Don Imus: American Hero or Fucking Douchebag?

Alright, well Don Imus, a shock jock who was fired for calling the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos," is back on the air. (Side note--a quote from Peanut's uncle: "Well, they did have nappy hair.") I didn't and don't really care that much about Don Imus, my only opinion of him being that he is a creepy androgynous scarecrow looking motherfucker, whose show appeals to old men, meaning I was forced to listen to it in the car with my dad a little too much.


I decided to break down some other takes on Imus. One is a recent op-ed from the NY Times by Dick Cavett and the other is a piece from Slate written, I think, before the nappy headed hos comment.

First, the thing by Dick Cavett is pretty terrible. He makes some valid points about everybody overreacting to the nappy headed hos thing and that most of the people (cough Al Sharpton cough) who were attacking Imus were only self-aggrandizing dickfucks. The rest of it is just Cavett licking Imus' bell-end and calling him a hero for being politically incorrect, all the while making it pretty clear that Imus is a personal friend of his. One little nugget really stood out for me:

Imus and his supporting cast were remarkably up on the latest slang, rap talk and inside argot of the music world, the sports world, the street and all minorities. They knew everybody’s trash talk. Hearing it helped the listener feel hip, too. Or at least hep.

They were up on their "rap talk," eh? I think that phrase basically means that they were not. They knew the slang of "ALL minorities"? Really? They knew all the latests phrases from Ecuador and Bangladesh, huh? You fuckin' mook. He made you feel "hep." Oh my motherfucking Lord, I don't even know where to begin here. You sound old as shit right there. I guess Imus had all the cutting edge FDR-Polio jokes, huh? Take that you PC liberal hippies!

Now onto the Slate article, which basically characterizes Imus as a racist/homophobic/sexist etc. bastard and criticizes all the politicians and other folks who went on his show. The article itself is kind of boring, but then the writer gives us a list of quotes from Imus, which is worth breaking down...

On blacks:

"We all have 12-inch penises" (supposedly racist comment on what he, Nat Turner, Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, Latrell Sprewell, and Al Shaprton all have in common)
This comment is laughable: it would make Imus the most well-hung hermaphrodite in history.

"Wasn't in woodpile, was he?" (on some black militant guy, who was found hiding in a shed in Alabama after exchanging gunfire with police...according to the author it refers to the saying "nigger in the woopile")
Just another example of Imus' amazing ability to create biting satire on modern America using phrases not uttered since the 1920s.

"Knuckle-dragging, moron"(racist take on Patrick Ewing)
This would imply that Patrick Ewing's arms are each like 6 feet 9 inches long, which would probably make him some kind of superhero.


On Jews:

"I remember when I first had [the Blind Boys of Alabama] on a few years ago, how the Jewish management at whatever, whoever we work for, CBS, or whatever it is, were bitching at me about it... I tried to put it in terms that these money grubbing bastards could understand."
You think CBS management aren't a bunch of money-grubbing bastards? And I find it noble that Imus took the time to learn Hebrew and Yiddish so he could better communicate with his superiors.

"Boner-nosed...beanie-wearing Jewboy" (on some Jewish Washington Post columnist)
Boner-nosed! Hahaha. That's called comedy, folks!

On Women:

"Why couldn't Helen Keller drive? Cuz she was a woman!"
Ok, he didn't say that. Just thought I'd throw in one of my favorite jokes.

"What do you tell a woman with two black eyes? Nothing, you already told her twice"
I got jokes!

"That buck-tooth witch Satan, Hilary Clinton"
Pretty fair assessment, if you ask me.

On Gays:

"The enormously attractive Chip Reid, I can say without being accused of being some limp-wristed 'mo" (on some NBC political correspondent)
Never heard the phrase "limp-wristed 'mo," but you can bet I'll be using it from now on. Clearly, Imus cannot be accused of being homosexual since he possesses both male and female genitalia.

In conclusion, when trying to determine the answer to the title of this post, it seems that Imus falls somewhere in between American Hero and Fucking Douchebag. It's probably closer to the latter one, though.