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Zoë Heller and James Wolcott

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from: James Wolcott

Courting Imus

Posted Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2001, at 2:08 PM ET

Dear Zoë,

I'm glad you brought up Larry King's fawning interview with Don Imus, matched only in its massage-oil slathering-on by Tim Russert's courting of Imus on his program. There's absolutely no excuse of having Imus on any talk show. On his own, out of the studio, he's completely inarticulate and uninformed, barely pausing long enough to stop chewing gum to mutter some gnomic response. Yet King and Russert chortle like naughty schoolboys whenever Imus gets out one of his rote putdowns of some politician as "a fat loser" or "a lying weasel." (He keeps calling Clinton fat, even though he's never looked trimmer.)

Then when Imus does cop to something like using the word "nigger," he gets a free pass. Although he can be something of a one-note pest, Philip Nobile has performed a service raising the question of why so many distinguished journalists continue to appear on Imus' program despite the racist/sexist/homophobic slurs. Phil Mushnick of the New York Post also raised the issue of Imus trying to dodge flak for some of the racist comments on his program--such as one of his sports guys referring to Venus Williams as an animal who belonged in National Geographic (he received a phony temporary suspension from the show, but is now back at the mike)--by sponsoring a pair of African-American sports talkers on the station. To this and other charges Imus sputters the tautology that he isn't racist because he knows he isn't racist, that what comes out of his mouth has nothing to do with what's in his heart, and he knows what's in his heart, so all those people who say he's racist don't know what they're talking about.

I'm also glad you brought up Jiminy Glick (new episode on tonight on Comedy Central). They did a bit last week involving a Robert Downey Jr. puppet wandering groggily around the set that was one of the funniest things I've seen this year.

I just watched a bit on MSNBC where the host tried to fan some controversy over the Talk parody of the Bush daughters as jailbirds. Lloyd Grove of the Washington Post was the guest, and under his smirk he was as inarticulate and lost without a map as Imus. And has anyone pointed out that the models in the spread don't even look like the Bush gals?

According to one report I read, Bush spent all of 15 minutes doing manual labor on the Habitat for Humanity property. It's true, the man doesn't believe in taxing himself.

--Jim

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516171819
from: James Wolcott

Courting Imus

Posted Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2001, at 2:08 PM ET
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Zoë Heller is a columnist for the London Daily Telegraph and author of the novel Everything You Know. James Wolcott is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and author of the novel The Catsitters.
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