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Context and Perspective regarding Don Imus

“Nappy-headed hos” ?

Don Imus has made a career out of making inappropriate remarks. It’s part of the gig. So why has the latest situation turned into an international, up-to-the-minute, two-week-suspension and race-baiting fiasco? Sure, there are the usual hypocritical scumbag opportunists who would make mountains out of molehills. But this is also Imus’s first time doing this in the YouTube era, and the New Media is fanning the flames because we bloggers think somebody cares about what we have to say. If everybody is talking, it doesn’t matter whether anyone is listening – the spark becomes a conflagration.

There are two important things to keep in mind about this whole situation.

1) Don Imus and his team were out of line. Some of the comments that are made on the show were in fact inappropriate. Not criminal, not unforgivable, but certainly ill-conceived. While I don’t think much need be made of the comments, I certainly won’t defend them on their face. The overall context is a mitigating factor, sure – it’s the kind of show where somebody is insulted every single day for no reason than cantankerousness, irascibility, and attempted humor. But as Mr. Imus himself has said, "Our agenda is to be funny and sometimes we go too far. And this time we went way too far. Here's what I've learned: that you can't make fun of everybody, because some people don't deserve it." Just so. Taking pot shots at politicians and pop stars is one thing, because they put themselves out there in the public spotlight with the expectation that this sort of thing is coming their way. But the young women on the Rutgers basketball team do not deserve the same treatment. It is important to keep that perspective.

2) It’s just Don Imus. These comments weren’t made by the president or the governor, or by anybody who should be expected to have a high level of maturity and restraint. He does some wonderfully charitable things. He can also be a curmudgeon and an asshole. Everything he says needs to be kept in that context. MSNBC knew what they were getting when they started televising him, and while they do need to create the appearance of having punished him until the firestorm dies down, there is no reason to expect that he should be fired outright. In fact, he’s getting more press now than any time in the last 11 years – since that infamous 1996 Radio and Television Correspondents Association speech, actually. The women on the Rutgers team (and their contemporaries) probably didn’t even know who the hell Don Imus was a week ago. It won’t hurt him that they now do.

A little context and perspective are always helpful, and especially so in cases like this, where mountains are being made of molehills. My mind boggled this morning when I heard CNN’s Soledad O'Brien say to Rutgers coach Vivian Stringer: “If *you* had said something like that, you would lose your job, period!” Perspective, Soledad! She’s the coach. He’s an entertainer. Judging them by the same standard is meaningless. It’s like noting that Don Imus would lose his show if he spent the two hours on-air making his staff run fast-break drills. Context, Soledad! Focus!

In fairness to Soledad O’Brien, I will try to keep her comment in context. She may have job loss on the fore of her mind these days, according to reports.

[CNN chief Jon Klein] plans to stick to American Morning 's hard-news format while replacing anchors Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien with former Fox News anchor Kiran Chetry and CNN's John Roberts.

The move comes as CNN, the onetime cable news leader, continues to place second to Fox News and to feel pressure from third-place MSNBC, especially in prime time. Though CNN boasts viewership is generally up double digits from last year at this time, so too are numbers for Fox and MSNBC.

MSNBC? What the hell kind of morning show do they have?