Imus: “I was right to call Gwen Ifill a ‘cleaning lady’.”

Alternative Caption: ‘Imus in the Morning’ Gets a New Sponsor

Nothing seems to have provoked more outrage during the past week than radio host Don Imus calling the Rutgers University women’s basketball team a bunch of “nappy-headed hos” (video). Imus is now serving a two week suspension for the slur, but when he comes back, you can bet that there will be a parade of political and media luminaries begging to be on his show.

Why? Why do mainstream journalists like Tom Oliphant and Tim Russert give Imus credibility by appearing on his show? Why do politicians like John McCain and John Kerry associate themselves with this man?

It’s not like Imus’ racism is a secret. He has a long history of unrepentant racism. Even during the past week, at a time that he claims that he’s contrite, he defends his past racism (Video: Imus says that he was right to call newscaster Gwen Ifill a “cleaning lady”, and calls Al Sharpton a coward for not appearing on the Imus show), and dishes out some more: he appeared on Al Sharpton’s show to apologize, but wound up doing his whiny “white men are oppressed in America” routine, and said “I guess I just can’t win with you people.”

How hard is it to apologize? How hard is it to be contrite about saying something like “nappy-headed hos”? For that matter, how hard is it to talk about a women’s basketball game without spouting misogynist comments and racial slurs? For Imus, apparently, it’s impossible. Because he’s a racist. Which is why he should be fired.

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Fox News, of course, is taking Imus’ side. Because there’s absolutely no level of racism that is beyond the pale for Fox News.

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How bad were Imus’ remarks? Al Roker, also employed by NBC, says he should be fired. Al Roker! The weatherman! You know how you get to be a TV weatherman? By being incredibly jolly and easy-going, that’s how. When the weatherman says you should be fired, you KNOW you stepped over the line.

Getting Lucky

So what’s this got to do with Bill O’Reilly getting lucky? Check out this video, in which O’Reilly gets into a shouting match with fellow Fox “journalist” Geraldo Rivera.

Bill O’Reilly was hyping a story about an illegal immigrant who drove drunk and caused a fatal accident. Rivera pointed out that illegal immigration has nothing to do with drunk driving, and pointed out that O’Reilly would not have mentioned the accident if the drunk driver had been white.

O’Reilly doesn’t like it when people point out his racism, and came unglued. But thanks to Imus, O’Reilly will probably be getting a pass on this one.

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Also getting lucky this week was sportscaster Billy Packer, whose homophobic remark (video) will also be overlooked, thanks to the I-man.

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The folks at Apple also got lucky. The news that Greenpeace named them the #1 polluter in the electronics industry was buried by Imus, and by the news that Apple has now sold its 100 millionth crack pipe ipod.

***Bush Administration: VERY Lucky***

The public outrage at the bigotry of broadcasters also threatens to drown out damaging revelations about the Bush administration. Where to start?

Middle East Policy:

The Washington Post published a four-page expose, detailing the fact that the administration was well aware that their allegations about Hussein trying to buy uranium in Africa were based on bogus evidence. Bush lied us into war, and it only took the Washington Post four years to get around to reporting it to the American people.

The evidence that the Iraq war is inflaming ethnic tensions across the region continues to mount.

Bush’s attacks on Nancy Pelosi for traveling to Syria were revealed to be politically motivated when several outlets reported that Bush had failed to attack Republicans who also visited that country. Also, Bush defenders who attacked Pelosi for wearing a head scarf looked pretty foolish when liberal bloggers pointed out that Condoleeza Rice, Karen Hughes, and Laura Bush all wear head scarves when traveling to the Middle East.

With all the uproar about Imus, few in the press noticed that the Bush administration seems to have a policy of freeing Christian terrorists, while holding innocent Muslims.

Finally, the press failed to notice the publication of a 500-page study by Yale University Press. The study indicates that the occupation of Iraq has been badly mismanaged, resulting in a “shocking” amount of unnecessary misery and death. The principle author of the study is Ali Allawi, who has recently served in various positions within the Iraqi cabinet, including stints as Minister of Trade, Minister of Defense, and Minister of Finance.

Department of Justice

The Justice Department will fight congressional subpoenas that require the department to turn over documents related to the firings of several US Attorneys. This is the same Justice Department that says that if you have nothing to hide, you shouldn’t mind having FBI agents tapping your phones and rifling through your drawers.

One of the central figures in the firings was Monica Goodling, an inexperienced graduate of Pat Robertson’s Regent University Law School. If you’ve never heard of that law school, or the school where Goodling got her undergrad degree (Messiah College), it’s because these institutions are jokes. At the time Goodling graduated Regent, it was an unaccredited law school, and most of its graduates were unable to pass the bar exam. So how is it that she was given so much influence over the careers of experienced federal prosecutors.

It gets worse. As it turns out, Goodling was one of a cadre of 150 Regent University graduates hired by the Bush administration. Apparently, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft had to completely overhaul hiring procedures at the Justice Department to accommodate the Regent grads, because they otherwise would have lacked the qualifications to serve in the department.

And do you remember how Attorney General Gonzales claimed that he had to fire eight US attorneys for not doing their jobs? Looks like he was lying about that. In reality, he doesn’t seem to care who is qualified or how much work they get done, as long as they’re more loyal to the Bush administration than they are to the US Constitution:

A half-dozen sitting U.S. attorneys also serve as aides to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales or are assigned other Washington postings, performing tasks that take them away from regular duties in their districts for months or even years at a time, according to officials and department records.

One last Bush administration outrage that’s gone unnoticed: Bush plans to end the practice of having legal immigrants sponsor family members who also want to immigrate. So I guess the “family values” administration has no problem with breaking up families, as long as those families come from abroad. (via Pandagon)

***Other Outrages***

There were a ton of other outrages this week, but thanks to Bush and Imus, I’m running long. So I’ll just give you some quick links:

Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis has been ordered to jail, and claims that he’s being oppressed. His crime? Threatening women who are trying to sue him. Poor Joe. So oppressed.

TIME called Plan B, also known as the Morning After Pill, “abortion-inducing.” In reality, the pill prevents a woman from becoming pregnant. This is important, because false allegations that the pill causes an abortion have been responsible for keeping emergency contraception off of drug store shelves.

China is still jailing dissidents, and forcing them to confess to imaginary crimes.

Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell says that the GOP lost the last elections because of “moral corruption, public policy duplicity, and managerial incompetence.” Pam Spaulding makes the case that much of that corruption, duplicity, and incompetence came from Blackwell’s office.

Screw John McCain (R-AZ)

Senator John McCain said that he “misspoke” when he said that Baghdad was perfectly safe. But that zig-zag wasn’t enough for Mr. Straight Talk, so he zigged again, claiming that he hadn’t needed the large military escort that accompanied him to a Baghdad market.

Oh yeah? Tell that to the 21 market workers who were murdered the day after McCain’s visit.

I have two things to say about this:

1) The American media should stop covering for John McCain. When he says things like “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.”, the media should publish his remarks instead of burying the story. And when 21 market workers are killed the day after McCain visits and declares that Baghdad is perfectly safe, I shouldn’t have to go to the British media to find that out.

2) If John McCain really thinks that he doesn’t need a military escort to walk around Baghdad, then he should go back to Baghdad and walk around without an escort.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 10th, 2007 at 7:29 pm and is filed under Outrage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.