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NBC's Illiberal Ouster of Imus Lowell Ponte NBC's decision on Wednesday to end its MSNBC video simulcast of Don Imus's CBS national radio show can be criticized on many grounds. NBC's Imus ouster, as we shall see, is every bit as illiberal and "racist" — i.e., debasing of a person for his genetic makeup — as were Imus's vile racist and sexist remarks about Rutgers University championship women's basketball players. But first, let's remember the hypocrisies behind NBC's decision. NBC created Don Imus as a national celebrity. Its radio station WNBC hired him in 1971 to bring to New York City the new "shock jock" style Imus had successfully developed on small stations in California and Cleveland. In an Aesop fable, a man one winter rescued a frozen serpent, thawed it on his fireside hearth, and then was surprised when the poisonous snake bit him. "Hey," the serpent then told him, "you knew I was a snake when you brought me into your home." NBC knew Imus was "radioactive," and not just because he had worked as a uranium miner before finding easier jobs behind a radio microphone. Imus attracted listeners by, e.g., asking women callers if they were naked. Like all shock jocks, he had to keep upping the ante, pushing the envelope, shooting ever-heavier doses of outrageous behavior to stimulate the calloused ears of listeners. Imus was, and at age 66 remains, an enfant terrible. And now NBC again says it is shocked — shocked — to find terrible and infantile politically incorrect behavior on the show it has made millions by simulcasting. NBC was pressed by decent people to drop Imus. It was also attacked by America's race hustlers. Story Continues Below
Rev. Al Sharpton demanded that Imus be fired — yes, the same Al Sharpton who once led a Kristallnacht march through a Jewish neighborhood in New York City, leaving a trail of smashed windows and anti-Semitic chants in his self-aggrandizing wake. The Rev. Jesse — New York City is "hymietown" — Jackson demanded not only Imus's firing but also his replacement with an African-American host. NBC's cable network MSNBC, said Jackson, was "all day, all night, all white." Such are the censors of public morality in our era where, as Time magazine's James Poniewozik observed, shows like "Pimp My Ride," the Oscar-winning song "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp," and the degrading language of comics and rappers have blurred the old lines that were never to be crossed. If MSNBC really wants to remove hatred and bigotry from its schedule, it ought to oust Keith Olbermann, whose entirely one-sided nightly smear of Republicans and promotion of Democrats is indistinguishable from a Democratic Party campaign commercial. Olbermann's ugly hatefest is a multimillion dollar free campaign donation, in violation of the spirit if not the letter of our election laws, from NBC to America's political party of class hatred. But for all its professions of virtue, what moved NBC to oust Imus were not the protests of the Revs. Sharpton or Jackson, nor even the noble and heartfelt statements of Imus's victims on the Rutgers team. What changed NBC's mind was that Imus sponsors, from General Motors to Staples office supplies, pulled more than $500,000 in advertising from the Imus simulcast, thereby making the show unprofitable. And it did not help Imus to argue that he was "an equal opportunity offender" who insults everybody. NBC has been shifting from a liberal to an outright left-wing network. MSNBC as a figleaf retains two hosts and one regular commentator of the nominal right. One is "Republican" Joe Scarborough, whose show is now glutted with liberal guests and relentless criticism of the GOP Scarborough once represented as a Republican congressman. MSNBC's other token "conservative" is libertarian Tucker Carlson, son of a former Republican-appointed Federal Communications Commission member, who like resident pundit Pat Buchanan spends most of his airtime making nice with liberals or denouncing President George W. Bush's war in Iraq. MSNBC's ruling liberal hosts, such as Olbermann and low-rated Chris Matthews, show no such circumspection in promoting the Democratic Party agenda. Imus, although far more liberal than conservative, was increasingly quick to include Democrats among the "lying weasels" he regularly denounced. NBC no longer wants "equal opportunity offenders." It apparently wants MSNBC to be the liberal reverse mirror image of Fox News Channel — to be the channel that high-earning urban liberals turn to for their daily dose of slanted humor and ideological cheerleading. Imus was no longer reliably liberal enough for MSNBC, as likely will be obvious by NBC's politically correct choice to replace him. Neither I nor anyone else this side of Rose O'Donnell (another liberal shock host who sees shades of Big Brother, and her own potential future demise, in the removal of Imus) can approve the disgusting things Imus said. But my questions are these: What if Don Imus had Tourette's Syndrome, which causes its victims to suffer uncontrollable outbursts of potty-mouthed language? What if this syndrome were genetic in origin? Would it be unfair to deny any victim of this genetic condition a job on camera or microphone in the media because he or she occasionally says something offensive? How would this differ from denying someone a job because of other genetic characteristics we associate with the scientific fiction called "race?" Research by Ohio State University psychologist William von Hippel found that after age 65 people appear to become more prejudiced because aging causes them to "lose their inhibitory ability" and find it "difficult to disregard their own stereotypical or prejudicial thoughts." What if Don Imus's hurtful words came not from his mind but from his genes and his aging, disinhibited brain? If this is so, then it arguably is discriminatory on genetic ("racial"), age and disability grounds to fire him. Here's my suggestion for an ambitious trial lawyer: sue NBC for violating Don Imus's civil rights to keep his job under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Liberal NBC should have provided an "accommodation" for his eccentricities. This aging talk host might not be a victimizer — but a victim.
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