The sad truth is that, amidst so many more important stories, this morning Meet The Press was all Imus, never getting around to their previously advertised discussion of Attorney General Gonzalez or the 2008 presidential election. New York Times' columnist David Brooks suggested that our society is a living organism that, by definition, changes, implying that what we saw last week was evidence of that change. Later on ABC's This Week, George Will suggested that shock jock talk radio is "selling adolescent vulgarity to a large niche market in this country." Hard to disagree with that, which is why I can't understand the continued whining about the price Imus has paid for suggesting that the Rutgers women's basketball team was comprised of "nappy-headed hos," as if Imus was some revered member of the fourth estate, obligated to advance the truth and protected by the first amendment, rather than a paid commercial broadcaster, subject to vagaries and whims of the marketplace. Whether or not that makes him a ho, it was his job to know where the line was, to tease the envelope, and his success depended on his doing so without going too far (I'm guessing that "nappy-headed" was the too far this time). He made a whole lot of money dancing around that line. He chose to take the chance he took and the market ruled. It's capitalism.
Bill Maher, fresh as usual, in defense of Imus, suggests that we have a "gotcha culture" and that we should all take some "Getoveritall". Of course, he's right, but Imus was part of that "gotcha culture" a willing and active participant, and everyone needs to get over his losing his shows. Playing hardball with the big boys is risky business and now everybody's all boohoo 'cause that high fast one he lobbed over the plate was hit out of the park by weak-kneed sponsors wielding public outrage, knocking him off the mound, at least off of that particular mound.
I'm convinced that Maher's writers plumb the blogosphere for material. This week he ended "New Rules" (with which he closes each show) with material right off the pages of American Zombie who (with a little nudge from Dangerblond) pointed out in these two posts that Bush's administration employs 150 attorneys whose law degrees were conferred by Regents University (go, now, read), which Dambala describes as a "Pat Robertson Bible thumping college." Maher was even more to the point, suggesting that it "is a tier four law school...for people who couldn't get into The University of Phoenix." Both Maher and Dambala rightly conclude that this says something about the administration. If these are its best and brightest, it isn't pretty.
Nobody seems to be doing much talking about the White House email scandal though, at least the MSM seems kind of shy about it. Crooks and Liars did a great job of "Sorting Through the Spin" on this one, asking the burning question:
If Karl Rove truly feels that compliance with the Hatch Act requires him to conduct 95% of his business via a private RNC email account, perhaps he should be asked to explain why he deserves to be on the public payroll at all? Why should he get 100% of his salary if he's only devoting 5% of his time to official business?
The post closes with the suggestion that there might just be some main stream "journalists who have personal experience communicating with the White House through these back-channel accounts" and I'm thinking that might go a long way towards explaining why it took so dang long for this story to come out.
I'm just sayin'.... peace, out, y'all.
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