Don't just blame Imus

FRANK MIELE

When I wrote about Don Imus in my last column, I had no idea that his foolish comment about the Rutgers women's basketball team was going to become a cause celebre, nor that he would lose his MSNBC TV show as a result of the uproar.

I included Imus in a roundup of events big and small that seemed to typify the stupidity that is so prevalent in our society today, but I had assumed the hubbub of concern about the "shock jock" calling the Rutgers players "nappy-headed hos" would quickly fade away. After all, Imus and his show have done much more offensive things almost daily, and there was never any interest whatsoever.

So what happened here? Has the country suddenly developed a sense of shame? Is there going to be a return to decency on the airwaves? Can we expect to see people fired on a regular basis for putting their mouth into motion before their brain is in gear?

Not bloody likely. What we are seeing is the classic scapegoating process whereby society can avoid looking at its own sins by highlighting the sins of an individual instead. Imus may be responsible for "nappy-headed ho," but Imus is not responsible for the culture that made it possible for Imus to be saying things much worse than "nappy-headed ho" for 38 years.

So instead of talking any further about Imus's stupid comments about the Rutgers team, I want to point out some of the things that Imus or his staff have said in the past 10 years that didn't get him fired. NBC didn't notice. CBS didn't notice. His advertisers didn't notice. His guests didn't notice. His listeners didn't notice. Even Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson apparently didn't notice. Surely this has to tell us something about where we stand as a society.

We can start with Imus's comments about a couple of other NBC stalwarts, Katie Couric and Matt Lauer, from December 1997, at a time when MSNBC was already simulcasting "Imus in the Morning." You just have to let his own words speak for themselves. This is an exchange between Imus and his executive producer Bernie McGuirt:

Imus: Are there two more, ah is it me, or are there two more dreadful people on the planet, than Matt Lauer and Katie Couric?

Bernie: No, two idiots.

Imus: And what was Katie, what I mean … what is her problem?

Bernie: Like Ross Perot said, trying to prove her manhood…

Imus: Why was she rude to not only me, which is fine, ya yappy little mouse, but to Russert the other morning… I mean it's a snippy little twerp.

I believe the "snippy little twerp" comment was a reference to Couric, and if I am not mistaken, a later comment about "that yappy little dwarf" referred to her then co-host Matt Lauer. Matt and Katie probably didn't feel any better about being called names than did the Rutgers basketball players, so you can't really say it's just an issue of sensitivity to people's feelings. Arguably, Matt and Katie are in the public eye and invite scrutiny of their job performance. It's not really any different than me making fun of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann or some other columnist making fun of Bill O'Reilly. So let's give him a pass on these comments, but let's see if we start to notice a pattern.

What about this one? Remember when Imus's producer McGuirk and "newsman" Charles McCord were bantering about Jill Carroll, the reporter freed by terrorists in Iraq after 82 days in captivity at a time when people were regularly having their heads cut off?

McGUIRK: She strikes me as the kind of woman who would wear one of those suicide vests. You know, walk into the - try and sneak into the Green Zone.

IMUS: Oh, no. No, no, no, no.

McCORD: Just because she always appears in traditional Arab garb and wearing a burka.

McGUIRK: Yeah, what's with the head gear? Take it off. Let's see.

McCORD: Exactly. She cooked with them, lived with them.

IMUS: This is not helping.

McGUIRK: She may be carrying Habib's baby at this point.

IMUS: She could. It's not like she was representing the insurgents or the terrorists or those people…

McGUIRK: She's like the Taliban Johnny or something.

That was on March 30, 2006. The next day, McGuirk clarified his statement about Carroll's supposed pregnancy, and said she was actually "carrying [terrorist leader Abu Musab al-] Zarqawi's baby." Three days later, the gang was back on the same subject, apparently with an intention of issuing some kind of apology. Imus actually demanded an apology from his underlings and they refused.

McGUIRK: Aw, come on. Just kidding around. Just glad she's OK, she's back and all is well.

McCORD: Absolutely.

McGUIRK: And all is well.

McCORD: Enough said.

IMUS: Well, you two should apologize. That's what I think.

McGUIRK: Apologize for what? For articulating what everybody was suspecting?

McCORD: Yeah, for sharing the widely held view?

IMUS: Well, I didn't hold that view. So how widely held was it?

McCORD: It was very widely held.

