This will be one of those times that I "make a stretch" in order to make a connection between two things that have happened that are not directly connected. Sorry about that, but I cannot help myself.
Don Imus, who appears on Radio and Television for three and a half hours a day, five days a week is a brilliant, weird, off the wall, wacky, controversial, and interesting person. He is also the recipient of significant abuse because of what he said last week on his program.
He has apologized for calling the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos" after they lost in the NCAA finals.
We have evolved into a media society that revels in the "gotcha" game of commenting on and often vilifying people for saying or doing something that they should not have said or done.
Imus said something that he should not have said. It was certainly in order that he apologizes for the words, which he promptly did, however, his fellow media people might have jumped to his defense rather then assisting others in "piling on."
A part of me wants to talk about the difficulty of being on Radio and Television for over 15 hours a week while being funny, interesting, "a smart ass." and "cute" but that is not the point.
A part of me wants to talk about his work on combating autism.
A part of me wants to talk about his work with kids who have cancer.
A part of me wants to talk about his environmental work.
There is more, but it sadly does not matter one little bit.
It would be refreshing if the media apply a bit of proportionality to their coverage of events like this one. He, as so many others, made a verbal, unintentional, and improper gaff.
I continue to deal with issues like these at the emotional level of a ten year old. While the media have glommed on to this issue, a relatively minor one, they avoid other more substantive items.
Imus was wrong, but we should get off of it already. What we should not "get off of" which matters MUCH more are the following words:
On Thursday, our illustrious Vice President Dick Cheney repeated his assertions of al-Qaida links to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. He managed to do this as the Defense Department released a report citing more evidence that the prewar government did not cooperate with the terrorist group.
Cheney claimed that al-Qaida was operating in Iraq before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, and that terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was leading the Iraqi branch of al-Qaida.
He said much more, but that is enough.
We had a verbal Imus mistake for which he has apologized. The Vice President on the other hand participated in creating a war that has killed and wounded hundreds if thousands of people. He did it by using words that led us into war, and it appears that he was intentionally lying in order to do what he wanted to do.
Media guys, where is a little proportionality? What else can you do now that the Anna Nicole Smith issue only takes up a small amount of time?
How would it be if the media were to ask Cheney to apologize?
Norman Horowitz
Long Time Smart Ass