Posted on 04/23/2007 10:32:56 AM PDT by Woodland
Don Imus, recently unemployed pioneer of the high-dollar shock-jock industry, is a truly gifted man. He has the rare but unenviable ability to really tick people off at both ends of the political spectrum and everywhere in between. To the chagrin of the leftist anti-war you baby killer crowd, hes been a staunch defender of our wounded troops at Walter Reed. Yet hes made a habit of regularly bashing social conservatives and President Bush, having even gone so far as to suggest that government mismanagement of Hurricane Katrina occurred because Bush is a closet racist.
Ironic isnt it?
Everyone on the face of the earth knows by now that Imus was recently fired by MSNBC and CBS for calling members of the Rutgers womens basketball team nappy-headed hos in a botched joke that makes Massachusetts amateur comedian and U.S. Senator John Kerrys stand-up play like Johnny Carson.
Imus comments were racist, sexist, reprehensible and extremely unfair to those extraordinary young women who are mostly just kids. Their fathers and brothers are no doubt itching to take the I-Man out behind the woodshed for a not-so-tender lesson in how to properly respect the fairer sex.
But instead, Imus sheepishly allowed himself to be dragged behind the woodshed for a verbal thrashing by self-proclaimed civil rights champion Al Sharpton. Imus went on Sharptons radio program shortly after the story erupted in an apparent attempt to salvage his career. Sharpton, who many argue is himself a fire-breathing anti-white, anti-Semitic racist, sang lead tenor in the colossal chorus demanding Imus ouster. But based on Sharptons own racial gaffe quotient and by his own standard, shouldnt he be standing in the unemployment line right next to Imus? You have to ask, where in the deepest pits of purgatory does Sharpton get off asserting any moral authority on this issue whatsoever?
Heres just one of the many examples which highlight Sharptons harmonious and penetrating racial wisdom: While giving a speech at New Jerseys Kean College in 1994, Sharpton walked headlong into his own Imus-ism when he judiciously and eloquently opined, White folks was in caves while we was building empires ... We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.
Nice, huh?
But there was no uproar No outrage No clamor for Sharptons head on a silver platter. And apart from a very few low-key media reports, we heard nothing but chirping crickets.
Examples of this liberal double standard are plentiful, but hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty are character traits so deeply embedded in leftist DNA that we no longer even take notice. And of course the mainstream media, which is charged with pointing out such hypocrisy, happens to be cut from the same ideological cloth, so dont expect any help from them.
As for Imus comments, the fundamental question is this: Are we really that surprised that Don Imus would belt out such verbal rot in a society that celebrates and emulates the racist and misogynistic hip-hop, gangsta-rap culture? Central to the hip-hop/rap lexicon is an apparent need to systematically demean women by branding them b*tches and hos, sometimes even suggesting that its somehow macho to slap them around a bit. Additionally, its common for young black men in the culture to refer to themselves and one another as pimps and the n-word.
Although none of this provides justification for Imus disgusting comments, the mixed message it sends might at least explain to a certain degree why he mistakenly felt it was appropriate to say what he said.
As for Sharpton, in the interest of full disclosure we should point out that Reverend Al, who rarely deserves credit for much of anything, has at least gingerly criticized the seedier side of the hip-hop/rap culture in the past.
But why hasnt he called for the firing of rappers Jay-Z, Ludacris and Djay for essentially parroting the I-Mans racist and sexist comments? Why hasnt Sharpton and his merry band of lefties demanded that the white rap industry executives who get filthy rich off this swill also get the axe? Sharpton went after Imus like a Pit Bull on a Pekingese, stopping just short of demanding he be hung upside down and peeled alive. So what gives? Why the double standard?
Simple answer. Now that Imus has been cut, the left smells blood in the water and the feeding frenzys afoot. The Imus affair is just the opening salvo. Its already being parlayed into a larger scheme to muzzle Christian conservative policy organizations, the Fox News Channel, conservative talk radio and anyone else who would dare to publicly espouse a conservative viewpoint.
In the wake of the Imus debacle, David Brock, president of the highly influential and extremely liberal Media Matters watchdog group, didnt even try to conceal the lefts strategy. He nonchalantly spread the First Amendment out on his kitchen floor so puppy could potty, threatening, More and more Americans are coming to understand the damage done by major news organizations providing a platform for bigoted commentary and other conservative misinformation. This decision sends a clear message to other networks, journalists and media personalities that bigotry and hate speech have no place on America's airwaves.
Whoa feel that chill?
Try this one on for size. While writing in The New York Times, homosexual actor and gay activist Harvey Fierstein was encouraged by the Don Imus gag order saying that it signaled the eventual eradication of all expressions of intolerance. So if you happen to believe that homosexual conduct is both immoral and high-risk behavior, as the Bible and medical science establishes, then consider yourself targeted for eradication.
But who defines the terms, and what criterion is applied? Who decides who enjoys freedom of speech and who suffers eradication? And what exactly is, bigoted commentary, expressions of intolerance, hate speech, and conservative misinformation, you might ask?
Well, its anything those jackbooted thought police on the left say it is, dont ya know. And those of us found in violation of this dogmatic PC speech code as I am right now run the risk of public blacklisting and indefinite unemployment. After were sentenced by this McCarthyist tribunal, we can evidently look forward to being shackled, dragged off to a progressive re-education rehab camp and furiously flogged with a rolled up copy of The New York Times until were properly whipped into ideological submission.
But, I dont know. I think Ill go ahead and risk it just the same.
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Matt Barber is one of the "like-minded men" with Concerned Women for America and serves as CWA's policy director for cultural issues.
Matt Barber BUMP!
Whose brilliant idea was it turn an annoying hack like Don Imus into a political martyr for the right?
imus should not be fired for what he said, he should be fired for being a racist jerk... and the evidence was there to prove it... plus he was a sight to look at...
he always seemed to be half dead...
teeman
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