Thursday, April 12, 2007

Still More On The Imus Flap, Duke Rape Charges Dropped, Chasing Life With Sanjay Gupta, And Raw Politics (Wednesday's First Hour)

Hi everybody. Okay, we'll see how this goes. Your humble blogger is in fairly extreme pain, I'm guessing due to the weather. So there's going to be some skimping. Hopefully it won't end up sounding all bitter. We kick things off with the news that Don Imus has been fired from MSNBC. It seems there was a bit of an internal pile on and it was determined he had to go to save their brand. For discussion on the decison we're joined by former Frist speechwriter Amy Holmes, radio host and CNNer Roland Martin, and... radio host Michael Medved? Dude, what have you done with Robert? Aw, and I thought we had totally bonded. For those not familiar, Medved previously got his ire up over the perceived homosexual agenda of the movie "Happy Feet." No, I'm not kidding. Anderson asks about the firing decision and Amy is down with it. Roland notes that the advertisers pulling out was a major contributor in the sacking. Not surprisingly, Medved thinks the firing went way too far and then says something nonsensical about people saying 9-11 was an inside job. This prompts Roland into interrupter-guy mode, which seems to be his default setting. Amy brings up the fact that Medved often talks about raising standards in a our culture. However, Medved thinks people just shouldn't listen to Imus. Then he brings up someone saying the "f' and "s" words and I'm sorry, but that is so not the same thing. There is no group of people connected to those words. Following this there's more discussion that covers a lot of things we've heard before.

Next up we have a Tom Foreman piece on any legal aspects of the Imus case. It doesn't look like he will get sued for defamation because he can just claim he was kidding or it was his opinion. For now it looks like the FCC isn't going to get involved. After Tom's piece we're joined by writer and critic John Leo. Anderson notes that a lot of powerful people go on the Imus program. John thinks they are enablers because they let him get away with saying horrible things. Anderson points out that people go on to sell their books. Dude, go on The Daily Show. Their viewers are major book buyers and Jon's not a racist. Anderson wonders if people who go on the show should be held accountable and John thinks they should. Hey, speaking of enabling and being held accountable, two words for you Anderson: Glen Beck. Seriously, he's said things just as horrible as Imus has and you enabled him by allowing him to come on a respected show and act half reasonable. That's how they do it. They pull out the "average Joe" personality for the mainstream appearances, but then when they get back to the safety of their radio show they spew garbage and most of America is none the wiser. John agrees with me in that most of America doesn't know about these people. He tells us it took him a day and a half to come up with six horrible things Imus has said because radio has no hard copy. Oh, John, you obviously have not met my pal David Brock and the good people at mediamatters.org . Trust me, next time you'll find what you're looking for in 10 minutes tops.

Transitioning now to a Jason Carroll piece on the other racially-tinged story of the day, the Duke rape case. The North Carolina Attorney General has proclaimed the Duke guys innocent and the charges have been dropped. He says there was a rush to condemn and he slaps the media around a bit, which is perfectly warranted here. Also, the District Attorney is in major hot water. After Jason's piece we've got Jeffrey Toobin for the legal lowdown and he is completely shocked by how outrageous the prosecutor was. However, I'm going to move on to the Jesse Jackson interview. Apparently Jackson had offered to pay the woman's college tuition since she was making money by stripping. And actually this interview pretty much becomes all about the naked dancing-at least on Jesse's end. Oh and sorry that's actually nakid dancing. Anderson asks if the offer still stands and Jackson's all, "I don't even know her." Oh good Lord. In fact, when he's not talking about nakid dancing that's basically how he answers every question. He didn't know her. He's never seen her. He doesn't know where she is now. He doesn't know why he's even here. Duke rape case? What Duke rape case? Suddenly he's got her playing the roll of Jack Abramoff to his Bush.

Transitioning now to some talk with Sanjay Gupta. He's got a new book called Chasing Life about the search for immortality. We get a Sanjay piece and then in studio discussion about different ways other cultures are living longer. The Seventh-Day Adventists are mentioned and actually 360 has covered a lot of this kind of stuff. You can search this blog if you're interested. Anderson tells us he will be reading the book this weekend. Anderson Cooper: wild and crazy anchor of CNN. Don't party too hard there, buddy. You might hurt yourself. Anyway, buy Sanjay's book. Because you love him. You know you do. After this there's some "Raw Politics," which I'm skipping tonight...because I can. The Shot is a crazy driver on a highway. In regards to to the show, there were call-ins again, which is great and really good discussion, but no hard news! C'mon guys! C

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