MSNBC's Bold Post-Imus Move: Another White Guy

So, this Monday through Wednesday Philadelphia morning radio host Michael Smerconish will be simulcast on MSNBC in the spot once held by humanitarian Don Imus.

Zero sarcasm by the way with "humanitarian." That Imus was a mensch. Yes he was.

But about Smerconish: I don't live in Philly. Don't listen to him on the radio. Seen him on TV some. And though a certain left-leaning watchdog media site has early on tried to slant public opinion against him, the supposedly incendiary remarks they use as examples of bias came off to me more as preaching to the choir rather than true "isms." Fairly tame when compared to what else is out there. At the moment I can't say as I have anything in particular against Smerconish.

Personally.

It's Smerconish as a concept that I abhor.

On the day Imus was fired - on MSNBC ironically - I wished aloud that NBC News would make an attempt at diversity and replace the I-Man with someone who was not more of the same.

Clearly, if anyone was listening, they didn't care.

So, now, instead of a fresh perspective, we are treated to yet another version of the I-man with a better-kept dome.

I've read an article from one outlet that tries to lamely explain why MSNBC had to go in a Smerconish-like direction: if they didn't hire a Conservative the Right would accuse MSNBC of caving to bias.

Okay. Fine. Hire a Right-leaner. But are there no Conservative Asian commentators? Is Conservatism prohibited among Latinos or Near Easterners? I know there are Right-leaning women. And what better way for MSNBC to both placate Conservatives and give the Left a poke in the eye than by giving airtime to a person of color who refuses to remain trapped on the Liberal Plantation?

But that's not to be. At least not in the near term.

For the near term we've got what's already all over the dial: white guys holding forth. Disseminating news of the day. And I'll tell you true: I don't care if they are Left, Right, Center or Comedy Central, I tire of them all. I tire of not seeing "us" given the opportunity to speak on the news of the day. And I tire to the point of woefulness when I hear them haranguing over news that is minority-specific; white guys on the Right knocking us down making me only slightly less weary than hearing the good liberal white men who feel the need to pick us up.

Knocked down, picked up; either/or, let's see some people of color doing it. Personally I'd much rather hear the intellectual dissection of "nappy headed 'hoes" from a person of color than the thousandth dismissal of the painful phrase from someone else who's never been the underdog.

Following Imus and NBC News's horrid decision to pimp the manifesto of the VT killer, I think NBC News and MSNBC have got a good deal of morality searching to do. I hope they spend more time completing that chore than they did looking for Imus's replacement.