Please note. I don't agree with every last bit of this. But a lot of it is well spoken and valid. . . . IMHO. - cmac

Pat Buchanan
April 13, 2007

In the end, it was not about Imus. It was about us.

Are we really a better country because, after he was publicly whipped for 10 days as the worst kind of racist, with whom no decent person could associate, he was thrown off the air?

Cards on the table.

This writer works for MSNBC, has been on the Imus show scores of times, watches Imus every morning, and likes the show, the music and the guys: the I-Man, Bernie, Charles and Tom Bowman.

And Imus is among the best interviewers in our business. Not only does he read and follow the news closely, he listens and probes as well as any interviewer in America. Because he is a comic, people mistake how good a questioner he is.

Is "Imus in the Morning" outrageous? Over the top at times? Are things said every week, if not every day, where you say, "He's going too far"? Yeah. But outrageousness is part of the show, whether the skits are of "Teddy Kennedy," "Reverend Falwell," "Mayor Nagin" or "The Cardinal."

And when Imus called the Rutgers women's basketball team "tattooed ... nappy-headed hos," he went over the top. The women deserved an apology. There was no cause, no call to use those terms. As Ann Coulter said, they were not fair game.

But Imus did apologize, again and again and again.

And lest we forget, these are athletes in their prime, the same age as young women in Iraq. They are not 5-year-old girls, and they are capable of brushing off an ignorant comment by a talk-show host who does not know them, or anything about them.

Who, after all, believed the slur was true? No one.

Compare, if you will, what was done to them – a single nasty insult – to the savage slanders for weeks on end of the Duke lacrosse team and the three players accused by a lying stripper of having gang-raped her at a frat party.

Duke faculty and talking heads took that occasion to vent their venom toward all white "jocks" on college campuses. Where are the demands for apologies from the talk-show hosts, guests, Duke faculty members and smear artists, all of whom bought into the lies about those Duke kids – because the lies comported with their hateful view of America?

And hate is what this is all about.

While the remarks of Imus and Bernie about the Rutgers women were indefensible, they were more unthinking and stupid than vicious and malicious. But malice is the right word to describe the howls for their show to be canceled and them to be driven from the airwaves – by phonies who endlessly prattle about the First Amendment.

The hypocrisy here was too thick to cut with a chainsaw.

What was the term the I-Man used? It was "hos," slang for whores, a term employed ad infinitum et ad nauseam by rap and hip-hop "artists." It is a term out of the African-American community. Yet, if any of a hundred rap singers has lost his contract or been driven from the airwaves for using it, maybe someone can tell me about it.

If the word "hos" is a filthy insult to decent black women, and it is, why are hip-hop artists and rap singers who use it incessantly not pariahs in the black community? Why would black politicians hobnob with them? Why are there no boycotts of the advertisers of the radio stations that play their degrading music?

Answer: The issue here is not the word Imus used. The issue is who Imus is – a white man, who used a term about black women only black folks are permitted to use with impunity and immunity.

Whatever Imus' sins, no one deserves to have Al Sharpton – hero of the Tawana Brawley hoax, resolute defender of the fake rape charge against half a dozen innocent guys, which ruined lives – sit in moral judgment upon them.

"It is our feeling that this is only the beginning. We must have a broad discussion on what is permitted and not permitted in terms of the airwaves," says Sharpton. It says something about America that someone with Al's track record can claim the role of national censor.

Who is next? And why do we take it?

I did a bad thing, but I am not a bad person, says Imus. Indeed, whoever used his microphone to do more good for more people – be they the cancer kids of Imus Ranch, the families of Iraq war dead now more justly compensated because of the I-Man or the cause of a cure for autism?

"We know of no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodic fits of morality," said Lord Macaulay. Unfortunately, Macaulay never saw the likes of the Revs. Sharpton and Jackson.

Imus threw himself on the mercy of the court of elite opinion – and that court, pandering to the mob, lynched him. Yet, for all his sins, he was a better man than the lot of them rejoicing at the foot of the cottonwood tree.

__________________
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Buchanan's basis is wholly incorrect, and an irresponsible thing to say. There are multitudes of black persons who are opposed to ANYONE using the term, no matter what the context, whether it be "comical" or not. Buchanan must not know that "ho" is not a term to describe only black women in a negative light, it's a word used to describe/demean ANY woman of ANY race with so called "loose" morals. I personally know individuals will not patronize anyone or any company that perpetuates and glamorizes such images and statements, even if that means not reading certain magizines, not wearing certain clothes, and not watching BET and/or MTV in favor of more intelligent and educational programming.

Obviously, Buchanan does not (or chooses not) to know about the protest back in 2004 against rap star Nelly from Spelman and Morehouse University students for his frequent portrayal of women in his lyrics as "*****es n' ho's", and for his vulgar and distasteful "Tip Drill", music video. There were boycotts of his music, some also made the argument that the women in the videos were just as responsible as the rappers for the continuing trend, as one allowed Nelly to use her backside to swipe a credit card. There still is a vocal minority calling for action against rappers for the misogynist lyrics and prepetuation of gangsta mentality, but the way I see it, rap is such a money maker that the big execs don't want to touch that. Though as of recently, I have heard that rap sales are dropping. Wonder if that has anything to do with it?

__________________
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Sooner or later every car falls apart, ours does it later!
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As long as the press "hos" have the cameras pointed, and mics turned on, towards the speaker "hos" (Sharpton and the like...), the real message, that was being spread by real American-Africans (Bill Cosby) will be ignored.

