After All Those Shock Treatments
Who knew Dick Cavett has a blog?
The last two posts concern the Gore Vidal/Norman Mailer showdown, which occurred on his show when I was 11 and not allowed to watch. It's great, insider stuff, with a link to some of the surprisingly vivid video that 1970's week-night.
But I want to pass along this spirited defense/ analysis of what happened to Don Imus, and the sort of people who helped it "happen."
"Hail The Conquered Hero", Cavett writes.
"There’s no getting around what he said, of course, but it’s worth asking under what circumstances would a man ever be justified in calling a bunch of women — of any color — by the volatile term “hos”? The first requirement, really, would be that he would have to know them. How can an insult be personal if the person delivering it and the person(s) receiving it don’t know each other? Imus would have had to meet the ladies and determine to his satisfaction that they were, um . . . how to say? . . . ladies of light virtue. And then he would have to decide to broadcast the authenticated fact. And what on earth would have to be in his mind were he to do that?But it’s as if that’s what actually happened. "
I have to remind myself that I didn't buy into Imus' rebel-pose, the way he allowed Chris Matthews and Andrea Mitchell to take themselves seriously, passing along conventional wisdom. Having Doris Kearnes Goodwin (forgiven left-wing plagiarist) as your favorite historian, and Mike Barnacle (forgiven left-wing plagiarist) as your sentimental Joe Six-Pack doesn't reflect well when you are trying to appear to be a brave outsider. Imus was in the smart set: you could tell he was truly honored when Maureen Dowd phoned in.
He galled me, but I miss him. As Cavett notes,
"The Imus show had long been an eccentric mix of news, music, sports talk and — thanks to its well-read host — first-rate conversation."
Compared to "Morning Joe", and ignoring C-span's Washington Journal, it was the best, if not first rate.
I hope Imus' hysterical, hypocritical, back-stabbing critics blush, as Cavett expertly explains from a distance how ludicrous they appeared.
posted by Jackson @ 5:03 PM
2 Comments:
I always thought Imus was confused about who he was and what he believed. He was blessed with a big mouth and quick wit but no center.
I think the unprincipled, genius con-man model might be useful in figuring out Imus. His charirties seemed ludicrous at times. From his Imus brand salsa to his "working cattle ranch for kids with cancer" (open only two months a year, a lavish ranch house/ mansion that was modeled after his boyhood home, all funded by his celebrity friends contributions), he could profit without appearing to profit.
But what we lost was a rogue to whom the MSM bigwigs kowtowed, and somehow revealed themselves even when they were being scripted to be funny in the Imus show style. They let their guard down on his show sometimes and it was frequently entertaining just from that angle.
Agree or disagree with his mercurial politics, each morning's Imus show could cause a scandal. Of course news-junkies miss it, and resent what happened.
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