Imus in the Confessional

I don't remember the priest telling me when I went to Confession when I was a kid, "Well, Lance, it was wrong of you to disobey your mom and talk back to her like that, but since you set the table every night and do your homework and sent your aunt a birthday card, what the heck!  You're a good kid.  Your sins are forgiven automatically.  No need for you to do any penance."

And maybe it's happened a few times and I haven't heard about it but I can't recall a judge ever letting somebody walk on the grounds the crook was a good guy and his friends really like him.

"Normally, son, I'd sentence you to five years for robbing that liquor store, but you did help that little old lady across the street on your way to buy the gun and all your friends testified how you always buy the first round and never hit on their wives, so what the heck.  Six weeks community service, but don't let me see you back here again."

But I'll bet it's happened that a boss has said to a employee, "Jones, you shouldn't have sexually harassed those poor secretaries, but you exceeded your sales goals for the third quarter and your wife made that great potato salad for the company picnic, and I'm really hoping your son who coaches my son's high school football team lets my boy start next week, so what the heck.  You apologize to the girls, who by the way are pretty hot, aren't they, especially that Amber in accounting, the tits on her, right?  You say you're sorry and we'll forget the whole thing."

Bet that one's happened a lot.

For most of us, our sins and crimes aren't automatically forgiven because on other occasions we've done the minimally decent thing.

That's because most of us don't have friends in high places.  Most of us aren't privileged that way.

Most of us aren't Don Imus.

Number of Imus' heavyweight media elite pals have stepped up to excuse his insult to the Rutgers women's basketball team---and by extension all black women who aren't on the side Imus happens to be rooting for, in sports and in life---on the grounds that Imus is a good guy who made a mistake.

Basically they've all said the same thing, which is the same thing all members of a club say about another member when he's caught screwing up, "Well, he's always been good to me so let's give him a break."

Now the Band's Levon Helm has come forward to offer the same defense for his friend.

From this morning's Times-Herald Record:

Woodstock — No wonder one of the great voices of rock 'n' roll stands by his I-man.

When Levon Helm battled the cancer that almost silenced him, Don Imus put the former singer and drummer of the Band on the air.

When Helm, who sang of Nazareth and Dixie, put an exclamation point on his comeback with recent sold-out shows in New York City, Imus sent his engineer, Lou Ruffino, to emcee.

So Helm didn't think twice about honoring his commitment to play on the "Imus in the Morning" radiothon for sudden infant death syndrome tomorrow and Friday. Imus' morning talk show has been suspended for two weeks after the host called members of the Rutgers University women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos."

"This whole thing made me sick," Helm said. "But he doesn't deserve it.  The good that the man has done for so, so many. ... It's a comedy show and he made a mistake."

Imus has not only done "good" for causes like SIDs and his camp for kids with cancer, Helm said, he's championed dozens of musicians who need a break — black or white.

Of course, the Rutgers players didn't deserve what Imus did to them, but nevermind.  The point here is that because Imus has helped out people he likes and is friends with and has some pet charities, he gets to be as mean and nasty and vile as he wants towards everybody else.

Imus's own defense of himself has been an idiosyncratic rewriting of Jesus' teaching that when we give to charity we are not to let our left hand know what our right hand is doing.

The gospel according to Imus as it applies to Imus is "Because I give with my right hand, I don't have to worry what the hell my left hand is up to and if it smacks some innocent person in the face, then tough luck for them, you should only pay attention to what my right hand is doing."

Helm and Imus' media pals and Imus himself aren't doing Imus any favors with their excuses.

The picture they mean to draw is of a good man who goofed.  The picture they are drawing is of a not particularly good guy but a fairly run of the mill one.  Imus is decent and generous towards those he likes and is friends with and doesn't give a damn about anybody else.

Imus' charitable work is laudable but given his position, his money, and his standing, if it's not the least he could do, it's not much more than what ought to be expected of a lucky rich man with a microphone to command.

But say he's a saint among philanthropists.  That doesn't make him a saint all around.  Saints don't discriminate in their good deeds or reserve their kindness and generosity only for their friends and special favorites.  Which is why saints don't need special pleading.  Saints don't get themselves into trouble like this.

Normal human beings do.   Imus and his friends are requesting that he not be treated like a normal human being.  They want us to treat him as if he has done nothing but good.

Here's an idea.  What if Imus is a well-meaning, generous, open-handed, averagely decent guy and a racist, sexist, misogynistic, foul-mouthed, mean-spirited creep?

Some of you are probably saying that racists and misogynists by definition can't be averagely decent guys (while some of you are sighing over the fact that unfortunately a lot of averagely decent guys are to greater or lesser degrees racist and misogynistic) but the truth is that we are all such a mixture of good and bad that it's not unusual for some murderers to be on the whole better human beings than some law-abiding bankers.

