, oil in America's).

As rage swept over the land, aging America realized that it didn't have much of an army to go to war with. So it used forces almost 50% thirty somethings, moms and dads who expected only to be called up to fight fires, floods and race riots. LBJ had wisely realized that such people could not cope with the rages of jungle warfare, so all through the Vietnam War he never mobilized the Reserves and National Guard-- neither did Nixon. But Bush was probably the most substance abuse brain damaged of the whole Administration and so he reacted with utter abandon. Now our soldiers in Iraq are on average five years older than those in Vietnam; the dead almost always leave behind widows and orphans, but Bush doesn't care. He's got to be tough because he's the "decider." Meanwhile, suffering from the "ain't my kid going to Iraq" disconnect syndrome, the aging American population cheered on the president who would have them eat their cake and have it too, instituting a policy of "preemption" with abandon, while calling on the public to respond to 9/11 by shopping until they drop. To further show that it is "O.K." to be so disconnected, he cut taxes while escalating war. Perhaps someone around Bush remembered that the only time public opinion rose against the Vietnam War was in 1967 when LBJ instituted a 10% surcharge on income tax.

Bush has a life history of fear of responsibility. So his "poppy" arranged for someone else to make decisions and take the heat. That was supposed to be the role of Rumsfeld and Cheney. But, like all spoiled brats-- especially those with substance abuse histories-- he suffers from an erratic vanity and wants to SEEM as if in charge. This in sum is the Bush psycho-dialectic.

Normally, Bush would have been discovered and humiliated in public. But America is like Bush: middle age and desperate to seize a last chance at seeming to have achieved something manly. In an effort to keep up with their heroic illusion of themselves, today's Americans seized anything from "salvation" by having "discovered" Jesus to ostentatious wealth display. But. men especially, that manifest their "things" as if their God-given plumage, reach a middle age crisis where they realize that either they never had really been nakedly "manly" or were losing it fast. And so, as they swallow down Viagra with a double whiskey and a beer chaser, they are drawn like moths to fire by the pornography industry as spark to mirages of romantic conquest when advancing on the plump bent-over old lady, should they be unable to trade her in for a newer model.

And still, a deep desire for a feeling of manliness for the last time before they die burns incandescently in their bosoms. If substance abusers like Bush, they start wars and feel soooo manly in their stubborn holding out in the face of utter defeat because of their own incompetence. If weasels like Rove, they feel great pride in their deception of the masses, like a larcenous snow fox steeling incubating eggs from penguins. But most Americans are like Imus, "manly" with their mouth, daring to say in public what most other mere humans would dare say only when dead drunk. But in fact, there is no difference in the way "Imus" acted up on the air, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld acted-up giving orders and lying to justify themselves to the public, and the way financial "advisers" steal dumb investors' money to plume themselves in glittering "things."

Peace-time generals, who served as grunts in the last war, get to feel manly recklessly fulfilling Rumsfeld's orders, getting boys killed trying to use firepower as a substitute for the non-existing voluntary manpower needed. They are called "star whores" by people who wonder how it is that unlike generals like Westmoreland, Abrams and Powell, they are not called to account for casualties, civilian and military. Instead, they needed only stand next to Rummy the boss at press conferences with that fawning look (down, for Rummy is short) in their eyes-- at the Pentagon that's called "parrot on the shoulder."

The tragedy is that physics always gets in the way of the tall tales of old farts. Flatfooted marines who never heard a gun go off in all their 365 days in Vietnam serving as clerks are throwing "dynamite quotes" around as if fireworks on the 4th of July, speaking "vet to vet" without one word of empathy for the victims of repeated concussion brain injury from pointlessly ridding around through Iraq and Afghanistan in vulnerable Humvees that get hit by improvised explosive devices. To these old vets, all that is unfortunate "fog of war" and the devastated wives and kids that will have to take care of these Iraq casualties are nothing but part of the "America that must bear the burden of bringing democracy to the Middle East." Why the Middle East? Who can say, when the same people who say we must fight there are demanding that we end our dependency on Mideast oil. Perhaps there are other motives. Like what?

Like the manliness thing for a cabal of men who have a life long history of chasing manhood while avoiding the dangers of military adventures; but, due to congenital factors of physical appearance they could never achieve that status. So they go around calling for "World War IV." It is interesting that a lot of these endless war advocates never seized their opportunity to volunteer. But even if they had, there are no uniforms available to fit their pear shape or scrawny diminutive look. And so they fight with words in print at elaborate "think tanks" where they give themselves academic-sounding titles of expertise when they might barely qualify to enter academic institutions as students, not faculty.

