Don Imus: A Flawed Treasure

This is a man who thinks with his heart,
His heart is not always wise.
This is a man who stumbles and falls,
But this is a man who tries....

Oscar Hammerstein
from The King and I

It's ironic. My first exposure to the I-Man was not via the radio but through the late, lamented medium of the comedy album. On Christmas day 1972, my older brother Jack, gave me the LP, "1200 Hamburgers To Go", a compilation of routines and pranks from a morning program I had never heard of called, Imus In The Morning. The "title track" consisted of Don Imus, a former Cleveland DJ who had recently transferred to New York's W-NBC, phoning a McDonald's Restaurant and claiming to be the the head of the local National Guard unit, which was about to violently put down a demonstration at an unnamed college campus (This was not long after the Kent State massacre of May 1970). He then proceeded to give an order that was so mind-numbingly complicated, the poor manager hung up in frustration. His style and approach to morning radio was, for that time anyway, nothing short of revolutionary. There had never been anyone like him before. I was fourteen when I first heard that record and I've been hooked ever since. I still have the same copy of 1200 Hundred Hamburgers that I received thirty-five years ago and, every once in a blue moon, I'll place it on the turntable and drop the needle. It's still a scream.

This week, many of the so-called "experts" are predicting the death knell of the Imus In The Morning radio program. After his unfortunate, off-the-cuff comments a few days ago regarding the Rutgers University woman's basketball team, referring to them as "nappy-headed hos", the explosion of outraged opinion was not unpredictable. It has to be honestly conceded that in recent years, Imus and, in particular, his otherwise talented producer Bernie McGuirk have crossed the line with respect to good taste. But the mistake a lot of people have made has been to compare Imus to others within the main stream media. The argument seems to be this: had the remarks been made by Brian Williams on NBC Nightly News, it would have rightly meant the end of his career. Why does Don Imus get off relatively easy with a two week suspension on MSNBC Television and the CBS Radio Network? The answer to that question must be viewed within the framework of the format with which the Imus program operates. His program is, it should not be forgotten, a topical comedy show . Since his debut in the early seventies, he has made his reputation by pushing the envelope. This is not to excuse what he said last week, but merely to put things in their proper context. As Newsweek's Howard Fineman told him on the air yesterday, "The form of humor you do is risky and sometimes it goes off the rails".

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In 1960, while Imus was still working in a copper mine in Arizona, Lenny Bruce walked onto a nightclub stage one evening and asked his audience, "Are there any niggers here tonight"? What, you may well ask, was the point to that? The point, according to Lenny, was that the repetition of the word would deflate it of its "violence and viciousness". His philosophy, right or wrong but nonetheless sincere, was that by repeating the word, over and over, the day would eventually arrive when a seven year old black kid would never again come home crying because someone called him a nigger at school. Almost half a century ago, Lenny Bruce was thrown in jail for his material. Don Imus has merely been suspended for two weeks. That's progress - I guess.

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The reaction to the Imus controversy has been, to say the least, curious. On the surface, the general glee of the right-wing media at the fall from grace of this essentially conservative, registered Republican and ordained minister doesn't make a bit of sense. Unless, of course, one takes into consideration the fact that, while Don Imus, on occasion, approaches the troth, he rarely drinks the kool-aid.

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With the exception of Washington Journal on C-SPAN, no other morning program on radio or television (his show is simulcast) is more informative than Imus In The Morning. It should also be noted that no commentator within the main stream media has been more outspoken with regard to the crimes and utter incompetence of the Bush administration than Don Imus. This fact should not be forgotten by the left-leaning critics, some of whom have been as giddy as their counterparts on the right by Imus' downfall. That extremists on both sides of the political aisle have been exploiting this unfortunate incident for all it's worth, there can be little doubt. Maybe - just maybe - the phony righteousness of Al Sharpton on the left and FOX News on the right means that the I-man, crude humor aside, has been doing something right!

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Here's the nasty little fact that every one of his critics has conveniently chosen to ignore: Don Imus is a good man. I don't need to mention (but I will) his Imus Cattle Ranch for Kids with Cancer; a place in Ribera, New Mexico where children (of all races, thank you very much!) some of them mortally ill, come to work as cowboys and cowgirls, learn to rope cattle, ride horses and, in the process, regain their self-esteem - all but annihilated by their insidious disease. It is estimated that in the last seven years he has raised at least one-hundred million dollars for the care and treatment of these children. Parse his words if you must but, please, look into the man's soul.

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Three years ago, when it was revealed to him that the families of American soldiers being killed in Iraq were receiving a paltry twelve thousand dollars in death benefits, the I-Man made such a hideous national stink over the matter, he was able to shame Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon into raising the amount to well over one-hundred thousand dollars. And it must never be forgotten that it was Don Imus alone, who, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, publicly condemned the overt racism of the Bush White House. He bravely pointed out that the government's pathetic response to that tragedy was due to the obvious fact that the majority of Katrina's victims were poor and black. As he stated at the time, had the disaster occurred in the rich and very white Hamptons or Crawford, Texas, the response would have been instantaneous and complete.

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Yeah, yeah, I know. He's grumpy as hell and he occasionally does go "off the rails" - but, dammit, he wouldn't be the I-MAN if he didn't! I tend to think of him as Will Rogers with a bad hangover or Mark Twain after a particularly nasty acid binge. He is to our generation what Fred Allen was to his. Although two entirely different manner of men with geometrically opposite approaches to humor, Don Imus, like Fred Allen (and Lenny Bruce) before him, is unique to his generation in that he is a humorist - not a comedian, mind you, but a humorist (there is a decided difference) - who holds up a mirror to our sick, hypocritical society. Society may not always like what is reflected, but it's a brutally honest if, at times, over-the-line type of humor that is truly valuable - if hardly ever cautious. This might be a good time to remind you that, even as I write these words, there are actually organized groups of people in this country who are trying to have Twain's classic Huckleberry Finn banned from our nation's public libraries. Think about that.

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Imus will do his two week suspension beginning Monday, April 16th. He'll have time to make amends, for some personal reflection and to re-evaluate the direction of his career. He'll return on April 30th, humble and chastised....well, maybe not humble but definitely chastised. But most importantly, he will return! That very fact alone is cause for celebration.

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To quote the Reverend, Dr. Billy Sol Hargis, an Imus character from the early days: Say Hallelujah!

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Pray for peace.

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Tom Degan

Goshen, NY

tomdegan@frontiernet.net

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POSTSCRIPT 4/10/07:

It has just been announced by Steve Capus, general manager of MSNBC, that the "Imus In The Morning" radio program will no longer be simulcast on that network. Fine. Let's all watch FOX AND FRIENDS. Three cheers for the Thought Police.

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4/11/07:

Imus has just been fired by CBS radio.