Al Sharpton has issued his latest decree to the PC Police:
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who urged the Imus’ firing, wouldn’t object if the radio personality returned to the airwaves. “He has a right to make a living,” he said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
Sharpton said he hadn’t softened his views about Imus, who was dismissed from his syndicated program (simulcast on MSNBC) in April for calling the Rutgers University women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos.” But he added that, under the right conditions, the radio star’s banishment could eventually end.
Sharpton said he hoped that any broadcast outlet that hired Imus would take steps to ensure that he wouldn’t return to a brand of humor that included race- and gender-based insults.
“We had never asked him to never work again,” he said, echoing comments he first made to Radar magazine.
It appears “Off with his head” has been followed up with a somewhat meeker “But I am ok if you sew it back on at sometime.”
If you needed any proof that this was little more than an event seized upon by Sharpton and others for some tawdry self-promotion, you have it now.
Jake
If you separate the event (Imus’ comment) from the Sharpie’s reaction, I’d agree. Sharpton is a fat blowhard who is clinging to relevance like his ilk on the right. But even if Sharpie hadn’t made a peep, Imus’ comment would still suck.
ThymeZone
Sharpton should have hired Imus by now. He will never find a better foil for his War On Outraginess.
He should just call Don and axe him politely to come to work for him.
Dreggas
And my wife doesn’t get why I think Sharpton is a freaking idiot.
Zifnab
The Emperor needs to put on some fucking pants.
HelenaMontana
Of course it was an event seized upon by Sharpton and others for some tawdry self-promotion. Sharpton would seize upon any possible event. However, I would not say it was little more than an event seized upon by Sharpton and others for some tawdry self-promotion. Don Imus is still a hateful bigot.
jg
Who needed proof of that? The part that people gloss over is that the event did happen, that part wasn’t an invention of th emedia. It happened. Was an awfully big deal made of it? Sure. Thats what the media does. They did the same with Al Qaeda. A real group that has been inflated to the second coming of Monguls because just as in the Imus affair someone benefitted from the inflation.
Punchy
Al Sharp-tone.
jenniebee
LOL, John, are you really buying into Sharpton’s rhetoric? Sharpton spews what Sharpton spews, and he does it all the time; however, he no more controls whether Imus is hired or fired than you do.
And if he did occupy a prominent enough place in the marketplace of ideas for his pronouncements to affect a large enough swathe of the country’s economy that the heads of major networks would take his pulse to determine whether Imus should stay or go (ha!), then wouldn’t it follow that his ideas generally, loathesome as they are to you, are ideas that resonate with enough people that they must carry at least the seed of legitimacy (say what you like about the tenets of Alsharptonism, at least it’s an ethos)?
Come on, Imus wasn’t fired because Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson or those young women he insulted or even all of them together are powerful enough by themselves to influence the head of MSNBC. He was fired because enough of his audience and enough of his advertisers were turned off by what he said that he left the ranks of “excitingly controversial” and joined the ranks of “unreconstructed hack.”
Poor Invisible Hand! It does so much work, and Grand Conspiracy, that lazy bastard, keeps getting all the credit!
Redleg
Perhaps Sharpton was inspired by Dubya’s clemency towards Scooter Libby.
HyperIon
so Cole’s is revisiting another one of his obsessions.
last week it was Sheehan, this week, Sharpton.
jrg
Both of these gibbering loons make a living flinging poo at people. No love here for either one of them.
The whole inbred media circus was a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and feces, signifying nothing. The thing that miffs me about it the most, though, are the people who think this is some sort of first amendment issue.
Zifnab
Personally, I always thought he was pushed out because he didn’t toe the line on Bush enough. I mean, Imus said dumb shit like this on a weekly basis and he’s not even the worst on TV – that honor is best reserved for Glenn Beck, the man that condenses FOX level stupidity and wrongheadedness and jams it into a one hour spot on CNN.
But the idea that Imus was fired for offending black people? Get real. He was fired because he didn’t have enough friends in high places to cover for him, Limbaugh-style, and shuffle him around to another cushy gig.
Nash
No, John, we don’t need such proof and we didn’t from the start.
But you seemed confused. In the real world, it is possible for a series of unfortunate events to happen in which there are no “good” actors, only bad. Such was always the case here.
Buck
Now that the “N” word has been buried all of this is meaningless.
BRING BACK IMUS!!