There are racists out there who would never dream of saying anything like what Imus said because it would be unkind.  There are sexists who would never be so ungentlemanly as he was.  Doesn't make them not racist and not sexist.  It means that they aren't all bad...or all good.

We'd all like to be judged by our best behavior, to have only the good we do live after us and the evil interred with our bones.  And at the end of day that's how we will be judged, by God, if He's there to bother, and by our family and friends, according to whether or not the good we did outweighed the bad.

But polite societies can't function if all judgment is withheld til the end of day.  Each act we do has an immediate consequence.  Bad acts are immediately disruptive.  The damage a bad act causes occurs right here and right now and it isn't undone by the fact that on other occasions the bad actor has been an averagely decent guy.

The point of Confession isn't to get forgiven.  It is to resolve to do better.  You have to be heartily sorry and proof of that is the willingness to do penance.  You have to pay for your mistakes.

Imus himself should be the one taking himself off the air.

Imus and Levon Helm and Imus' other friends don't think he should pay for his "mistake."

They want him exempted from the rules of polite society.

They defend him on the grounds that he is an averagely decent guy, but they want him treated as anything but an averagely decent guy.

They want him treated as if he deserves special privileges.

They want him treated as just another rich white guy.

Comments

[Kevin Wolf]

Too true, too true. I've never heard more than bits and pieces of Imus's show, though it's not hard to find his material online. From what I know of him, he's pretty loose with the insults and name-calling. It's the kind of crap I just don't want to listen to.

Because this is his shtick, his usual manner of on air "discourse," I think Imus should be judged by that - what he does and says everyday - versus his occasional charity appearances and other "work" that, clearly, does not define him. (He's a radio personality, not a charity worker.)

On this basis, I think we can all do without Don Imus. I regret it's only for two weeks.

[MichaelG]

The few times I listened to Imus I couldn't stand him which is why the times I listened to him were few. It seems to be standard for those in public life to offer a semi-apology for their misdeeds and them specifically attempt to pass on the penitential part of things. "I accept responsibility and I'm sorry for what happened. Now let's move on." It may be, however, that prostrating one's self before that fraudulent, self-serving, blowhard Al Sharpton could be considered penance.

[MichaelG]

It should be "then specifically" not "them".

[Jennifer]

Imus says he does not want this to be the way his career comes to an end, that he'd like to go out on a high note. I think this is the perfect capper. As Kevin said, it's not to hard to find lots of examples of his past on-air behavior. This case does not seem to be the exception, but rather the rule.

[joanr16]

I always thought one of the hallmarks of true friendship was to be straight with a friend when they mess up, and not simply overlook self-destructive behavior. Imus has some pretty worthless friends, it seems to me.

[Mr. X]

It's one thing to give someone a pass because they say something that really does come across as an attempt at humor or irony gone awry, as with Garrison Keillor's Salon column in which he stereotypes gay men as guys who "wear chartreuse pants and black polka-dot shirts". Keillor has long employed satire in his work, e.g. the "We're All Republicans Now" bit that he used to run on A Prairie Home Companion, and nobody bats a thousand, or so I'm told. Besides, he apologized in his very next column.

Imus, though, has always been a jerk. One swallow doth not a summer make, but you don't have to dig very far into Imus' past to find an entire flock.

[Linkmeister]

Do you suppose he'll use his two-week enforced vacation to go into rehab? That seems to be the usual next step for public figures these days.

[Kit Stolz]

Yes! "Imus himself should be the one taking himself off the air." Somehow in America today we seem to expect remorse for misbehavior from everyone except racists and all-around jerkheads. Why is that? Imus, for all his flaws, surely is more capable of self-criticism than most criminals or killers.

A column in the LATimes today by a black civil rights lawyer argues, essentially, that Imus is a racist, but a good-natured one. She too calls for a genuine apology, not a crucifixation.

Makes sense to me. And then maybe we can move on to some real news, and not have to listen to self-righteous lectures on morality from Al Sharpton. Who appointed him priest?

www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rice11apr11,0,3674928.story?track=mostviewed-homepage

[nola]

If Imus were making of fun of white lacrosse players at Duke would anybody on the left care? What if he were laughing at beer-bellied NASCAR rednecks? And why is it that bloggers representing a candidate for President should not be accountable for their offensive remarks, but a ridiculous radio DJ should be?

[joanr16]

And once again, we hear from the Twilight Zone.

[randy]

It seems so hypicritical that the blacks who refer to themselves in much worse ways are offended by his remarks. I saw that if the rappers lower the bar then it's fair game.How about when a black refers to a white as honkey or cracker? Where's the outrage there? It makes me sick how all the shakedown artists are coming out of the wookwork. How much will Jesse Jackson extort out of him? Remember his Hymie-Town remark?. The utter hyprocicy of it all !!

[Gray Lensman]

Imus' penance should be to pay for the rest of the Rutgers ladies education out of his own pocket, even if it includes advanced degrees, med school, whatever.

