Sid Rosenberg, the missing link

If you watched "Imus in the Morning" first thing on Monday, you may have heard Don Imus tell his regular sportscaster, WFAN's Chris Carlin, that he, Carlin, was off the hook because he was not on the air last week. So who was reading the sports at the moment that a story about the Rutgers women's basketball team came up on I-Man's show?

Would you believe Sid Rosenberg? 

Yes, Sid Rosenberg, the most repugnant and repulsive (to use two words in play this week) of the various repugnant and repulsive personalities who have graced the Imus morning zoo over the years. What he was doing back there — when he was supposedly banned for life from "Imus in the Morning" — is perhaps a question the I-Man himself should be asking.  For it seems, whenever "Imus in the Morning" has stirred up the most trouble, the cocaine-abusing, slur-spouting, misogynistic sportscaster has been smack in the middle of it.

Rosenberg has gotten himself suspended in the past for various on-air "jokes," like when he said the Williams sisters were better suited for the cover of National Geographic than Playboy. He has also called the U.S. women's soccer team a bunch of "juiced-up dykes" and joked that "faggots play tennis." And he was the one who uttered the line, being batted around a lot in the current Imus-on-fire coverage, that Palestinians were "stinking animals." I can't prove he was the one who called Patrick Ewing "the missing link." But why do I have the feeling he did? Either that or he was away — perhaps serving a suspension or going through rehab — and his fill-in, trying to out-id Sid, blurted it out.

In 2005, Rosenberg ventured outside the generous safe zone of even Don Imus. After singer Kylie Minogue was treated for cancer, he said, "She won't look so pretty when she's got a bald head with one titty." (Courtesy of Wikipedia, the audio.) For his punishment, he was banned — yes, banned — from ever appearing on the "Imus in the Morning" program again.

Or so we thought. After being fired by WFAN and spending nine months in unemployment, he was hired by a Miami sports talk station. And that was how — with the assistance of the I-Man's producers, who decided either that a life sentence meant he could be paroled or (more likely) that the public had a short memory — Sid Rosenberg was back on the program he was banned from last week, helping unintentionally slip the noose around Don Imus' neck.

For his part, Rosenberg said, "The more I look at Rutgers, they look exactly like the Toronto Raptors." And the more I watch the I-Man, the more he looks like toast.

Comments

[Electric Fringe]

Sorry, Mr. Jeffries and Mr. Roman, I misread.

I was actually responding to comments from someone named "Scott" and someone named "Joan." The line that separates each comment from the name of the commenter caused me to associate the wrong name with each comment. I'm sorry.

"Joan," nobody died so that Mr. Imus could insult people over the airwaves. Although thanks to the sacrifices of many, including Blacks, other minorities, and women, he doesn't have to worry about being hauled off by the police for it.

[Aaron]

We should continue this over at today's story:

http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2007/04/our_oneweeklong.html