Imus used the vernacular of black males on lady basketball players and got canned.
He was just being cute.
I haven’t heard from him since.
I liked Imus.
He was fun to watch and fun to listen to.
It’s too bad he said what he said, isn’t it? But should he be banned for life? The argument is that it was not the first time he had been rude, crude, and unattractive.
True! True! True! I watched Jay Leno last night, as usual.
(As you may know, I watch the first half of Leno and then I switch to the Late Night Clown, David Letterman.
) Leno was as crude as Imus ever was.
He constantly walks that thin line between decor and the garbage dump.
He was racial, and when talking about Appalachia football players, he was downright insulting.
It’s good they were not black women basketball players.
There is a difference between Imus and Leno.
Leno is always joking and laughing which makes his stuff more acceptable—and his orchestra leader, Kevin Eubanks, is there to criticize him on the spot for what he says.
Imus is always dead panned and it’s hard to tell when he is joking.
The job of the comedian is often to make people laugh by knocking the rich and famous of their pedestals.
Letterman has those "Great Moments in Presidential Speeches" where Roosevelt and Kennedy say their great lines followed by President Bush mumbling in his beer.
Leno likes to smack those smart little starlets on their bottoms whenever they make a social goof.
Last night, Leno attacked our Idaho Senator Craig who evidently played "footsie" with a Minneapolis policeman in a certain "infamous" airport restroom.
To avoid publicity, the senator pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.
That brought him a great deal of publicity, including big segments on Leno which included a tasteless skit in such a restroom.
The Senator has stepped down from committee leadership and says he is going to resign—well, maybe.
He has hired a famous attorney to let him change his guilty plea to "I’m Innocent?" I’m sure he will stay in office with some minor disciplinary action by the Senate Ethics Committee.
(If they can drum up a quorum of ethical senators.
) I didn’t even know there was a law against playing footsie.
How does "footsie" read in the penal code.
It’s not in the Ten Commandments or English Common Law (the basis of our penal code).
Hey, my son is an attorney.
([http://www.
jamesajoneslaw.
com]) What it all gets down to is freedom of speech.
You can’t stop comedians from saying what they think.
However, you can fire them if you are a television executive.
I think that is a bit drastic.
The End Copyright©2007 John T.
Jones, Ph.
D.
(Taylor Jones the Hack Writer)