A face in the crowd, starring Don Imus as Lonesome Rhodes

Final and random thoughts about the end (for now) of Imus:

• For me, the most damning evidence that Don Imus was not an “equal opportunity offender” was where he went in his time of need. He did not go to the Tavis Smiley show to be contrite, or request an appearance on the "Today" show with Al Roker. He did not go to PBS or TV One or BET. He didn't call up Clarence Page or Bob Herbert for an interview. Of all the media allies the I-man had built up over the years,  not one of them apparently was African American. And so, he had to go running into the clutches of the one black media figure, Al Sharpton, who was actually the least objective toward Imus, but was more than happy to have him promoting Sharpton's obscure talk show. The fact that Imus' stalwart defenders were all white doesn't prove he was a racist; it does suggest that he did not offend equally, and didn't care until it was too late.
• That’s why I agree with Ana Marie Cox’s observation that it wasn't Al Sharpton who brought down Don Imus. It was Al Roker.
• Speaking of Rev. Sharpton: Will someone tell him that the "federally regulated airwaves" allow Don Imus to say whatever the hell he wants, particularly on cable. The marketplace, that's a different matter. Perhaps if Sharpton’s talk show were on more of the federally regulated airwaves, he’d know this.
  
• A local TV person (who's white) said to me, “Why are broadcasters calling for the firing of other broadcasters?” Well, when you’re Al Roker and you have complete job security because the chance that you will say anything fireable or slightly daring or even the teensiest bit non-innocuous on the air is nil, I guess it’s OK to dump on others. Then again, Imus used to dump on Howard Stern, though I’m not sure he actually told the world in a public forum he wanted Howard’s career over.
• Speaking of which, I’m disturbed that Keith Olbermann (from whom I swiped my headline) thinks that, just because he’s confessed to being a jerk behind the scenes to people, it’s OK for him to read a laundry list of horrible things Imus said behind the scenes to people as implicit justification for his firing. So with the I-man gone, NBC News will become a magical and charmed place for all to work? This I gotta see.
• Speaking of backstage at the networks, Gil Schwartz, the PR chieftain at CBS, which unloaded Imus on Thursday, promoted books written by his nom de plume, Stanley Bing, on the Imus program in 2006. He even got to say the name of one of them, 100 Bulls--t Jobs And How To Get Them, on the air — without bleeping! (OK, the bleep was late, but still.) I'm reasonably sure, therefore, that Schwartz and his media-savvy boss, Les Moonves, knew exactly what Imus was up to all along, and saw nothing wrong with it, and therefore they, too, got a schooling this week in what’s appropriate to joke about on CBS.  But as Stanley Bing might say, in situations like these it's good to be the firer instead of the firee.
• I heard Bob Herbert call Imus an "anachronism" while being interviewed by Olbermann. There's a difference between an anachronism and someone who's become passé, which was Imus’s real problem. (Johnny Carson was not aging well on NBC, either, though we forget that in all the nostalgia following his exquisitely-timed exit and monklike retreat from the public eye.) Anyway, just because you can’t be on TV anymore hardly means there's not a decent-sized mainstream audience for your act. Is Jackie Mason still working? Yes, including radio, sort of.
• Jason Whitlock has a point, I guess, when he says black people need to clean house, but would prefer taking on white racists. Ultimately, though, I think the firing of Imus will be seen as a changing in overall public taste pushed by white progressives and minority groups alike. (Remember, David Brock and Media Matters got the snowball rolling last week.) And ironically, I think it was a by-product of all that mainstreamed black culture, including the dreaded Ho-Hating Hip-Hop, that African Americans and their white allies felt empowered to demand, through the media buyers acting as their proxies, that white people knock off the Buckwheat jokes.
  
• So to repeat pretty much what I said yesterday, I don’t think there are any great societal lessons to be learned here. It’s just a case of someone getting the hook instead of bowing gracefully and leaving the stage. During a slow news week.
• I don’t think Imus is ready to retire. Therefore, he will be back. And my prediction is, when he comes back, whether on terrestrial or satellite radio, it will be on his terms, not Al Sharpton’s. Additionally, Harold Ford Jr. and all of Imus's other so-called friends who abandoned him in his time of need will be able to kiss his bony behind.