Such people mold our current culture of "virtual manliness" on bombastic blogs consisting of wings- flapping eagles with a waving American flags in their beaks, as if run by birdbrains. So a giant of military "strategy," for example, is a diminutive, not bald eagle, but bald midget, who barks as if a marine DI should he not like a submitted post. Or, the savant in military strategy who responds to our troops crossing from Kuwait into Iraq: Now I no longer feel like the scrawny Jewish kid getting beat up in the school yard by the big Swartzas.

In fact, Imus is a mouth-fighter, like all the other odd shaped "males" in his entourage. They never amounted to much until they called for: all pudgy irrelevant to unite. And once united what did they do? Well, it was all as if verbal and virtual sex. And since in the brainstem the region for sex and the region for violence are closely linked in the male of the species, they went from talking dirty to talking tough to talking violent. And so "talk" radio of nasty old men was born.

One of the things I noticed when I first came to America is that, despite the tradition of "fighting fair" brought from root European cultures, fighting here was always many against one. And as that one falls in a pool of pain and bruises, each feels like he downed the opponent himself; it is VICARIOUS heroism. And when, as old farts, they see on TV, US soldiers, wrapped in armor to look like spacemen, ramming open the doors of homes in Iraq and Afghanistan and thrashing the houses, they cheer, vicariously feeling a sense of manhood: take that, you filthy Islamofascists, for 9/11, as trained to do by neocon propaganda. That sense drives them to maneuver their wheelchair to the phone stand to call Bill O'Reilly or Imus as if to say: "play it again Sam...bartender, give me another drink."

But when the real warriors come home and ask for a job, a home, a school for their kids, tuition for college, help with getting "things" too, and above all medical care, the answer is: hey, you ain't getting mine buddy." I recall going to a meeting of vets to discuss how to supplement medical care for brain injured Iraq-Afghan vets that live far from VA Hospitals. But after tough talk about themselves, all these old vets could discuss is that there's no good care for their diabetes, lung cancer from smoking and erectile dysfunction at the VA!

So, stepping back and reviewing the landscape, I can understand why Imus was knocked off the air. Had he been allowed to stay, he would have been as much a glaring proof of substance abuse brain damaged America of the 60s turned abusively gaga as GW Bush is, seen as leader of a declining pariah nation in the world. So get Imus off the air, get even Limbaugh off the air; that way the rest of us won't have to look in the mirror for another few years as we search for who is responsible for the decline and fall of America.

It can't be us guys, because we thought we had a "goin' problem" and it turned out to be a "growin' problem." Soooo, Mr. and Mrs. America, put on your geriatric diapers next summer and go watch the Bush-Rove victory parade as our boys come home "victorious" from the surge after "showin' dem Aarabs that you can't fool with America."

America has the world's most wonderful democratic institutions. But these are made for a young vibrant population trying to live by the standards inculcated in it at home. Degenerate religious leaders, war industry kick-back crooks, and a totally bravado pair of president and vice president frauds that even their wives can't stand, serving the interests of the leaky geriatric America of the 60s that can only remember the sex and drugs of its era, not the idealism, can lead us nowhere else but to the erectile dysfunction decline and fall of the American Empire.

It is only when we each deem all our soldiers as OUR kids and do not allow to be done to them what we would not allow to be done to our biologic kids (and grand-kids) that we stand a chance at recovery. Our Iraq surge is as fraudulent as the erectile surge the TV ads promise. So if you can't get it up, don't curse the young girls for their youth. Just think about leaving something worthwhile for them to remember you by.

This is dedicated to Luka and Noah, my second generation American grandchildren, one born, the other soon to come, who deserve more of an America like that which Bush, Cheney, Rove and Imus inherited from our parents.

Daniel E. Teodoru

Posted by de teodoru | April 13, 2007 7:38 PM

If rap music justifies Imus' and his pal Bernard's comments sliming the basketball team, how does it justify all of the following slurs?

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1751

Imus himself has referred to one African-American journalist (Gwen Infeill) as "a cleaning lady," another as a "quota hire," and tennis player Amelie Mauresmo as "a big old lesbo." Imus taunted another reporter as a "beanie-wearing little Jewboy," called a disabled colleague "the cripple," and has said that he picked one of his producers to do "nigger jokes" (60 Minutes, 7/19/98).

http://www.slate.com/id/2163872/

About blacks:

"William Cohen, the Mandingo deal." (Former Defense Secretary Cohen's wife is African-American.)

