Imus Again Seems to Step in It, This Time Going After Nappy-Headed Former Football Players

Audio here. Discussing Adam "Pac-Man" Jones ' scrapes with the law with Warner Wolf, Imus said:

Imus: “What color is he?”

A: “He’s African American.”

Imus: “Well there you go… now we know.”

Jenghis guesses at the spin: Imus is going to claim "now we know" why cops are persecuting poor Pac-Man. It's because they're racist and racially targeting him, and so he's really on the side of the anti-racists here.

I don't think he should be disciplined either way, but damn, that is definitely good spin. I think Jenjhis is right.

Howard Stern did this all the time. Robin Quivers would begin reading a news story, without even tipping what the story was about, and just state the name of the person concerned. If the name were a Hispanic one or black-sounding, Stern would immediately declare "Guilty," which was especially funny when it didn't even turn out to be a crime story at all but, for example, Jamal Washington winning the Power Ball lottery. "Well I'm sure he did something," Stern would add in that situation.

Never got any heat for that. Or at least no heat that actually resulted in being disciplined or calls for his firing.

So I don't get all the outrage we're sure to see here concerning Imus. I guess if there's a difference, it's that Stern was going so far over the top it was obviously a joke (even if it was a joke with a bit of bite and seriousness to it), whereas Imus just seems like an old crank not really making a joke but just saying "Well, what can you expect from those people."

Still, kind of a thin distinction.

Jenjhis says I should give credit to talk show host Dori Monson, from whom the story was gotten.

posted by Ace at 04:46 PM

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