More on Imus

I hate to give the man the ink -- the bytes? -- but I feel compelled to comment further on Don Imus after reading the Newsweek cover stories on his fall from grace. It is both painful and laughable to see people scurrying to excuse or explain their association with the man after he suddenly has drawn national fire.

All because the Rutgers women's basketball team acted as the little boy at the parade pointing out, "The Emperor has no clothes." Journalists, politicians, authors, and other versions of powers-that-be kissed up to Imus over the years because he gave them airtime and an audience. They tried to pretend that their appearance on his show was not the same as condoning crude, racist, sexist, offensive comments that he and his colleagues have made as a matter of course. Wasn't it?

Full disclosure here: I never listened to Don Imus's show. I never wanted to. By reputation, by other news reports, I already knew that he used personal attacks and ridicule. I have no desire to listen to that sort of thing. Don't get me wrong: I like good satire and even confrontational questions to interviewees. But, for my taste, they need to be based on fact and substance, on a person's actions and pronouncements -- not on that individual as a human being. Name-calling and stereotyping do nothing to further our understanding of important issues. They only inflame, and give a false sense of power or righteousness to the person doing the name-calling.

I suppose all human beings -- or at least many of us -- are attracted to power like moths to a flame. Finding ourselves in the "in" group, the elite circle of dealmakers important enough to be invited to a national talk show, makes us feel important. It would be hard to pass up that stamp of "making it," the exposure to a national audience. Maybe it's too hard to say, "No, I won't go, because it would be the same as condoning the offensive remarks Imus and his crew have made against any number of individuals and groups over the years."

And that's too bad, because more of us need to take a stand against such language as being unacceptable to us -- whether it happens on talk radio, television, or gangster rap. Then again, when name-calling is common even from our own President's mouth -- evil-doers and Axis of Evil -- it's hard to set a tone of civility.

My question on this matter of calling Imus to accountability for his words: What took so long?