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Thursday April 12, 2007

Imus is a bigot — and it’s time every Jew knew

Veteran radio host Don Imus’ mean-spirited description of the Rutgers University women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed ho’s” has landed him in a world of pain. And rightfully so.

But Jews — including the Anti-Defamation League — are left to wonder why it’s taken so long for Imus’ anti-Semitism and race-baiting to be called out en masse.

When Imus or his radio sidekicks aren’t busy disparaging blacks, they fill their time belittling Jews, women, homosexuals and everyone else.

In November of last year, Imus and his co-hosts groused about the “Jewish management at whoever we work for,” whom he later described as “money-grubbing bastards.” In 2004, he referred to a couple of “thieving Jews,” a term he went on to describe as “redundant.”

The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz, a frequent guest, has been described as a “beanie-wearing Jewboy.”

Lest we be accused of cherry-picking a few slips of the tongue out from an otherwise superlative radio career:

• In a 2001 edition of “60 Minutes,” Imus admitted to Mike Wallace that he hired producer Bernard McGuirk to “tell nigger jokes.”

• Imus described former Secretary of Defense William Cohen as “William Cohen, the Mandingo deal” (Cohen’s wife is black).

• The radio host referred to an Indian men’s doubles tennis team as “Gunga Din and Sambo,” and French tennis player Amelie Mauresmo as “a big old lesbo.”

The arguments defending Imus have been painfully lame. To those making this into a First Amendment issue, no one is saying Americans aren’t free to bellow racist and anti-Semitic blather to the heavens — but massive media conglomerates shouldn’t feel the need to broadcast it either.

And those who claim Imus’ sentiments are no worse than misogynistic gangsta rap lyrics are guilty of clumsy thinking. Radio hosts and musicians have different obligations; you don’t hear 50 Cent blaring during morning drive time.

This line of argumentation is not unlike excusing American abuses at Abu Ghraib by noting “at least we’re not beheading people on video.” Well, that’s some standard to beat.

The ADL applauded Imus’ two-week suspension from his radio duties prior to both MSNBC and CBS giving him the axe this week. Plenty of people will feel Imus was sacrificed on the altar of political correctness and, controversey aside, the man has built up quite a following since hitting the airwaves in 1970. He'll undoubtedly resurface elsewhere.

But everyone should know that Imus is a bigot with a mile-long track record, and to claim otherwise is delusional.

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