Imus Is Out

Okay, so Don Imus was censured, put on hiatus, and finally fired from his radio show for calling the Rutgers women's basketball team a group of "nappy-headed ho's." Personally, I think Imus should have been punished for his remark, but I'm not so sure his ultimate punishment - unemployment - fit the crime.

Having said that, I think the I-Man should have retired on his own long ago. John Donald Imus was once a very clever and funny radio satirist. Back in the days before talk radio hosts went national, Imus was a fixture on New York radio for his crazy skits and his wacky characters. Tristate listeners of the early eighties will fondly remember his reports on "Moby Worm," a giant worm who, among other things, stole the New Orleans Superdome to use as a helmet to attack Iran. There was Crazy Bob, a demented children's storyteller who told of how Sergeant Joe Friday arrested Santa Claus for breaking and entering worldwide and using aliases ("Father Christmas", "Saint Nicholas"). And of course, the Rev. Billy Sol Hargus, a preacher/con artist who was a parody of the same. What happened to that Imus?

Once he went national, Imus got more vicious and less creative as time went on. I eventually stopped listening to him because he got tiresome. He was so starved for new material, perhaps it was only a matter of time before he ended up throwing out a stupid remark like this.

The furor over Imus, though, isn't worth the energy and attention it's gotten though, when you realize that while Imus was being discussed, a major terrorist act against the Iraqi parliament in Baghdad took place inside the heavily fortified Green Zone district, giving further lie to the argument that the troop surge is working.