IMUS: You're nuts.

McCORD: No, no, no, no, no.

IMUS: You're nuts, all of you.

McCORD: All we said is that she is a known sympathizer to the general Arab cause. And Iraq is considered, you know, almost a second home by her. There's nothing wrong with that.

IMUS: No, no. But you made her - you four-eyed goober - you made her sound like a terrorist, part of the insurgency…

McCORD: That's ridiculous.

IMUS: You're a horrid individual.

McGUIRK: We're just glad she's OK.

McCORD: Amen. Back with her family.

That kind of "humor" is typical on the Imus show, and it varies from day to day just who gets to pretend to be horrified and who gets to be "horrid." One day, the sports guy will refer to Venus and Serena Williams as "two booma-chucka, big-butted women" or an Indian men's doubles team as "Gunga Din and Sambo." Another day it will be Imus himself making fun of gays in reference to the movie "Fudge-pack Mountain." One time he called some publishers "thieving Jews" and later said, "I apologize … I realize that's redundant."

Someone on the staff usually expresses mock outrage at these kinds of comments, but the emphasis is always on the mock, and the comments just keep coming.

So let's not pretend that Imus doesn't know what he is selling to the American public. He has called his producer Bernie McGuirk a "homophobic Nazi," and a staff member for Imus's show told "60 Minutes" that McGuirk had been tapped to do "nigger jokes," which he does partly because Imus tells him on-air to go "make fun of more Negroes."

Certainly the show's propensity for racist humor explains why the Rutgers team, with a majority of black players, was the target for Imus's latest tirade. But it doesn't hurt that they were women either. In Imus's mind, calling a woman a "ho" may actually be a compliment. He has certainly called them much worse.

Imus had a famous feud with NBC newswoman Contessa Brewer, for instance, who was assigned to do the news reading spot on the show by her bosses at MSNBC. She would be subjected to sexist insults by Imus and his cohorts on a daily basis, and eventually left the show, calling Imus a "cantankerous old fool."

That brought out the avuncular side of Imus, who told the world on his show: "Why didn't she just keep her mouth shut? Why would she bring this on herself? She knows how we are. She is so painfully stupid. That's the reason I got rid of her. I'd ask her to explain a story she had read and she didn't have a clue."

He and his gang of fellow misogynists proceeded to compare Brewer to "Miss Piggy" and also said that traffic problems in New York City were caused by her "big butt" being stuck in a tunnel and her "fat a - -" getting stuck in the entrance at Burger King." Adding insult to injury, the now-infamous Bernie McGuirk piped in that Brewer is "MSNBC's answer to Candy Crowley," comparing Contessa to the heavy-set CNN reporter.

The lesson here is that if you can demean two people at once, you are even funnier than before. But Candy Crowley is in the public eye, right, so it's OK to make fun of her weight.

The fact of the matter is that most of us are capable of making a vulgar comment or an off-color joke, or even laughing at a racist or ethnic joke. None of us are saints, and humor is an important safety valve that serves an important purpose in letting us all get along with each other. The trouble is that a program like "Imus in the Morning" - just one of many such shows on radio and cable TV - institutionalizes and makes acceptable that which may be understandable but should never be condoned.

I suppose all of us have a grandfather or uncle somewhere in the family who likes to spout racist bile at the holiday dinner table, and we may even find them to be good people overall, just as Don Imus says he is a good person. But one thing is certain; none of us would want to put our crazy grandfather or uncle on national TV or radio to share his mean-spirited humor with the world.

Don Imus should have been fired, but not just because he made a stupid joke and called some basketball players "nappy-headed hos." Any of us can be insensitive on occasion or just misunderstand the consequences of our words. "Nappy-headed hos" would have been forgivable if it was an isolated instance. But it wasn't. Don Imus is a repeat offender. There are thousands of examples for everyone to see on the Internet.

How the "I-Man" has gotten away with it for 38 years is a mystery. Why he is beloved by people who should know better like Tim Russert and Brian Williams and John McCain and Mary Matalin is also a mystery. If Don Imus needs a 12-step-program for his addiction to vulgarity, racism, anti-Semitism and fat jokes, then there are a lot of celebrities, politicians and journalists who need a 12-step program where they can be rigorously honest about their part in enabling Imus to think he could say those things and still be a "good person."

It's not just about Imus; it's about all of us.