When Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut announced in January he was running for president, he did it on the Don Imus Show.
Why?
“CBS said they would give me three minutes,’’ Dodd said. “I got 20 minutes on Imus.”
Imus said Dodd had his support for the Democratic nomination.
“Of course,’’ he added, “I haven’t talked to Biden yet.’’ Meaning Joe Biden, the Democratic senator from Delaware who’s also running.
Imus asked Dodd why he wanted to be president, and Dodd went through the usual baloney about vision and values and reviving the American Dream.
That’s what everybody says, Imus told Dodd.
“Look, I’m going to be 62 on Saturday,’’ Dodd said. “I have two kids under the age of 5, and this may be the last legitimate reason I have to get out of the house for a while.”
Give a politician three minutes, and you’ll get packaging. Give him 20, and even a politician may get unplugged, unvarnished, even something like human.
This was Imus’ contribution to the culture. He got smart, interesting people in front of a microphone, and got them to let their hair down. He ran the corner bar at the intersection of politics, media and culture.
There’s nothing else like it, and a lot of good people will miss it, if Imus is really gone for good.
Of course, to get to that, you had to go through this:
Imus calling Hillary Clinton “a fat, ugly, buck-toothed witch” and “Satan.’’
Imus calling the New York Knicks “chest-thumping pimps’’ and Patrick Ewing a “knuckle-dragging moron.’’
Imus calling Dick Cheney a “war criminal.’’
(OK, that may have been his only career understatement.)
And don’t get the idea that any of this was ‘’telling truth to power.’’ Imus mostly kissed up to power, often psuedo-comically, which may be why power kept showing up.
He was forever calling Jews “money-grubbing [bleeps].” and the Irish “commode-hugging drunks,’’ and gays “limp-wristed ’mos,” and people, in general or specifically, hideous and idiotic and scum-sucking and evil.
All this came long before “nappy-headed hos.’’
(What was it about the Rutgers women’s basketball team that made them “nappy-headed hos’’ anyway? I saw them play. They looked like athletes to me.
That it occurred to Imus to say what he did is almost as insane as it actually coming out of his mouth.
So no, this isn’t about freedom of expression or the creep of political correctness. It doesn’t mean sensible broadcasters will have to “watch what they say’’ more from now on.)
It was all supposed to be a joke, of course. In truth it was almost the opposite of that. It was the utter lack of wit masquerading as biting satire.
At least one presumes that’s what it was. Go ahead, apply every rule of humor you can think of to the endless piling on of vile adjectives.
I don’t get it, either.
Of course it has all now blown up on the I-Man. The real disservice of which was provoking what came next, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and Oprah elbowing their way to center stage.
(Note to Oprah: The world has had enough Maya Angelou to last a long, long time. Just FYI.)
And there was the Rutgers coach, C. Vivian Stringer, telling Oprah that Imus had “taken away our dream.’’
Being put-upon doesn’t mean you get to be ridiculous.
I am proud to say that it was a sportswriter, African-American Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock, who stepped up, on TV, to inform Stringer that, “No white man can take away your dream.’’
To Oprah’s credit, Whitlock will be on her show Monday.
So what have we learned, kids?
Couple of things, I think.
1.) The word ho, and all its implications, is a lyrical staple of rap music.
But Jason Whitlock is not, by a long shot, the only African-American who does not consider rap music his music, or rap culture his culture, or the likes of Sharpton and Jackson his leaders.
The mainstream (and mostly white) media has missed that. Probably because its way of handling “black issues,’’ for too long, has been keeping Jackson and Sharpton on speed-dial.
2.) America invests way, way too much in sport. Duh. But because it does, sport is the language through which we, in an admittedly stilted and bumbling way, at least try to talk about these things.
If Rush Limbaugh does the Donovan McNabb thing on his radio show, nobody cares. He says three loonier things than that, most days, before his first commercial break
ESPN is another matter.
If Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction happens on the MTV Video Awards, nobody cares.
But keep it wrapped up for the Super Bowl, lady.
Al Campanis. Jimmy the Greek. John Rocker. Don Imus.
Our iconic pundits on race.
Ye gods.
I have a dream, too, but it’s a little different than this.
A newsside journalist friend asked me, many years ago, when I was going to “stop screwing around and get into some serious journalism.’’
You mean like city-council elections and refuse-authority meetings?
If you want the cutting edge of the culture, if you want who we are played out before your eyes, you’re in the right section of the paper.
For better or worse.