[OutOfContext]

MSNBC canned Imus because they want to be taken seriously as a news organisation (all of a sudden, apparently) and they stood to lose a lot of money. I've got no problem with that decision. There are plenty of formats available to shock jocks.
I've heard a lot of people cite rappers as equal sources of degrading language, but I don't see 50 cent (what a great name) interviewing Kerry or McCain.
As for Sharpton and Jackson, I could go the rest of my life without seeing those two again and not give a damn.
Lance, is it just a coincidence you picked Levon "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" Helm from Imus list of supporters?

[julia]

It seems so hypicritical that the blacks who refer to themselves in much worse ways are offended by his remarks.

and, you know, conversely, it seems so hyp - yeah, what you said - that the (presumably) whites who are objecting to that particular thing didn't bother to Google and find out that Sharpton called for a boycott of offensive rap a full year ago

You didn't hear about. The media and the blogs you read ignored it, because they didn't think it was important enough to mention.

But hey, you know all about Those People. You didn't have to look it up.

[Mullah Cimoc]

Mullah Cimoc say ameriki not free now. benjamin franklin him so sad if see amerika.

truth: them have tattoos and knappy hair and in waziristan any the woman have tattoo is ho. fo show.

Did not english ancestor subdue king at runnymeade for make truth a defense at law.

so control the usa media by masters in tel aviv acting through monopolists and FCC bureaucracy, keep all ameriki so stupid for killing the muslim and the torture.

for this aemriki be punish. all him land go to the aztec and maya. him woman be slut taking the LBT (low back tattoo)
during this time him daughter the goverment making her take the shot for destroy the sexual organs. him so tame him not even fight. him like the woman and the homosexual. him not to fight for him own daughter, this not real man.

amerika need google: mighty wurlitzer +cia

education for understand control media of usa nazi regime.

[Suffering Bruin]

"It seems so hypicritical that the blacks who refer to themselves in much worse ways..." which is another conversation for another time. This is about Don Imus. I hope you are digressing. I hope you don't think that what some blacks say has anything to do with what Don Imus said.

And Lance? FWIW, I was with you until the last sentence.

[nola]

Julia - Way to go! Most of the lefties around here just stare at their shoes and wait for the subject to change when Sharpton's name comes up. They recognize that he's a far more revolting scumbag than Imus, but they just can't bring themselves to bash a black Democrat. So it is refreshing (and entertaining) to hear from a real Sharpton apologist.

I wonder if anyone around here thinks Amanda Marcotte's idiotic comments about the Duke lacrosse players are more offensive than Imus' remarks? Or maybe you would rather pretend she isn't every bit as vulgar and foolish as Imus?

[Daniel DiRito]

Frankly, we are fast becoming the epitome of a Jerry Springer society. It seems to have become more important to have an audience and notoriety when confronting conflict than it is to attain resolve and mutual respect. That model seems to serve the needs of the exploited and those who seek to exploit; reinforcing all that relegates objectivity to the outhouse while making the frailty and imperfection of the human condition a spectacle that harkens back to the Coliseum.

This situation isn't and shouldn't be about whether liberals or conservatives, this race or that race, hip hop or honky-tonk, one group or another, are more offensive and therefore more responsible for all that is wrong with America. I am not capable of judging the whole of Don Imus nor am I capable of crafting a recipe to fix all of America...and neither are the countless pundits and partisans who have sought to frame it so.

I'm not a religious person...but I often find kinship with the imagery surrounding the portrayal of one called Jesus and his teachings of understanding and forgiveness. For all the banter I hear about the Bible and Christian values, it certainly seems to me that we are fast abandoning what many view as the sacred "tablets" in favor of the sacrosanct tabloids. If I'm right, all I can say is heaven help us.

Read more about the dynamics that lead a situation to become larger than the sum of its parts...here:

www.thoughttheater.com

[Jerry]

When did so-called "comedy" become a convenient cover for racism, misogyny and bullying. Jon Stewart may be one of the funniest, hippest, and topical comedians on the planet, and I have yet to hear him utter an ad hominem or malevolent cruelty. His satirical humour is a brilliant use of irony which mostly let the pompous and the powerful skewer themselves with their own words and actions. To spew bile and call it "humour" shows only how cynical our society has become!

[Kevin Wolf]

nola, you can bring up Amanda Marcotte again when she's had a national radio show with years and years of invective directed at whoever she feels like hatin' on. You're comparing apples and oranges.

BTW, NASCAR fans are fair game. They deserve to be mocked. (And I include my family in this.)

[denisdekat]

"Imus himself should be the one taking himself off the air."

So should Lebron James quit basketball for his homophobic perspective? I mean - he did say that a team player who stays in the closet is untrustworthy. As an ex San Francisco resident, I can tell you the outrage there was pretty big ovcer this sort of statement. Do you remember this?

http://www.outsports.com/nfl/20021123eserahearstfollow.htm

Where was the national outrage then?