I don't believe that Don Skeletor Imus is a racist anymore than any of these guys are. Maybe thats not saying much...I do believe that he is a dinosaur, disgusting, and pretty anti-woman and sexist....but he is not a racist, as far as Ive ever heard. The problem with these neocons in disguise, like old Don, is that he is a little too in touch with the reptilian layers of his brain...and for old farts like him, that racial slur is in there just waiting to come out. You see it alot in old folks. Some of them are the most liberal and empathetic people, but somehow as they age, a little of what they heard growing up, before they decided how to live their lives, is in there just waiting to pop.
Here is the crazy part: Imus has been putting down just about everyone in a disgusting way for years and years....He hosts the supposed top journalists in the world and somehow they are cowed into his simplistic, blunted, format, as he and "Charles" chuckle and joke about one thing or another, and never really seem to say much of anything....And Imus chooses who he supports depending on who scratches HIS back: case in point is the horrible Rick Santorum who bought Imus' support by putting through a bill on autism. So Imus went on and on about what a great person Santorum is, with no reason except that he was supportive of this bill. It was the same thing with Joementum Lieberman. Imus liked him because he just "made some sense" and he showed up on the show. He had no idea what Lieberman was doing or the details of Bush's butt boy and his psychotic support of the Iraq war, except that he just "liked" him. He didnt know nothing about that stranger Lamonte, and he felt no need to find out.
So, I don't like Imus (even though I grew up in a house where he was on the radio all the time,) because I think that he supports the basest of the very human ability to turn a deaf ear to what is clear and right in front of you. Why does this guy have such a big platform to say...um... not so much? And, by the way, Mark Green and David Bernstein, in case you're reading this, Imus is NOT funny...this show is not comedy!!

Well, David Gregory, in for Chris Matthews on Hardball tonight, fielded a lineup with the likes of ...ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS (he of the local NYC Air America Mornings lineup, and the secret paid shill of Bush's No Child Left Behind program, acting as if he was "reporting" on it when he was a White House employee...uh-huh,) who was saying over and over that MSNBC is the white man's station with no Latino or black hosts...to which Gregory kept trying to drive home that Allison Stewart is on staff (and a woman to boot!)...but I think that he was more after an actual HOST job, and not a fluffy newscaster with a day slot and fill-in work. You tell 'em Army!

Breaking News!!! MSNBC suspends Imus' simulcast for 2 whole weeks!!!!! As if soldiers aren't dying in Iraq and Bush and Cheney aren't criminals, THIS is the big news of the day.
Well hell...tomorrow we will also find out who the real father Of Anna Nicole Smith's baby is....and THIS is what they are gonna spend an entire hardball on? This is what makes the media look at itself? What a joke!
Imus is a sexist, neocon, who has some sort of good streak that allows him to straddle the fence on enviornment and sick kids, but he has done the country and the children who will live till tomorrow no favors in his complicity in this administration's disinformation program...and his cowed "friends" in the media are "dismayed" as Gregory said, because it is so troublesome to think that they might be associated with that sort of language...huh? Lets discuss how to change Imus' show...lets discuss whats wrong with Imus....I'm bored....

Into the middle of this walks Lionel....well, nevermind...LTR again has the lingo down so well. "...slides into Sam's spot" eh?...pretty seamless, all this shuffling round, huh? Some people have an interest in this thing because what is LTR without LTR? Im afraid to even say it, but it may very well be over. Time to change that LTR to NPR-ish Nightmare.....maybe they can give Imus a slot when Sharpton marches on CBS radio and forces them to fire him. Oh the uppity disbelief that the radio station has not yet removed him... yet....just give the Rev a day or so to assemble the troops and you never know...maybe old Don will be available yet. And I know who can afford him too!
Oh, and to the person in the comments on LTR who compares this to "not quite as bad as Danny Gold-schmuck," I must say that I find it worse, because they have the hindsight of those mistakes and the damage that followed an egotistical pseudo-bottom-line choice that didn't listen to the fans, and now they are doing the same thing over again.

Its like the haunted look in John McCain's eyes...the empty stare of realization that maybe everything that your house of cards is built on is just so much shit, sliding away through the Gaza.... Trying to salvage his political career, McCain was heard to say that so much did he believe in his own belief that Baghdad is safe, that he would be willing to walk solo through the market anytime.
Maybe he could ask Mitt Romney to come along with his "varmint" rifle....
But really, I hear McCain also say that he can fly...somewhere around when he was last seen with the angel dust dealer round the side of the rug stand. Fly Johnny, fly.....I hear Sanjaya is gonna join the campaign as official singer just as soon as he wins American Idol....

If everything runs in some sort of cycle, I suppose it may be time to start the run of Air America Radio from its inception and hope for better days sometime in the next 2 years (and I have just the archive to do it)....or maybe the angel dust thing is something to consider. Maron and Garafolo are playing NYC for a week, beginning tomorrow night, and I feel like going every night...with the angel dust and maybe some drinking thrown in! Too bad I have no tolerance for chemicals or drink anymore...too bad....


Meantime, just watching the nestbox...my father is back in the hospital in Cape Cod, after one night at his hotel, and trying to get home to LA somehow...maybe figure out what the problem is...and the rest is just complicated....very complicated....