Monday, December 3, 2007

Welcome Back Don Imus.

Don Imus returned to the radio today after being sacrificed to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton's pimping of the Rutgers Women's Basketball Team this past Apri. I for one am proud to say Welcome Back Imus!

I have no support for what Don Imus said (which he apologized for ad nauseum), and I won't even claim Free Speech, as employers have every right to set bounds on how their employees represent them. HOWEVER, Don Imus was doing exactly what he was paid to do and had done plenty of times before... offer edgy and sometimes tasteless humor which one group or another might very well take offense to. So why did the Rutgers debacle get him fired, when he had not violated any laws, contractual obligations, or anything his employers actually expected him to do? Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and their ilk decided the spotlight could be bright enough to get some additional face time (which equals profits) and decided they could ride the story as long as possible, with no regard to their use and abuse of the Rutgers Women's Basketball team or their very own hypocrisy. Certainly other radio personalities, so-called artists, and even Sharpton and Jackson themselves have publicly said much worse. The difference? Don Imus was a high-profile old white guy who had a television and radio show watched by millions and visited by politicians. It made the perfect opportunity for these two-bit opportunists to gain some attention and revenue. And they took it.

Of course Sharpton and Jackson wouldn't have even been involved had it not been for Media Matters, a George Soros funded MoveOn splinter group that pays people to sit around and watch right of center (or in this case let of center) media personalities hoping they say something offensive. But that doesn't matter. Motives don't matter. Fairness and hypocrisy doesn't matter. Jesse, Al, Media Matters and MoveOn practice the politics of defamation, threats and fear... and sadly people often back down so as not to appear politically incorrect. CBS did. NBC did. And thus Imus got fired.

Well his back. And it couldn't have happened soon enough.

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