The Best Thing Written About Don Imus in a Month

In today’s _LA Times_ columnist “Joel Stein”:http://www.thejoelstein.com/thejoelstein.com/Welcome.html struggles with why Don Imus was embraced by American political life, while his former on-air partner at WNBC in New York, Howard Stern, was consistently attacked by it. No, Imus was a success not because of his racism, but because of his “stupidity:”:http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-stein13apr13,0,4403580.column?coll=la-opinion-center

“I know this because when I was in elementary school, Imus was my hero. He called people ‘weasels,’ and when something merited even more disapproval, he ‘nuked it,’ which meant that he used a bomb sound effect. These gimmicks were tremendously cool to an 11-year-old. Not only did I call everyone a weasel for all of sixth grade, but when I got in an argument with my seventh-grade teacher, I called in to ‘Imus in the Morning’ and got Miss Shimshack nuked.”

“The mainstream ignored Stern as he was investigating disabilities, plastic surgery, stripper culture and other bizarre changes in our world, yet the media embraced Imus’ moronic, angry-white-man rants because they fit into the constraints of what the mainstream considers news.”

“Imus asked people such as John McCain dumber questions than Stern asked strippers, and they laughed it off. But without the sexy little giggle.”

Stein is right. Imus has always been more “shlock jock” than shock jock. If being branded a racist will keep him off the air, then so be it. But by reducing political discourse to the level of an 11-year-old, he poses a much bigger threat to American culture than he does in attempting to mimic inner city slang.