I suppose I'm the last man standing to wade into the brier patch of what seems to be America's only concern, so I might as well buckle and join the cultural fray.
First, parenthetically, there has been at least one amusement surrounding the civilization-ending, five-syllable Imus Affair, and that amusement has been, of course, Fox News. I tune in occasionally just to hear what fair, objective, balanced reporting really sounds like, and here's what it first sounded like on this issue: If a conservative had said such a thing, all hell would have erupted among the liberal media.
Say what? Do the folks at Fox ever actually monitor the objects of their fear and loathing? It's clear that Fox believed its audience never strays from the reassuring Fox dial, so would never hear any conflicting, possibly even thought-inducing, message. It's also clear that Fox opted early on -- too early, since Imus is a self-identified Republican and the "news" network obviously didn't bother to check -- to make the issue all about pounding the liberal media's hypocrisy, especially that of its favorite bugaboo, NBC/MSNBC. So all was well in Fox's isolated little world.
But on to the Imus Affair itself. Yes, yes, what Don Imus said was incredibly stupid, despicable and every other negative adjective that has been rightfully hurled. And yes, he's a bully. But I had one, utterly self-centered reason to hope he'd survive and a broader, more philosophical reason as well.
As for myself, at least he had opinionated guests who commented on current events often without all the official, genteel verbal stuffiness and rehearsed crappola of the Sunday morning shows. I cringe when I hear, for instance, Tim Russert announce straightaway: "This morning, Condoleezza Rice." There goes any shot at enlightenment. My ear always managed to somehow effortlessly tune out Imus' immature, "comedy" fillers between these interviews of some depth, but now the interviews and depth have been tuned out as well -- for me, by others.
As for the philosophical reason, I simply have this thing -- this rabidly jealous-advocate thing -- about free speech (not to mention contrition and redemption). Yes, free speech is complicated and responsibility comes with it and all that. Yes, I know. Nevertheless I reflexively get my back up whenever external censorship encroaches. Maybe it's only the contrarian in me that flees to the censored target's side, but to his or her side I flee nevertheless. Human language, and its power to propel all manner of synoptic reactions, is our most cherished gift. And I detest its restriction. Shut down language's offensive dimensions -- first, remind me: just how, precisely, is "offensive" defined, and just who, precisely, should rule on its boundaries?; those who dislike "Hymies"? -- and you do injury to it all.
I'm also well aware of, and quite sympathetic to, the many powerful arguments opposed. Nevertheless (there's an abundance of neverthelesses in here, which should demonstrate the proper and thoughtful tensions) I believe the preponderance of reason falls on, and should invariably fall on, the side of freedom. Justive Louis Brandeis put it most wisely: "If there be time ... to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence." After all, would you want Rush Limbaugh's regularly spewed offensiveness shut down? Hell, it's the best possible light self-thrown on the right's shallow thinking.
But now it's literally academic. For The Dollar spoke, and, under the cover of righteousness, The Dollar was the deciding censor and final arbiter of Imus' denouement. "The pressure on NBC clearly was building after seven major advertisers -- including top sponsors Sprint Nextel Corp. and General Motors Corp. -- said over the past two days that they would no longer place ads on MSNBC's broadcasts of 'Imus in the Morning'.... Imus has also lost ad support from American Express, Procter & Gamble, Bigelow Tea, Staples Inc. and drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline."
The irony? "Former Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle [will] replace Imus during his suspension" -- now firing -- by CBS Radio. "Barnicle ... has his own troubled broadcast history. In 2004, while hosting a radio program in Boston, he described the interracial marriage of Janet Langhart and former defense secretary William Cohen as 'Mandingo,' a reference to a 1975 movie in which a black male slave and a white woman have sex. After the NAACP protested, Barnicle apologized on the air." And that was that.
Outrage over what's said freely? The more the merrier. But obstructing that adverbial freedom advances nothing, in my opinion, but a kind of intellectual fascism.