Cassidy
Heaven forbid someone say something that might hurt someone’s feelings. The real bigots are all the people who jumped on the “white guy” yet have been mum about that kind of language being on the public airwaves for years.
This whole thing was an exercise in intellectual dishonesty.
ConservativelyLiberal
I thought it ironic that the left, led by Sharpton, took the only guy off of TV who called Bush and Cheny ‘war criminals’ on an almost daily basis. Talk about cutting off the nose to spite your face.
Imus is who he is, and his viewers like him just fine. He was one of those guys who could care less for sacred cows, and that is my kind of person. So his ‘humor’ is rough, so he is not PC, I still liked watching him. Hell, I found myself frequently disagreeing with him, yet I still liked watching him. Since he left, I only watch MSNBC to see KO where I used to watch KO, Tweety, Scarborough and Imus. They lost on this deal, and they were stupid enough to let Sharpton buffalo them into submission.
You have to wonder what inspired Sharpton to veer off course here. Imus was involved in his charity that gave kids dying of cancer a chance to ‘get away’ from their problems for a week, and I saw many of them on his show when he did it from his ranch. Those kids were having fun, and listening to Don talk about how hard it was when one of the kids who had been at the ranch having died later was heart rending. It was hard for him to get to know these kids, only to later lose them to cancer, yet he kept the ranch together for them.
Don is a prima donna at times, but he still had his bright points. I hope he does come back, and I hope he does what he does best if he returns.
To hell with the PC police, they are the reason I quit being a Democrat in the first place.
BIRDZILLA
AL SHARPTON is this a biggot and all around idiot why dont he take alook at and read the U.S. Constitution if this ignoramus can accuialy read
Nash
BIRDZILLA, please assure me that was a parody. If so, very funny.
If not, self-aware much?
A1
1. stop smoking crack. crack is wack.
2. Sharpton does not “lead the left”
3. To the extent that Sharpton does “lead” it’s the black community and he “leads” that by virtue of having been in the street being a leader.
4. You don’t like Sharpton, next time your in front of a ballot with his name on it, vote for the other guy.
5. Did Sharpton say: “Imus is an affront to everyone that lives and he needs to be taken off the air and then hunted and killed and wait a minute Im gathering the (black) vilagers with their sickles and pitchforks to do just that.”? No, Sharpton said he should be fired for saying racist things, and he was. Now he says that he doesnt have a problem if he comes back and stops being a racist on the air. And you think this somehow makes Sharpton a hypocrite? Go home and have a big cup of STFU A–hole.
6. Your turning this into a hipocracy argument is a typical Republican arguing tactic. Again, why dont you go home and have yourself a great big cup of STFU A–hole.
7. You dont like Shapton. Yeah, I get it. Neither do lots of people.So what. He’s in charge of what exactly?
ConservativelyLiberal
I love how on one page I am a leftie, and on another I am a rightie…lol! How about this then;
‘The left went after Imus, and Sharpton ran to the front of the line to make himself look like a leader of the movement and get more free publicity.’
That is probably more accurate anyway. Also, Sharpton does not lead the black community. He only leads them when the perfect storm exists, as in the case of Imus. He is a leech, an opportunist of the worst sort. And I am not saying that the ol’ Rev. Al is all bad, I am sure that he has had his bright moments in the past, as we all do. But when you accumulate enough strikes, no matter what you do afterward, you are out of it after that. Al is out, and he needs to be dragged off of the field.
If you think what Imus said was racist, then you never saw the whole show. Context you know, can be very important when you want to discuss an event with others and still look intelligent. As far as Imus listeners driving him off the air, he was driven off the air by people who do not watch his show. People who threatened the profits of those who made their money off of Imus.
On point 6 though, you really should see someone about your fixation with A-holes. That, or just pay more attention to yours. IMO, it should be easy enough for you. In fact, I bet you look in the mirror every morning and find it staring you back in the face.
A1
Imus was driven off the air by the corporate advertisers.
period.
The news media went to Sharpton becouse he is seen as representing blacks.
And your point that he should not have ‘ran to the front of the line’ is clear: he should have stayed at the back of the bus, and kept his mouth shut. Now go home and have yourself that big cup of STFU.
ConservativelyLiberal
Fixed.
BTW, I have donated hard earned money to this site, and I will STFU when John or Tim tell me to. Deal with it.
Have you tossed more than just your two cents worth in?