Touch me in the morning

Regarding the whole Imus "nappy-headed ho" flap, he's a boob. Here's David Carr in the NYTimes:

Given that Mr. Imus spent part of last week describing the student athletes at Rutgers as “nappy-headed ho’s,” you might think he’d have trouble booking anyone, let alone A-list establishment names. But Mr. Imus, who has been given a pass for this sort of comment in the past, also generously provides airtime to those parts of the news media and political apparatus that would generally be expected to bring him to account.

He is, to borrow one of the show's metaphors, a lawn jockey to the establishment. Few politicians, big or small, pass up a chance to bump knees with Mr. Imus, in part because his show is one of the few places where they can talk seriously and at length about public issues. Senator John Kerry has stopped by. Senator John McCain is on frequently. And Senators Joseph I. Lieberman and Joseph R. Biden are part of a legion eager to sit in the guest chair.

NBC News uses "Imus in the Morning" to promote the brands of Tim Russert, Andrea Mitchell and David Gregory. Tom Brokaw was a frequent guest, and his replacement, Brian Williams, has been sanctified by the I-man, as they call him. Chris Matthews from MSNBC has appeared, as have anchors and journalists from CNN and CBS and, on the print side, by reporters and editors from Newsweek and popular opinion columnists from The New York Times.

Indeed. But consider what other folks have said, and suffered little for it:
Bill Bennett:

"you wanted to reduce crime ... if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." Bennett conceded that aborting all African-American babies "would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do," then added again, "but the crime rate would go down."

Ann Coulter:

"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."

Michael "Savage" Weiner:

Michael Savage declared that CNN hosts Wolf Blitzer and Larry King "look like the type that would have pushed Jewish children into the oven to stay alive one more day to entertain the Nazis."

Glenn Beck:

If your bill goes through, I hope you can't go to bed any single night without the images of body bags of our American soldiers coming off those planes. I hope they dance in your head every single night, because you will be just as responsible for their deaths as anyone who has ever strapped a bomb to their chest and screamed, "Allah Akbar."

Rush:

During his long reign over the airwaves, Limbaugh has called abortion rights activists "feminazis", told an African-American caller to "take that bone out of your nose," referred to prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib as "blow[ing] some steam off, " and declared that "what's good for Al Qaeda is good for the Democratic Party."

2 week suspensions, slaps on the wrist, all matters not a bit. These people are the voice of a sadly large part of the U.S., and the media masters that pay their salaries will continue to provide them with airwaves and studios.