This week I'm returning from my un-announced hiatus to talk about Don Imus. More specifically, about the media circus surrounding him, which has miserably blown out of proportion an off-comment. One comment, to be precise. Not a rant, like Seinfeld's Cramer, no, one sentence.


Lets get to the bottom of this. Mr Imus and his producer Bernard McGuirk were discussing their joint opinion that the opposing basketball team were more attractive than the Rutgers team, McGuirk saying “that’s some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they got tattoos… Some hardcore hoes.” Don Imus responded “That’s some nappy-headed hoes…” Now anyone familiar with morning talk-show radio understands that banter is just that - banter, and that's what this was. I have heard the audio clip and found it quite similar to the sort of stuff that goes on on radio talk-shows in my neck of the woods.


I also noticed that the producer was rambling on and on about the basketball team, and Imus only added that one comment, before the producer went back to his rant. In fact the Producer, McGuirk, was the one who initially called the Rutgers team hoes. And yet it is Don Imus whose head Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are demanding on a silver platter. Why has the media completely ignored Producer Bernard McGuirk's comments? Because he only said "Hoes" not "Nappy-Headed" and is therefore not a racist? But if that's the case, why are talking heads condemning Imus for saying "hoes" and not just "Nappy-Headed"? There are feminists on air condemning Imus and this affair as sexist, not just racist, yet the originator of the "hoes" comment has not been mentioned once. I first heard the actual clip on the Daily Show, CNN didn't deign to play it amidst their mass offensives on that towering pillar of bigotry Don Imus (whose name I, and most likely all of you, had never heard before this incident).


This begs the question, what on earth is the mainstream media thinking, devoting so much time to something even less interesting than Ann Nicole Smith? When our border is still open, Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean are still in prison, our Chinese trade-deficit is still rising and the number of dead per day in Iraq is also rising? Perhaps they think the sort of sensationalism worthy only of the tabloids will get more ratings than counting body bags or badgering the Bush administration about it's many failings. Or the Democratic congress's failings, for that matter. This photo says it best. "Phone spying... Millions of Innocent Americans... The President..." And there's Don Imus, the real problem in this country!


This issue is not really an issue, in my opinion. Yeah what he said was "insensitive". Comedy is almost always insensitive. Why? Because sensitive comedy isn't funny. Morning radio talk-show hosts say dumb stuff, and if enough people were offended they would stop listening, and his ratings would go down enough to warrant MSNBC firing him. But they aren't going down. Maybe the people want Politically Incorrect talk radio hosts? Whatever the case, I would bet good money that not a single one of the girls on that team would have heard a word about Imus's comments to have their feelings hurt by, had the tag-team of Sharpton and Jackson not dragged it into the media and created such a firestorm of nonsense.


The fact is you can't censor comedy for picking on people, that's what comedy does. Anyone who watches Comedy Central knows that. This team was in the public eye, that means they are as up for being picked on as a Hillary Clinton or Mel Gibson.


I will note, however, that I was very disturbed by a lot of what I saw from the people attacking Mr Imus, specifically their views on Free Speech. The vast majority of those black leaders and assorted lefties who spoke on the cable news shows about this exposed their beliefs that speech that they dissagree with aught to be a crime. One panel consisted of Jesse Jackson, a black writer and the leader of a feminist organization, and they unanimously referred to Imus in terms of criminality, talking about punishment, about infractions, about him doing penance. This is a man who said something vaguely offensive on Talk Radio! Not Scooter Libby!


The lack of respect for free speech, on both sides of the aisle but primarily on the left is very distressing to me. I honestly cannot fathom the mind that would condemn any assault on free speach, if it was an assault on their beliefs, and then support conversion by the sword, as long as it is conversion to their beliefs. Blatant hypocrisy very much disturbs me. I will end the post by quoting Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy:

"First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought."