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The future of Don Imus’s nationally
syndicated CBS radio show clearly hinged less on Les Moonves, CBS’s
chief executive, than on a lynch mob led by the Reverends Jesse Jackson
and Al Sharpton. CBS fired Imus, after MSNBC dropped its TV simulcast of
the “Imus in the Morning” radio program, because the broadcaster had
referred to the predominantly black Rutgers women’s basketball team as
“nappy-headed hos.”
The media monolith, pitchforks hoisted, has conducted a swift public
trial, meant to make an example of Imus, and serve as a warning to all
others who fail to march in lockstep, shouting “Jawohl!” In solidarity
with the offended women, members of the chattering class have been
tripping over one another, to show-off their suppurating stigmata. We
heard from weatherman Al Roker, Whoopi Goldberg, Maya Angelou, Amy
Holmes, Naomi Wolf—they all spoke with one voice (so much for
diversity). With few exceptions, everybody demanded that Imus be
silenced, fired, retired. So said the National Association of Black
Journalists.
Extolled as the best this nation has to offer, the young players held a
somber press conference, during which they honed the art of taking
offense. Faces grim, the girls were as charitable as the Politburo.
“They had not decided whether they would accept Mr. Imus’ apology,” they
informed the press. All they knew was that they had been “scarred for
life”; that theirs was the collective howl of wounded womanhood. “All of
our accomplishments were lost, our moment was taken away,” the women
intoned.
Said Essence Carson, the captain of the team:
Not only has Mr. Imus
stolen a moment of pure grace from us, but he has brought us to the
harsh reality that behind the faces of the networks. They have worked so
hard to convey a message and empowerment to young adults that somehow,
some way the door has been left open to attack your leaders of tomorrow.
Come again? Although the speeches of both black and white spokeswomen
were short on grammatical English and long on banalities and clichés,
everyone and his dog praised the girls for their extraordinary
eloquence.
An old git utters an ugly utterance, and these “strong” and sinewy women
are stripped of “all that they had worked for, all that they sacrificed
for”? Oh the hyperbole! Whatever happened to sticks and stones and all
that? What about rising above the fray? Turning the other cheek? Not
milking a situation tackily for all it’s worth? Where’s the Christian
forgiveness in all this? Were these athletes my daughters, I’d have
advised them to lighten up, tell Gramps to get a grip, and get back to
the game.
The next stop on their Via Dolorosa is Oprah, naturally.
Just so his fans know he’s on the side of the angels, the insufferably
sanctimonious Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC’s Countdown, made sure to
divulge he had been agitating behind the scenes for Imus’ removal.
Olbermann then let Jesse Jackson of the “Hymietown” fame (and friend to
Louis Farrakhan) shake down MSNBC on air. I was unable to decipher
Jackson’s word salad, bar the demand for more black anchors and hosts on
the network. “Where are all the black talk-show hosts?” Jackson
demanded.
Well, the one I liked most was axed by MSNBC: WND columnist Alan Keyes.
Other than being overeducated, Keyes displayed a lamentable lack of
tolerance for Palestinian suicide bombers. His show was terminated
shortly after a magnificent display of moral outrage at the “existential
meaning of painstakingly—almost lovingly—packing parcels of shrapnel,
ball-bearings, nails and rat poison, to lodge in the bodies of Israeli
civilians,” as I wrote in a 2002 column.
Al Sharpton as the nation’s moral arbiter: now that’s a preposterous
notion. Tawana Brawley anyone? The Crown Heights Riot? The first was a
version of the Duke Lacrosse libel, where a black girl, carefully
coached by Sharpton, Nifonged a district attorney and some innocent
police officers. Sharpton never retracted the rapist and racist epithets
he slung at the falsely accused. The last saw Sharpton help incite an
anti-Jewish riot, after a rabbi’s motorcade accidentally ran over a
black boy. Consequently, a young Jew was lynched by a mob chanting “kill
the Jew.” Sharpton, a bent and brutal man with vengeance on his mind,
was impenitent.
I cringed when self-styled Jewish leaders like Abe Foxman of the
Anti-Defamation League leapt into denazifying mode following Mel
Gibson’s anti-Jew petit mal. But this latest Sharpton-and-Jackson-led
reign of terror has made Foxman look as genteel and sedate as an English
squire.
When in doubt about the latest media-fanned contagion, check with
satirist Jon Stewart. He usually gets it. (And no, he’s not a
left-liberal; Stephen Colbert is. Stewart is a super smart
left-libertarian, equally scathing about the left, the right, and most
of all, the media.) After announcing the winner in the media-manipulated
Anna Nicole Smith paternity sweepstakes, Stewart set about placing the
Imus burlesque in perspective.
“An off-hand remark uttered by an elderly man on the radio deserves
nothing less than our full-team coverage,” he quipped sarcastically,
summoning the Daily Show’s “senior black correspondent” and “senior
woman correspondent.” The delicious Samantha Bee also pronounced herself
expert on all things ho. A knuckle dragging, date rapist correspondent
weighed in for balance. As Stewart noted, Imus had donned his contrition
shades and tried to apologize, but when that didn’t work, “it was time
for page two of the white-celebrity-struggling-with-racism playbook:
sitting down with Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson.”
But that failed too. And that’s something not even Stewart could have
predicted.
©2007 By Ilana Mercer
WorldNetDaily.com
April 13
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