Imus to MSNBC President for Not Firing Bashir: 'Come on, Man!'

[Rapunzel]

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/11/21/Imus-to-MSNBC-President-for-Not-Firing-Bashir-Come-on-Man


Imus to MSNBC President for Not Firing Bashir: 'Come on, Man!'

by Tony Lee 21 Nov 2013, 1:06 PM PDT

On Thursday, Don Imus, whom MSNBC fired in 2007 after he referred to the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy headed hos" on the network, said he could not believe MSNBC President Phil Griffin is going to keep Martin Bashir on the air after he suggested someone should urinate or defecate in former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's mouth.

Imus, on Imus in the Morning on Fox Business Network, said it was unbelievable that MSNBC President Phil Griffin has not fired Bashir.

"They are going to keep him on the air?" Imus said. "Come on, man. What are you, nuts?

Imus later said, "I don't know how he still has a job" and noted that though Imus is "fairly liberal," he felt what Bashir said about Palin was "the worst" type of rhetoric.

MSNBC fired Imus a week after he made his remarks in April 2007, but has not taken any action against Bashir. Back in 2007, Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama said Imus should be fired and MSNBC should not tolerate such "hateful" rhetoric that adds to the "coarsening" of the culture. Obama said such rhetoric made his daughters feel less than anybody else, but Obama has not commented on Bashir's violent rhetoric against females. Bashir apologized on Monday and conceded his words were "wholly inappropriate" and "offensive."

Palin's political action committee, SarahPAC, wrote a letter to MSNBC President Phil Griffin and NBC News President Deborah Turness, which Breitbart News exclusively obtained, and asked how Bashir would be disciplined given the actions the network has taken in the past with hosts deemed to have made "offensive" remarks.

"You fired Don Imus for offensive language in describing the Rutgers University Women’s Basketball team, you suspended Alec Baldwin, and yet nothing has happened to Mr. Bashir," the letter reads. "Are we to assume then, that disciplinary procedures at your network take place based on the target of the remarks rather than the remarks themselves?"

MSNBC suspended Baldwin last week after he made anti-gay comments at a photographer on the streets of New York. After noting that "Baldwin’s anti-gay slur was not uttered while he was on the air on your network, but Mr. Bashir’s violent rhetoric was," the letter concludes by saying, "Americans deserve to know that your network doesn’t condone violent and hateful rhetoric directed at anyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, or political persuasion."

[Cincinnatus]

The explanation lies in whose ox is being gored.

For Imus it was blacks. Unacceptable.

For Baldwin it was gays. Unacceptable.

For Bashir it was Sarah Palin. We're supposed to care?

[Bigun]

The explanation lies in whose ox is being gored.

For Imus it was blacks. Unacceptable.

For Baldwin it was gays. Unacceptable.

For Bashir it was Sarah Palin. We're supposed to care?

Absolutely spot on!

 

[Chieftain]

Don Imus is one of the biggest assholes to ever pollute the airwaves, and he is a consummate hypocrite to criticize anyone for their bad behavior.

[Cincinnatus]

There was another voice heard in them thar days.

Flashback: Obama Calls for MSNBC to Fire Imus for 'Hateful' Remarks

On April 11, 2007, Guest-host David Gregory asked Obama on Hardball, "Do you think he should be fired?

"I don‘t think MSNBC should be carrying the kinds of hateful remarks that Imus uttered the other day," Obama said. "And you know, he has a track record of making those kinds of remarks. Look, I‘ve got two daughters who are African-American, gorgeous, tall, and I hope at some point are interested enough in sports so that they get athletic scholarships."

Obama said he and his wife "every day are reinforcing our love for them and how special they are. I don‘t want them to be getting a bunch of information that somehow they‘re less than anybody else, and I don‘t think MSNBC should want to promote that kind of language."

Gregory then asked, "So he should be off the air, off of MSNBC and off of CBS, off the air completely, in your judgment?"

"Ultimately, you guys are going to have to make that view," he said. "He would not be working for me."

Obama said Imus's comments went "beyond race" and "obviously, what this reveals is that we still have a host of racial stereotypes that are out there, and that we are fast loose in playing with those racial stereotypes and bandying them about and thinking that there aren‘t going to be any consequences to it. And that‘s a problem."

"But I also think there‘s a broader problem of a coarsening of the culture, where we think that it‘s entertainment to insult people," he said. "And I don‘t think it‘s that funny, and I think that we need to think about how are we promoting tolerance and how are we promoting intelligent debate, and that‘s not been the trend in too much of our media. That‘s something I think that we‘ve all got to think about."

Obama has been noticeably silent when it comes to Bashir's comments about Sarah.

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