...

"Knuckle-dragging moron." (Description of basketball player Patrick Ewing.)

...

"Chest-thumping pimps." (Description of the New York Knicks.)

On Jews:

"I remember when I first had [the Blind Boys of Alabama] on a few years ago, how the Jewish management at whatever, whoever we work for, CBS, or whatever it is, were bitching at me about it. […] I tried to put it in terms that these money-grubbing bastards could understand."

"Boner-nosed … beanie-wearing Jewboy." (Description of Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post, a frequent guest.)

...

On Native Americans:

"The guy from F-Troop, Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell." (This is a reference to the zany Indian characters on the 1960s TV sitcom F-Troop. They had names like "Roaring Chicken," "Crazy Cat," and "Chief Wild Eagle.")

On Japanese:

"Old Kabuki's in a coma and the market's going up. […] How old is the boy? The battery's running down on that boy." (Reference to Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, who died the following week.)

On gays:

"I didn't know that Allan Bloom was coming in from the back end." (The homosexuality of the author of The Closing of the American Mind became widely known when Saul Bellow published Ravelstein, a novel whose protagonist was based on Bloom, who by then was deceased.)

"The enormously attractive [NBC political correspondent] Chip Reid, I can say without being accused of being some limp-wristed 'mo."

On the handicapped:

"Janet Reno's having a press conference. Ms. Reno, of course, has Parkinson's disease, has a noticeable tremor. […] I don't know how she gets that lipstick on (laughter) looking like a rodeo clown."

b Every one of these statements came directly out of Imus' mouth on his program.

...

----------------------------------------------------------

These are only a few of the ugly things Imus has said over the decades.

Some want us to believe that all this is okay because a few black people make money using some of the words Imus used against themselves?

Those who the words are aimed at have a right to defuse them by using them themselves.

A 67 year old white man who wants to make more money by pretending he's a hip 20-something who can use those words in a different context isn't doing that.

One wonders how many of his defenders are also aging white Christian male heteros who, in their fear of change, want one last thrill from lashing out against the truth that the nation, for most of its existence has been run soley by white straight males with money is quickly changing to include all of us.

Posted by Marcia Crowley | April 15, 2007 11:55 AM

"Don Imus is a member of the media establishment. The white media establishment. And his comments point to an awful truth about American culture, that it's still struggling to overcome its racist past."

The awful truth is the awful truth. It is an awful truth. either way, when equally void-headed media personalities -- lo-gno rappers and lo-gno sportscasters -- speak equally void-headedly.

Beyond that it's political hay-makin' time on all sides. In the midst of which any actual discussion of this horrible heritage, that afflicts all members of our society, is largely lost in the hooting.

The result can be largely boiled down to simple epithets like: nigger-hater! nigger-lover! white apologist! white supremacist! and similarly useless yowls.

Almost makes a fella yearn for the good ol' OJ trial days.

P.S. Don't politicians shy away from big name sportscasters for precisely this reason? Because they're generally perceived as dodo-heads on anything but sports? Is it rather ironic that today's dumbass racial mysogynistic rappers come from a heritage of often profound social commentary? Which is to say that today's dumbass top-40 rappers, dumb tho their asses may be, can at least claim connexion to a tradition based on having something meaningful to say?

Which leaves us with Imus: dumb as always, from a tradition recognized for its political irrelevance, and Rap Brand X, newly dumbified, from a tradition recognized for its intelligent angry young men.

What distinguishes Imus from the others? He's rich and WHITE. And what white people have to say is, you know, ultimately more important than what black people have to say, because that's how we perceive the power structure of, you know, word out.

In burning Imus in effigy we have reinforced the assumption that what Mr. White Man says is inherently more important than what Mr. Black Man says. It was acclaaimed by the majority that it really *mattered* that Imus made a racial ass of himself, not because he is perceived by many as being racist, period, nor because he is perceived by many as being a profound or wise spokesperson for our society (he isn't), and despite the fact that in his several final days auto-da-fe in the media, he proved that he deserved to be fired not for racist remarks but for being a bumble-tongued yoho, which doesn't really fit with a famous media talking head (supposedly)... it mattered because Imus is WHITE and that makes him more important.

I, for one, disagree.

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