Word: imus
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...That context is not as kind to Imus. He comes out of the shock jock tradition, but all shock jocks are not created equal. If Opie & Anthony or Mancow had made the "nappy-headed" comment, it wouldn't have been a blip because future Presidents do not do cable-news interviews with Opie & Anthony and Mancow...
...Then there's personality, or at least persona. Compared with Imus, for instance, his rival Howard Stern may be offensive, but he's also self-deprecating, making fun of his own satyrism, looks and even manly endowment. Imus doesn't take it nearly as well as he dishes it out. His shtick is all cowboy-hatted swagger, and his insults set him up as superior to his targets and the alpha dog to his supplicant guests...
...Imus uses jokes to establish his power, in other words. He's hardly the only humorist to do that. But making jokes about difference - race, gender, sexual orientation, the whole list - is ultimately about power. You need to purchase the right to do it through some form of vulnerability, especially if you happen to be a rich, famous white man. But the I-Man - his radio persona, anyway - is not about vulnerability. (The nickname, for Pete's sake: I, Man!) That's creepy enough when he's having a big-name columnist kiss his ring; when he hurled his tinfoil...
...Imus argued repeatedly that his critics should consider the "context" of his larger life, including the formidable work for sick children he does through his Imus Ranch charity. But it's not Imus Ranch he broadcasts from 20 hours a week. You can't totally separate the lives of celebrities from their work - it didn't excuse Gibson that he attacked the Jews in his free time - but finally what determines who can make what jokes is the context of their work: the tone of their acts, the personas they present, the vehicles they create for their work...
...course, assessing Imus' show is a subjective judgment, and setting these boundaries is as much an aesthetic call as a moral one. It's arbitrary, nebulous and, yes, unfair. Who doesn't have a list of artists or leaders whose sins they rationalize: Elvis Costello for calling Ray Charles a "blind, ignorant nigger," Eminem for peppering his lyrics with "faggot," Jesse Jackson for "Hymietown," D.W. Griffith for lionizing the Klan or T.S. Eliot for maligning Jews...