Bill, a few months back, said exactly what the Black community didn't want to heed and hear...quit buying and glorifying the "*****es & hos" mentality and reject it for the trash it is.

Is it happening?

Why did it take a white guy to kick someone's @55 (verbally) and everyone gets upset, and the black guy that had already told his own community the same thing, no one listened, except the white folks? And there were black folks going so far as to paint Bill as an "Uncle Tom" on late-night talk shows, because of his valid views?

The real shock?

It happened and no one is bringing it up.

Bill was right. If you don't care, there's no one to blame but yourself.

Maybe that was the problem. The answer was so obvious that it couldn't possibly have been the right one.

DOH!

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M. G. Burg
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“I didn’t really say everything I said.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~ Yogi Berra ~

Why is this post here? Since when is this a forum for social and political issues?

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DavidB29
1992 300E with ASR
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I guess you're new here, that's all the open discussion forum is.

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Jason Priest
1999 E430
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I wish someone would give the KKK a radio show so everyone can see what "hate" really is.

I believe that the 'Coz was excoriated by the NAACP for his position.

I also believe that the terms "Uncle Tom" and "house n****r" were used in reference to Dr. Cosby.

Oh well....

I listen to a lot of Cosby's old routines on XM radio.

The humor is biting and the comments are insightful, but there is never the same kind of coarness that you see in the new crop of Black (and White) comedians.

I guess no man is a prophet among his own people.

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He did not get the memo.

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Current Benzes

1989 300TE "Alice"
1990 300CE "Sam Spade"
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2002 C320 Wagon "Molly Fox"

Res non semper sunt quae esse videntur

My Gallery

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Buchanon is right on the money. He is not saying EVERY black person tolerates language and characterizations like that. his point is those racial hypocrites Sharpton and jackson who talk out of both sides of their mouths should be held accountable for their words as well.

Sharpton never apologized for his racial comments about the Duke Lacrosse players. Look it up. His racial bias and bigotry is astounding. Apparently he is not fond of Jews either....

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MB-less

comparing imus to rappers is a false comparison.

he exercised his freedom of speech.

the network exercised their freedom to not have his show on their network.

the sponsers exercised their freedom to withdraw their support of him.

his freedom to say stupid things is intact. he is not in jail. he just lost his bully pulpit.

fine with me.

the rappers have no bully pulpit. they don't have sponsers and regular viewers.

false comparison.

tom w

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..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

I don't grok completely with Pat here but I do think that many of Imus's actions, giving help to needy children on his ranch, speak louder than his words. He has, however, done this sort of thing many times I gather, some years back referring to Gwen Ifill of the PBS Lehrer NewsHour by saying "isn't it nice they let the cleaning lady read the news."

I think Ifill does a very good job and even if she didn't, the comment would have been way uncalled for.

I am however, more than tired of Sharpton's self-righteous attitude. If he EVER apologized for the Twanna Brawley debacle, I never heard about it. The woman had LIAR rubberstamped in red on her forehead -- she found a way to get all the attention her poor li'l heart wanted, and Sharpton rode it for all it was worth. The innocent men involved endured far, far worse than the Rutgers' B-Ball team.

About 10 years ago, I almost got the crap beat out of my by 5 black teenagers/early 20s, in a Safeway in Oakland. When I went in, I'd noticed they were horsing around on the golf cart thingy reserved for near-invalids.

When I was in the checkout line, one of them tapped me on the shoulder, motioning for me to look behind me. The kid in the golf cart was about 2 inches from my ankle saying, "Move...move..."

I was dumbfounded. I pointed at my feet and said: "I'M STANDING HERE!" loudly, a few times. That was all it took. The five of them were soon around me, calling me a "blue eyed devil" (my eyes are blue) and getting more and more threatening.

I said, "I'm a cabdriver, I take your grandmother to the doctor," which I did, every day -- maybe not his grandmother but I hauled older black women around all the time and made a point of treating them like they were the queen of England cause I could usually sense the dignity and pride that they had had to call upon to raise a family in the America of the last 50 years. The punk in the golf cart, who I outweighed by at least 50 pounds, said, "you keep my grandmother's name out of your mouth."

Eventually, a powerfully built black security guard caught wind of what was happening, came up, and the youths quickly listened to him, thank God.

Oh well, far worse has happened to many a black man in the past. My point is, Farrakhan (author or popularizer anyway of the "blue eyed devil" crap) may have some good points but it is past time for his and Sharpton's double standard on racism to be tolerated any longer.

Jackson is head and shoulders about Sharpton, IMO, even if he does ride it a bit too hard himself at times.

And this so close behind the Duke lacrosse incident is too much. Time for Sharpton/Farrakhon to get their feet held to the same fire.

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Truth to what you say except the Rappers do have a bully pulpit in the form of mega-$$$ contracts from the same companies that own CBS (Viacom) and perhaps NBC for all I know.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
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troo dat


tom w

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

I believe that it was Malcolm X who first used the term blue eyed devil (BED).

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1989 300TE "Alice"
1990 300CE "Sam Spade"
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Not in this weather!

Makes sense, as Malcom went before and that is the kind of rhetoric he got into at times. I don't have the sort of hatred for Farrakhan that you sometimes hear people express. I can see a lot of courage there and a lot of work to try to get his brothers to raise themselves up by their bootstraps.

And, no question plenty of blue eyed dudes did some serious mischief to black folks. It just grates a bit when us whiteys are under serious pressure from within and without to be on our best behavior in the "trying not to incite racial animosity" dept. and then I have to hear the Blue Eyed Devil crap with impunity from the other side.

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