Wrote CBS CEO Les Moonves in a memo, "He has flourished in a culture that permits a certain level of objectionable expression that hurts and demeans a wide range of people. In taking him off the air, I believe we take an important and necessary step not just in solving a unique problem, but in changing that culture, which extends far beyond the walls of our company."
I pointed that 'unique problem' out wednesday. The problem is that racism and hatred are nothing new to talk radio and that Imus might be among the least of the offenders.
Right wing radio host Neal Boortz, who referred to Rep. Cynthia McKinney as a 'ghetto slut,' takes away a different lesson. In a post to his web page yesterday, obviously written before CBS fired Imus, he wrote:
Liberals see this whole Imus situation as a way to rid themselves of the problem of talk radio. Now that they've succeeded in getting MSNBC to pull Imus' program, they'll concentrate on CBS .. trying to get the radio show cancelled. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if they succeed. Then they will turn their attention to the rest of us. The tape recorders will be running. There is not one single significant right-of-center radio talk show out there that is not going to come under fire. Liberals know -- they've proven it to themselves -- that they simply cannot succeed in talk radio. So, it's all very simple. If they can't succeed, destroy the genre. Their original plan was to wait until Democrats control the congress and the White House and then murder talk radio with the so-called "Fairness Doctrine." Now that they're on the verge of having a talk radio scalp on their belts as retribution for a bad and mean-spirited joke, they see that they may not have to wait for the electorate to give them the power.
You know how you can tell this is a load? You think about it for a moment. If this is all about liberals taking conservative talk radio down, why Don Imus? It's not an extremely political show. You want an easy target for taking down talk radio over racism? Michael Savage would be my choice -- the guy's a freakin' nazi.
And 'the tape recorders will be running?' Dude, they're already running. They've been running for years -- on both sides of the political spectrum. Imus merely had his 'macaca' moment.
What Imus does (or did) isn't the same thing as what people like Boortz and Savage and Limbaugh and O'Reilly, et. al., do. Imus's intent was to amuse, their intent is to anger...
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