Will Lib elites go back to enabling sL-IMUS on his new show?

[UTUSN]

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http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/08/27/bigotrys_cheerful_enablers/

Bigotry's cheerful enablers

By Richard Lipez | August 27, 2007

IT'S STILL uncertain when or where shock-jock Don Imus will return to the airwaves, now that he has settled his suit with CBS. But a more interesting question is this: When Imus does come back, will distinguished American media personages such as Frank Rich, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Tom Brokaw continue to show up on his show, lending him respectability and cover for his racist, misogynistic, and gay-baiting rants?

The willingness of apparently decent people, some of them liberal icons, to serve as Imus's cheerful enablers has been one of the more depressing features of the media landscape over the past decade. Tim Russert, Howard Kurtz, Jeff Greenfield, and James Carville all tut-tutted over the "nappy-headed ho's" remark about the Rutgers women's basketball team that got Imus fired last spring. But not one of these people had ever challenged Imus's long history of making or encouraging similar slurs against blacks, women, and gays. African-American journalist Clarence Page did once ask Imus on the air to cut that stuff out. Page was never asked back on the program. ....

The media elite who went on Imus likely had pecuniary reasons for reaching his sizable audience -- flogging their books or their own brand names -- but they seemed to enjoy themselves, too. In a thoughtful online anti-Imus screed, the African-American writer Ishmael Reed quotes Washington Post and CNN media critic Howard Kurtz in his 1995 book "Hot Air." Kurtz maintained that Imus's routines were what many journalists joked about in private and "some of us relish his naughtiness."

I'd hate to think that's so. At NBC, does Tom Brokaw sneer at "that fag" after a gay newsman or woman leaves the room? Does Doris Kearns Goodwin call the black men she knows "dingos"? Would Howard Kurtz refer to a non-Caucasian as a "gook" or "zipperhead"? I hope not. But given the unwillingness of all these fine folks to call Imus and his crew on any of this mean and stupid garbage, how are we to know? Imus is expected to return to the airwaves in the fall, and we'll find out then how many of his old media cronies will resume their pastimes as bigotry's enablers.

Richard Lipez writes the Don Strachey gay private eye novels under the name Richard Stevenson.

© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

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This is from wingnut tool Elia KAZAN's "A Face in the Crowd":



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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050371/

Lonesome Rhodes: Listen, I'm not through yet. You know what's gonna to happen to me?

Mel Miller: Suppose I tell you exactly what's gonna happen to you. You're gonna be back in television. Only it won't be quite the same as it was before. There'll be a reasonable cooling-off period and then somebody will say: "Why don't we try him again in a inexpensive format. People's memories aren't too long." And you know, in a way, he'll be right. Some of the people will forget, and some of them won't. Oh, you'll have a show. Maybe not the best hour or, you know, top 10. Maybe not even in the top 35. But you'll have a show. It just won't be quite the same as it was before. Then a couple of new fellas will come along. And pretty soon, a lot of your fans will be flocking around them. And then one day, somebody'll ask: "Whatever happened to, a, whatshisname? You know, the one who was so big. The number-one fella a couple of years ago. He was famous. How can we forget a name like that? Oh by the way, have you seen, a, Barry Mills? I think he's the greatest thing since Will Rogers."

(Mel turns and starts to leave. Then, he turns back towards Lonesome)

Mel Miller: Beanie!

(Beanie, who is manning the automatic appalause machine, instinctively pulls the switch, unleashing a massive abundance of cheers. The machanical jubilation continues as Mel joins Marcia in the waiting elevator, leaving Lonesome alone in the empty penthouse with his broken dreams)

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