Jack & Jill Politics

James Brady, columnist at Forbes, needs to STFU. Ugh:

It’s beginning to look like Imus is coming back. A multi-million dollar settlement announced Tuesday with CBS is greasing the wheels. And talks are said to be underway for a new gig, possibly at WABC Radio. There’s some growing sympathy for his return. And I’m one of the cheerleaders, though I sometimes feel like a solitary voice.
[…]
The New York Magazine piece, in somewhat more moderate lingo, suggested that Imus’s hotshot freedom-of-speech lawyer (Lenny Bruce was his first marquee client) Martin Garbus has been doing just that, re-positioning him “as a victim, not a villain.” In Garbus’ view, “Imus wasn’t the bad guy here, the suits who fired him without cause were.” (Jill’s note: My eyes just rolled back so far in my head, they might well be stuck.)
[…]
What of longtime producer Bernie McGuirk? He was supposed to have nailed a producing job in Boston until a local activist got on the soapbox. Then it was said Al Sharpton had dropped all objections to an Imus comeback, but in return was asking that a black producer be named. Bernie’s hide for Don’s?

That’s where the human side of all this comes in. Don is out of work and has plenty of dough, especially after the CBS settlement. Bernie is out of work but doesn’t have the cash. Chuck McCord is working but misses the guys.

For Imus junkies like me, there’s an emptiness in the morning.

I really hope this remains a cautionary tale that the days of profiting from racist misogyny are slowly falling away. I really do. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask Imus to consider hiring a more diverse, perhaps less racist staff. Wasn’t poor Bernie the same guy whom Imus admitted was there to tell the “nigger jokes”? Give me a break. God willing, Bill “O’Racist” O’Reilly will soon follow suit, banished into the twilight where old racists go to fade away and die.