An originator of Trumpism has died
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| Don Imus was on MSNBC in the morning for 10 years |
Don Imus has died. He loved his family and did some good philanthropic work.
But as we deal with the crazy person in the White House and wonder how in the hell such a cretin could possibly have become president, I think this piece I wrote might shed some light:
by digby
I’ve been listening to alleged journalists falling all over themselves on television to assure all of us that Don Imus is a really great guy underneath all the ugliness and that he’s really, really, really sorry. David Gregory is vouching for him like a brother while that paragon of integrity Armstrong Williams is begging that he be given another chance.
I can’t help but be reminded of the Imus profile of a year ago in Vanity Fair
(not online, unfortunately)in which his psychotic freakshow was fully revealed. I’m sure all these disgusting sycophants read it. After all, it featured them in starring roles — being insulted by Don Imus:
“They don’t make good decisions,” he says of MSNBC and its programming. “You can’t make idiotic decisions like (hiring hosts) Tucker Carlson and Ron Reagan.” Of conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, he says: “He’s a twit. He’s a pussy.”
This is in the same spirit as an earlier comment on Senate majority leader Bill Frist (“a fucking criminal”). Similarly, when he looks up from his circular desk at a television monitor during a commercial break and sees Chris Matthews, the host of Hardball, silently nattering away, he says, “There’s that idiot,” to no one in particular.
It makes you wonder why they continue to appear on his show and are making complete fools of themselves today assuring everyone that Imus is a “good man.”
This might explain it:
I can feel the high of becoming part of his incestuous circle of regulars-the media elite who have entree with the I-Man and have never seemed troubled, at least publicly troubled as far as I can tell, by the show’s forays over the years into homophobia and crudeness and sexism. I like this idea of being right in there with columnists Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich of The New York Times and NBC’s Andrea Mitchell and David Gregory and Tim Russert (husband of Vanity Fair special correspondent Maureen Orth), all Imus regulars. I wonder if there’s some secret media-elite handshake I need to learn, just so I can hear the jubilant sound of the cash register ringing when it comes time to sell my next book, because nobody (with the clear exception of Oprah) sells a book better than Imus.
He likes that power, enjoys going on Amazon to see just how much he can boost a book. During the week I’m there, he has Larry the Cable Guy on as a guest-Larry has just written a book called Git-r-Done. Before the show, according to Imus, the book was about 1,800 on the Amazon list. But when he checks on the Internet just after the show, it’s No. 122.
I wonder if the media elite’s failure to seriously take Imus to task for anything is due to a fear that their book-promotion pipeline will be cut off if they rub him the wrong way. In a 1998 New Yorker piece, Ken Auletta drew up a list, confirmed by Imus, of more than a dozen high-profile journalists who made contributions to the Imus Ranch…
It’s as if they believe we can’t read or are too stupid to figure out what they are doing. I read Vanity Fair. I hear his disgusting show and hear them on it, kissing up to him like he’s some sort of oracle instead of a spoiled, petulant bully with an incoherent worldview. And I also listen to their complaints about the vituperation on the internet, how the bloggers — especially the “angry left” — are horrible people who treat them disrespectfully. And I have to laugh because I know that Don Imus can call them and their colleagues twits and pussies in Vanity Fair and they come back licking his boots, begging for more. And we know why.
They have earned their reputation — even some of the good ones, the ones who write things I like. When you sell your personal integrity for money to a racist scumbag like Don Imus, you have to expect that people are not going to treat you with a lot of respect.
Don Imus has been behaving badly and apologizing for it for many, many years. I expect he will continue to do so once he’s finished with his two week vacation. And all of these writers will once again make pilgrimages to his show and pledge fealty to him in order to sell books. Because, unlike those great basketball players he maligned so casually — they really are whores.
Update: I just watched an MSNBC panel unable to come up with an instance of Rush Limbaugh racism except for his comment that Obama is a halfrican. I guess they forgot that he was fired from ESPN for his bigoted remarks about Donovan McNab:
“the sports media, being liberals just like liberal media is elsewhere, have a desire that black quarterbacks excel and do very well so that their claims that blacks are being denied opportunity can be validated.”
For some reason, the mainstream media just refuse to believe that Rush is a wingnut jerk of the highest order. When he is publicly exposed as a racist to the extent that he is fired from a broadcast network, they forget all about it. Why is that?
(And, of course, there are myriad other example as well. But you’d think that would at least have stuck in their memories.
Oh, and at the time it happened, Rush had to decline to accept the Claremont Institute’s “Statesmanship Award” that year because he was under such a cloud for his drug addiction and racist remarks and had to go to rehab. Not to worry. They gave it to him the next year. Here is a little piece of the speech the racist creep gave at the “Churchill Dinner” where he accepted a bust of old Winnie himself:
How many of you yesterday happened to see any pictures at all of the opening ceremonies of the Bill Clinton Library and Massage Parlor? (Laughter) How many hands do I see? Okay. I don’t see too many hands and I’m not surprised. Let me tell you, I watched it. Not because I wanted to. I watched it for you.
I watched it, my friends, because it’s my business to do this. The Clinton library opening ceremonies epitomized, if you will, exactly where the left in this country is today. First, where was it? It was in a red state. They hate red states. In fact, the media in this country, the — what I call them, the liberal spin machine — I don’t like to use the word “mainstream press” anymore.
The liberal spin machine was there. They were all excited. But they’re thinking about sending foreign correspondents to the red states to find out what people — and to the red counties of California — to find out what Americans are really like.
That was 12 years ago.
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And thank you so much for reading and supporting my work all these years. I am truly grateful. — d
