Just Say NO! To An Imus Return

The IMUS show replacement disc jockeys on New York's WFAN 660 AM dropped the hint this morning that maybe the I-Man will return to the station in two weeks. I doubt that this will happen.

No, I think Imus is gone, and that's a good thing. His "humor," done largely at the expense of others who are not in a position to hit back or defend themselves, is not funny. That type of humor takes little talent to present. Imus, I've seen and heard real comedy and you're not talented enough to do it. Instead, you relied upon your clearly bigoted on air cronies to feed you sexist, racist, anti-Semitic, and homophobic hard balls that you were usually smart enough not to repeat, but for the times you slipped up, like with the Rutger's women's team. You're not fooling most of us. We know what's in your heart, because it came out of your mouth.

Some of the members of your all white circle of political media cronies have defended you with lame references to you being "an equal opportunity offender," but that doesn't wash. I don't have any friends or associates who use the epithets or say the kinds of things I heard on your show, and I don't want any that do. So why would I want to hear you and your on air thugs use such language? Oh yes, and there is the defense that you do a lot of charity work. Too bad that good work cannot offset or negate the massive amounts of offense and hurt you've caused over the years to so many people including myself. Well, now you'll have more time to devote to your causes.

Oh, the hypocrisy of it all! - that's the defense of Imus coming from supporters like Frank Rich, who should know better. But he's a straight, white man, and didn't present much of a target for Imus' bigot squad. Others in Imus' former circle of cronies have seen the light, like John Meecham at Newsweek. Still others remain in hiding, such as Harold Ford and Tim Russert. It was wonderful to watch Gwen Ifil criticize Russert on "Meet The Press" for his tacit complicity in all of this as a repeat Imus guest. Yes, there are hypocrites out there, but how does that in any way excuse what happened?

Finally, there's the attack on PC that is used as a defense of Imus, as if being civil and respectful of diversity is bad. The right wing has managed to so demonize calls for civility using the pejorative tag "political correctness" that people run from it, just like they've demonized "liberals" to the point where no one wants to be called one. However, the Imus story has shown that we must return to a culture of civil discourse in the media and elsewhere, one that respects our sexual, social, ethnic and cultural diversity. What we need is an end to the uncivil antics of the rest of the bigoted shock jocks and pundits. They're on notice now. I can't wait for the next firing.

Jim