It’s like booing a bad comedian off the stage. I don’t like Don Imus. I don’t like what he says, I don’t like what he stands for. I don’t like anti-intellectualism, I don’t like racism, I don’t like crudity, I don’t like vulgarity.
(I have no problem with profanity.)
If I don’t like what a radio DJ has to say, I turn the station. If I don’t like the program manager’s choice of songs, I turn the station. If I don’t like a commercial, I turn the station. If I don’t like what a comedian has to say, I get out of the building.
What Don Imus said isn’t new. He’s been saying that kind of crap for years. It’s just now that someone noticed.
But Don Imus isn’t alone. If CBS was pissed off about what he said, they are fully within their rights to fire him. This isn’t a free speech issue, it’s a commerce issue. Nobody is blocking Imus’ free speech. He signed a contract saying he would obey the rules CBS laid in front of him. He agreed to those rules, then broke them.
Of course, CBS is not totally blame-free, either. They knew what they were getting with Imus, just like radio stations know what they’re getting when they chose to broadcast Howard Stern.
But, anyway. The thing that really intrigues me about this whole thing is how much outrage there is about it. It fulfills a belief of mine that people really don’t know what’s being said over the airwaves.
I watch Fox News. Know Thy Enemy. When I complain about how completely obnoxious Fox News is, most of my friends dismiss me. “Yeah, but that’s Fox News. Nobody watches that.”
My father does. An intelligent man, my dad. A mechanical engineer. A science fiction fan. Well-read, well-spoken, bashful, successful, Lutheran. My dad. He watches it. And I can tell. When I was talking about the debacle in Iran, his face turned red and he said, “So you just want to let those bastards get away with what they did on 9-11, right?”
My dad. Intelligent, well-read. From Fox News, right to his mouth.
Over at Media Matters (not the most reliable source for non-biased information), they’ve gathered together a list of quotes that make what Don Imus said seem trivial. You can find it here. I’ll give you a couple.
“I never said that Hillary Clinton was a bitch. I said she sounded like one.”
Beck attacked victims of the (Katrina) disaster and the families of victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, saying: “I didn’t think I could hate victims faster than the 9-11 victims.”
“[T]his Muhammad guy is just a phony rag-picker.” Boortz asserted that “[i]t is perfectly legitimate, perhaps even praiseworthy, to recognize Islam as a religion of vicious, violent, bloodthirsty cretins.”
Boortz said that (D-Georgia Rep.) McKinney’s “new hair-do” makes her look “like a ghetto slut,” like “an explosion at a Brillo pad factory,” like “Tina Turner peeing on an electric fence,” and like “a shih tzu.”
(Rush) Limbaugh claimed that “[w]omen still live longer than men because their lives are easier.”
On April 26, 2004, Limbaugh claimed that women “actually wish” for sexual harassment
Bill O’Reilly stated that Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf “should be baking pies, not running a major city.”
O’Reilly argued extensively for “profiling of Muslims” at airports, arguing that detaining all “Muslims between the ages of 16 and 45” for questioning “isn’t racial profiling,” but “criminal profiling.”
O’Reilly referred to Wiehl as “eye candy … for me,” telling Wiehl that she is on the show “because you’re good-looking, so I got somebody to look over” while he’s on the air.
Savage responded: “The idea of a gay rabbi is an oxymoron. Think about it: ‘Rabbi’ means teacher. You cannot have a homosexual teacher teaching boys how to be a Jew,” adding, “I’m not going to mince words for fear of offending homosexuals. They’re everywhere, anyway, trying to tell me what to say and what not to say and what to think. I know what’s right and what’s wrong. And that’s all there is to it.”
More Savage: “And what’s this sympathy, constant sympathy for sexually confused people? Why should we have constant sympathy for people who are freaks in every society?” adding, “But you know what? You’re never gonna make me respect the freak. I don’t want to respect the freak.” Savage concluded: “The freak ought to be glad that they’re allowed to walk around without begging for something. You know, I’m sick and tired of the whole country begging, bending over backwards for the junkie, the freak, the pervert, the illegal immigrant. All of them are better than everybody else. Sick. Everything is upside down.”
There’s more. So much more. Click on the link and you can watch/hear them all.
You never knew there was so much hatred in the world until you watch Fox News.