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**CbobbyB** · 04-11-2007, 12:02 PM

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Not because he's a bigot. Seriously, to whom is this news? Imus, who naturally trotted out the ol' "we're a comedy show, not a news show" chestnut after his racist comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team, should be fired for not meeting his own standard. Comedy show? When you're entering your third decade since you last uttered a comical syllable, I think you forfeit this alibi.

But of course that's not why Imus has been suspended by CBS radio.

In the old white guy Doofus Roundelay, Billy "you always *** out" Packer is off the hot seat, replaced by Don "nappy-headed hos" Imus.

Perhaps speech should be approached like an open bar. Just because it's free doesn't mean you should overdo it. Packer's explanation for his comment is not only plausible but supported by several definitions — including the very first one — in my Random House dictionary. No such luck for Imus. "Nappy-headed hos" leaves precious little room for misinterpretation.

Like Chris Webber calling timeout or Fred Brown passing to James Worthy, Imus choked. The tempting target of women's basketball — a bigot's bonanza — just proved too terribly tantalizing.

Even though he'd run it countless times before, he forgot the play.

It's the pick-and-roll of the "Imus in the Morning" playbook, the show's go-to, bread-and-butter, we-need-a-bucket-here talisman. A news or sports sidekick introduces a story featuring a minority, takes the (yawn) predictable swipe at what he perceives as a protected class (snooze), Imus grunts his begrudging disapproval of the comment while his chortle conveys his true feelings.

Tried and true. Everybody wins. Imus and Co. strike a blow against the P.C. police. The listener gets a guilty tingle of satisfaction. And the offended class is unhurt because they don't listen anyway. Besides, Tim Russert and Howard Fineman will be dropping by after the break to class things up.

Sure, the I-Man has said his fair share of objectionable things over the years, but he's almost always left the most offensive stuff to subordinates, maintaining a thin but critical layer of insulation between himself and the radioactive comments.

Look it up. Most of the bigoted comments Imus's critics are trying to pin on him were actually made by others.

It was sports sidekick Sid Rosenberg who suggested that Venus and Serena Williams were "animals" more worthy of posing in National Geographic than Playboy. Rosenberg weathered that storm but had to go after suggesting cancer-stricken singer Kylie Minogue wouldn't look too good when she was "bald and had only one (breast)." Rim shot. Is this thing on? Imus, who — you may have heard — runs a camp for kids with cancer, couldn't very well go to the mat for Rosenberg on that one.

It was Imus's brother Fred who called in and suggested the FBI shouldn't be working too hard to catch Andrew Cunanan since he was killing homosexuals. Oh, snap! Imus (wink-wink) told his brother to shut up.

It was Bernard McGuirk who referred to Hillary Clinton as a "*****" so intent on appealing to black audiences that she'd have "cornrows and gold teeth" before the campaign was over. Zing! Imus, his antipathy for Hillary well established, no doubt particularly enjoyed this one. (Talk about range. How often can you make a racist comment about a 59-year-old white lady?) But he left the dirtiest work to McGuirk.

So when McGuirk referred to the Rutgers women's basketball team as "hardcore hos," the Imus playbook called for the host to feign indignance or give one of his chuckles as he said, "That's horrible."

But Imus zigged where he usually zagged. The trifecta offered by women's hoops — female, black and perceived as gay — was just too much too resist. His inner bigot, the one that had countenanced a library of offensive comments over the years, leapt out. As everybody knows by now, Imus piled on, saying, "That's some nappy-headed hos."

(If you really wanted to make fun of women's college basketball, how about pointing out that Tennessee won its national semi against UNC despite shooting 27 percent? To me, this is much more hilarious than hacky racist references.)

And thus began our latest national dialogue about racism and free speech, the backdrop to the I-Man's "I'm a good person" apology tour that began on Al Sharpton's radio show.

Should Don Imus go to jail for being a racist? No.

Should the members of the Rutgers women's basketball team be compensated for their pain and suffering? No. (But their fans who watched them score 18 points in the first half of the national title game should.)

Should CBS and NBC — didn't those used to be competitors? — continue to provide Imus with a national platform from which to now, presumably, pretend not to be a bigot?

Here's where it gets tricky. Not surprisingly, the argument divides along political lines.

Some, like conservative black radio commentator Armstrong Williams, believe we should let the market decide. If enough listeners are offended, the audience will fire him by tuning out. Others, like the liberal Sharpton, believe the suits should permanently pull Imus from the publicly owned airwaves. If they don't, Sharpton argues, they'll be condoning his comments.

Here's a compromise. How about just firing Imus for being hopelessly lame? CBS can make it look like a principled stand decrying bigotry, which will satisfy those calling for Imus's head. Women, blacks and gays will be protected from the show's bigotry. And Imus fans will be protected from his outdated "humor" and their own bad taste.

Talk about a win-win.

And we can all get back to making fun of women's basketball for the same reason we make fun of the 2007 Boston Celtics: the pitiful quality of play.

http://msn.foxsports.com/wcbk/story/6666492

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