The Rude Pundit ...

Why Glenn Beck Ought To Be Repeatedly Cock-Punched (Imus Edition):

The Rude Pundit doesn't give a shit about Don Imus. Everyone all of a sudden realizing that he's a racist, sexist asshole now is a little like waking up after an acid and whiskey-fueled fuck night, looking across the bed, and realizing that the incredible three-way you thought you had was just one really fat guy. Imus was a vestige of a post-Watergate media moment, when the jerk-off, loudmouth DJs were cool, when a few of them, like Imus and Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh, were given chances just to talk and shitcan the tunes. Now, the only reason anyone should care about Imus is that Stern's take on their ongoing feud was viciously hilarious.

Imus has said worse than "nappy-headed ho's." What's most offensive about the comment is that a) it's not funny, and b) it was a pathetic attempt at imitating black English, the joke equivalent of lisping to make fun of gay guys. The sad part is that so many people would find both the comment and the lisp hilarious. The sadder part is how long people in the media gave Imus's sub-retarded rantings the imprimatur of respectability by appearing on his show.

But no one's going after Glenn Beck, though. The radio and TV host who presents himself as Mr. Wholesome Aw-Shucks was offended by Imus's words. Or so he said on Anderson Cooper's Dick Can Turn 360 last night on CNN. What follows are Beck's comments to Cooper interspersed with quotes from Beck himself (from Media Matters):

To Cooper: "Let the people decide. If the people -- people can decide if it's offensive or not by listening or not listening. I personally find it reprehensible."

On his radio show, March 21, 2007: "Do you know how many oil lamps we could keep burning just on Rosie O'Donnell's fat?...Think about how much perfume we could make out of Rosie O'Donnell."

To Cooper: "I haven't found Imus -- I used to find Imus funny. I haven't found Imus funny in a while. He seems to be just mean and offensive."

On his radio show, September 9, 2005, regarding Hurricane Katrina victims: "(A)ll we're hearing about, are the people in New Orleans. Those are the only ones we're seeing on television are the scumbags -- and again, it's not all the people in New Orleans. Most of the people in New Orleans got out! It's just a small percentage of those who were left in New Orleans, or who decided to stay in New Orleans, and they're getting all the attention. It's exactly like the 9-11 victims' families. There's about 10 of them that are spoiling it for everybody."

To Cooper: "(T)here are certain things that we don't -- we choose, as a society, not to say...look, I would never say what Imus said. I find it offensive."

On his CNN Headline News show, August 14, 2006, regarding the arrest of three men in Texas: "Three guys with names I could never pronounce, basically Mohammed, Mustafa, Abdul, or something like that, they were all cell phone dealers from Texas."

It's a fascinating study in sociopathic behavior that Beck was able to talk about how offensive Imus was with a straight face. The deepest thing Beck managed to say to Cooper is his belief that if people of one race can call insult themselves, then people of another race should be able to do the same thing: "That would be like me saying, the Duke lacrosse team, nothing but a bunch of toothless hicks, and then Jesse Jackson coming on and saying, well, look at them, they're a bunch of toothless hicks, and then me saying, how dare you say that? What -- if I can say it, why can't he say it? If he can say it, I should say it." Which is the last resort of verbal scoundrels.

The Rude Pundit's problem here is not with insults or any such shit. The Rude Pundit would be a hypocrite of Beck-like proportions if he dared to say anything against the art of derision. It's with the targets. See, Imus and Beck use insults to attack the powerless. Yeah, yeah, they called Hillary Clinton a "bitch" and "Satan," but there's a huge difference between going after politicians and attacking illegal immigrants, as Beck did, by saying they come to America because: "One, they're terrorists; two, they're escaping the law; or three, they're hungry. They can't make a living in their own dirtbag country."

The line Imus crossed was not just racial. This time, he went after people who didn't have their own microphone to defend themselves (well, at least until today). Normally, he left it to his "producers" and others to attack people like Jill Carroll, the journalist kidnapped and later released in Iraq. Sure, there's something of an over-reaction going on, but, hell, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Imus is done. He's fucked the goat. He'll always be remembered for this, not his ranch, not anything else. But Beck? Motherfucker is brought on as an expert. Well, shit, of course he would be. Who else would you go to?

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I'd like nothing better than for the chastisement of Don Imus to produce a groundswell of outrage that extends to so-called pundits who have - by and large - gotten a pass on their racist, misogynistic, misanthropic, homophobic & xenophobic statements. Why stop with Imus?

To heavily paraphrase an old 'lawyer' joke:

Q: What do you call 100 out-of-work, racist corporate media talking heads?

A: A damn fine start!