Exposed

"But we also live in a culture in which racially and sexually edgy material is often--legitimately--considered brilliant comment, even art. Last year's most critically praised comedy, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, won Sacha Baron Cohen a Golden Globe for playing a Kazakh journalist who calls Alan Keyes a 'genuine chocolate face' and asks a gun-shop owner to suggest a good piece for killing a Jew. Quentin Tarantino has made a career borrowing tropes from blaxploitation movies. In the critics-favorite sitcom The Sarah Silverman Program, the star sleeps with God, who is African American and who she assumes is 'God's black friend.' And the current season of South Park opened with an episode about a Michael Richards-esque controversy erupting when a character blurts [the N word] on Wheel of Fortune . . .

"This is not to say that Borat made Imus do it or to make excuses for Imus. Even in the midst of his apology tour last week, Imus did enough of that for himself, citing his charity work, his support of black Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr., even his booking the black singing group Blind Boys of Alabama on his show . . .

"But in the middle of his stunning medley of sneer, apology and rationalization, Imus asked a pretty good question: 'This phrase that I use, it originated in the black community. That didn't give me a right to use it, but that's where it originated. Who calls who that and why? We need to know that. I need to know that.' "

"So let's ask. Imus crossed a line, boorishly, creepily, paleolithically. But where is that line nowadays?"

A very good question, given all the filth out there.

Civil rights attorney Constance Rice in the LAT:

"Imus should only be fired when the black artists who make millions of dollars rapping about black bitches and hos lose their recording contracts. Black leaders should denounce Imus and boycott him and call for his head only after they do the same for the misogynist artists with whom they have shared stages, magazine covers and awards shows. The truth is, Imus' remarks mimic those of the original gurus of black female denigration: black men with no class. He is only repeating what he's heard and being honest about the way many men -- of all races -- judge women."

But Joe Conason says justice was done:

"Whatever the true motivation behind the decisions by NBC and CBS to rid themselves of Don Imus, the executives who decided to jettison the bullying schlock jock managed to focus on what mattered most to them. Perhaps they were pandering to frightened advertisers or perhaps they were soothing outraged employees, but the network suits ultimately ignored all the special pleadings, racial diversions and other distracting irrelevancies.

"So should the rest of us, when Imus and his defenders whine about the injustice inflicted on him this week."

The L.A. Times sees a partisan tilt to Imus's show, noting how it helped such Dems as Ford, the (yes) African-American congressman Imus backed for the Senate:

"Over the years, Democrats such as Ford came to count on Imus for the kind of sympathetic treatment that Republicans got from Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. Equally important, Imus gave Democrats a pipeline to a crucial voting bloc that was perennially hard for them to reach: politically independent white men."