Imus in Mourning

...but probably not for long.

Well, the other shoe has dropped. Mr. Imus is destined to continue to ply his trade on satellite radio. I have to admit I'm amazed by how this episode took on a life of its own and reached its resolution so quickly.

As Michelle Malkin alluded to in her National Review article, Imus has been spewing shit like this for a long time. It finally caught up with him. I believe the popularity of him and others of his ilk (Limbaugh, O'Reilly, et al) has coincided with the decline of common courtesy in our society.

Now, I can appreciate directness. I think we are all better served by straight talk; as opposed to the linguistic games we are forced to play most of the time these days. Especially when it comes to "politicalspeak" and "mediaspeak." But the tone and general lack of respect displayed by the so-called shock jocks and a lot of today's political commentators is just -- well, mean. Or more accurately, mean-spirited.

For example, if Rush wants to espouse the virtues of conservative political philosphy and ariticulate sound reasons to oppose liberalism, big goverment, or whatever; I'll listen. But when he personally attacks someone like John Lewis, a man who endured mercliess beatings so black people could exercise their Constitutional right to vote, and implies that he (Lewis) is somehow lacking intellectual capacity just because he disagrees with his (Rush's) political philososphy, I will exercise my Constitutional right to change the channel. But the catch is, in the Information Age, I will probably still be exposed to Rush's most outrageous statements whether I actually listen to his show or not. One of the many web sites I browse regularly will pick it up, someone will send me a link to YouTube, or one of my news sources will report on it.

This is what happened to Imus. The fact that his reach had stretched beyond his listening/viewing audience turned out to be a double-edged sword. When coupled with the fact that the ranks of decison-makers in the upper reaches of media and corporate sponsors are now more diverse, you have a guy who found himself on the bleeding edge. Make no mistake. Regardless of the pronouncements tinged with moral outrage and the solemn chest-beating from CBS, Imus is gone because of money. The sponsors have spoken.

Of course, the elephant in the room is the fact that some black people want to have it both ways. They want to be able to use the "N" word with impunity, but God help a white person who uses it -- even when quoting a black person. And if Imus' comments were so bad, where is the outrage from the black community about lyrics laced with misogyny, false braggadocio and "pimp culture" in so many of today's rap songs?

Bottom line: I don't know if Imus is a racist or not. All I know is he has been saying stuff like this for years. This is what he does. And, presumably, this is why people listened. Maybe we've reached some kind of tipping point where acceptable standards of behavior have been raised and the era of the shock jock is reaching its end. One can only hope.