How Much Groveling Is Enough?

Radio host Don Imus, to use the famous words of Hugh Grant, did a bad thing. And now he's being made to pay for it. And pay and pay and pay and pay...

This "latest ado about verbal insensitivity," as Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times puts it, is just another example of a celebrity being made to grovel for a tactless remark.

For the three people out there who haven't heard about this incident, some context:

In discussing the Rutgers women's basketball team on his radio show, Don Imus's producer referred to the women on the team as "hardcore hos," to which Imus responded with "nappy-headed hos."

Three words. Three arguably stupid words, if you prefer.

Imus apologized for the remark on his show. Then he apologized again some days later. Then he went on Al Sharpton's radio show and apologized again -- only to be skewered on air by Al Sharpton, who once slandered innocent men by publicizing Tawana Brawley's lying rape allegations -- which he has yet to apologize for, and later off the air by Jesse Jackson, who once referred to New York City as "Hymietown."

The sound of glass houses being shattered by people flinging stones is deafening.

What do I think of all this? I'll just make a few comments.

The usually affable Al Roker of The Today Show commented that the words that Imus used were "vile and disgusting," yet those same words, if used by a comic like Katt Williams or by some rap artist, would have seemed completely unremarkable. No one would have complained.

I have no idea what the women of the Rutgers basketball team are like, but I doubt that they are the pristine scholastic vestal virgins that they portrayed themselves as being in their recent press conference. You will notice that in the rush to denounce Imus not one player on that team has hastened to reveal their GPA. Perhaps the women on the Rutgers team should sue Imus for slander -- I'm sure the discovery process would be quite interesting. What if it turns out that some of the women really are hos? If the statement was proven to be accurate, would that make it less offensive?

Imus said something stupid, goaded by his producer -- who has received no opprobrium whatsoever. Where's the outrage there? Is "hardcore hos" acceptable and "nappy-headed hos" unacceptable discourse? Or is this just an excuse to bring down a powerful celebrity?

I should point out that I don't listen to Imus, or Howard Stern, or Opie and Anthony, or any of the so-called "shock jocks." I listened to Imus back when he was funny -- which by my accounting was sometime around 1973. But these relentless attacks on a person who apologized over and over again for three stupid words are just ridiculous. It strikes me as reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution -- and no amount of abasement on Imus's part is gouing to be enough to appease the righteous (and hughly hypocritical) wrath of his critics. I get the feeling that they won't be satisfied until he's not only fired but tarred and feathered, decapitated and his head placed in a spike at center court for the women's basketball team to use as a piñata.

Imus said something stupid and he apologized for it. Now people should just shut the fuck up about it and move on. The country has more important things to discuss than this idiotic spectacle.

Tom Moran