1 Sorry, I have nothing to personally offer on this subject, except....SKIPPY! [If you offend a given ethnic group, you feel compelled to beg that community's sleaziest members for redemption. It stands to reason that the next time someone says something shitty about whitey, they'll be required to have themselves photographed making a pilgrimage to the grave of Byron De La Beckwith. If America has really been reduced to taking sides in a pissing match between two amoral shitheads like Don Imus and Al Sharpton, maybe the terrorists should win.]

2 Funny that you should bring up Torquemada in relation to Al Sharpton. Roger L. Simon just posted in that very same vein earlier today.

3 Rosie may be a fool for saying things about 9/11, with respect to the collapse of WTC7, but in the grand scheme of things, her stupidity is not as bad as racial offensiveness. Thus, while I wouldn't miss her, I don't think Imus's big mouth is going to make her easier to get rid of.

4 What about Rosie's mockery of Asians, with her "ching chong" comments? It wasn't directed at any individuals, but I'd argue that's at least as bad as what Imus said.

5 So long as Rosie merely limits her targets to the Bush Administration, Republicans and conservatives in general, the Pope, Christianity and the Donald, she has carte blanche to say anything she wants, no matter how outrageous. It is absurd for Big Foot to suggest that her extended remarks about WTC-7, basically accusing the U.S. government (led by George W. Bush, of course) of murdering its own citizens on 9/11, is less harmful than Imus' few seconds of infamy. I assure you that tomorrow she could acuse Mitt Romney of polygamy with pre-teenage girls and no one on the View panel or in her studio audience would raise a squeak in protest.

6 Exactly Ralph. Imus made the mistake of slagging a protected species. He should have stuck to bashing Catholics and Jews as was his forte'

7 Being a rug muncher too, Rosie has an extra trump (pun intended) card to play. She can go on a rant ala Daniel Carver (Stern's KKK guy) and scream homophobia at any objection. Her objectors WILL end up facing Hate Crime persecution.

8 If Rosie insults a Rastafarian, it's all over for her.

9 Eh, who cares? They're all just geek show acts.

10 Draw your own discrimination pyramid. Those at the top can insult down, and at the same level, but never up. Casca said it. I'd elaborate by saying I feel compelled to be polite by default, and by those who are polite to me. Otherwise, why bother with rude people? There is no upside to dealing with them.

11 I don't give a damn about Rosie's "ching chong" episode, and I am asian. The thing that bugs me to no end is her stupid acceptance of such physically impossible groupthink invovled in 9/11 denial. she went to grade school, and presumably high school, so she's supposed to be smarter than that! And no, I know we can take cheap shots at her intelligence, but I mean it: If she went to high school and passed basic physics and was exposed to elementary logic, then she should be smart enough not to fall for conspiracy fantasy. Yet she does, either because (as Dennis Miller thinks) she's trying to dig at Bush but doesn't truly believe it, or (as I think) because she really does believe it and it dovetails nicely with her anti-Bush mindset. So fine, she hates Bush. So does the 911 Truthiness blogger, and he doesn't fall prey to believing in stupid, illogical things in order to facilitate that hate. But Rosie does. If she has a basic education, she should be smarter than that. But she chooses to indulge in conspiracy fantasy, so the only conclusion is that she's being deliberately stupid. And that's the worst stance of all: Let me submerge any intelligence I have just to side with folks I agree with. Dumb, dumb, dumb. That's what pisses me off about her. Oh, to be on topic: I don't even put Imus in the same boat as Rosie. His stuff was stupidly provocative and, if I'm reading things right, needlessly offensive, true, but you're talking about a whole other level of delusion when it comes to Rosie. But will the Imus affair make firing Rosie more possible? No. Making racist remarks is offensive enough for banning, but unfortunately no one considers physically and logically impossible screeds to be on the same level of offense. So while they both take crowns for ignorance, I don't see anyone being as offended at Rosie as they are at Imus. Ignorance, even deliberate ignorance of truth, is somehow not seen as being as offensive, only as being deluded. And America has a soft spot for the cranks in society.

12 Ralph said all that needed to be said on this subject. I would, however, like to add the following comment just 'cause: Fuck you, Jessie and fuck you, Al.

13 I honestly don't give a fuck about Imus. If he'd called the University of North Dakota women's basketball team "blonde-headed hoes," he'd still have a problem -- or he should, at any rate. Unless they're actual, working prostitutes, you shouldn't call women "hoes." It's not funny. Yeah, rappers do it all the time; so what? They're scumbags. Imus is a dumbass and the author of his own misfortune. That Al and Jesse are worthy of tarring and feathering does not get Imus off the hook. Worst of all, he's not even entertaining. Fuck him.

14 "Worst of all, he's not even entertaining." True

15 Hey, we can make jokes and little cute remarks all day, but the truth of the matter is this, sure, what Imus said was insensitive, and in this day and age he should have known a white, male, heterosexual can't say those things, at least not publicly. But what Rosie says every single day doesn't border on sedition, it is. She abuses her status as a celebrity. God knows Americans will believe anything that comes out of a person's mouth if they're famous. She is vindictive and mean. She doesn't make bad attempts at humor, like Imus did, she is purely hateful and mean spirited, and she is influencing the way a lot of uneducated, uninformed people think and feel. Rosie is a lot of things, mostly unmentionable. But I liked her until recently. She presents herself to be a loveable, nice person who cares about others. What she cares about is spewing hate speech, and garnering headlines. Shame on you Rosie.

16 What I love about the whole Imus episode is the willingness of those folks that he befriended and help promote their careers have piled on first; David "Howdy Doody" Gregory and Harold Ford, Jr. to name a couple of real pricks. Here's what Imus should be learning: "A Liberal is a Conservative who just got indicted, but a Conservative is a Liberal who just got mugged." Imus just got mugged; and by his buddies Gregory and Ford, Jr., et al. Can't wait for his new satellite show to start, 'cause his liberal kiss ass stuff pushed by his child bride ought to be over by now.

17 Watching the Left's response to Imus and to the Duke case should be enlightening to people who are actually willing to think rather than bow down at the alter of political correctness. Don't hold your breath, however. Just look at the MSM's handling of both. The last few days has gone a long way in reaffirming my core politcal philosophy. The Left always manages to show us that they are a threat to freedom and liberty. Thank God for folks like Annika who do their little bit to fight these freedom-hating, race-baiting, PC kooks.

18 You're right Shelly. He laid down with dogs, and now has some bad itches.

19 Imus' long time guru and career sponsor is Mel Karmizan, who is presiding over the merger between XM Radio and Sirius, and will be the CEO of the new combined satellite stations. The writing is on the wall; all that remains is to find out when the Imus show will start, what hours it will broadcast, and how much he'll get paid. Howard Stern (with no "K.") got over $100 Million, I think Imus will get a whole lot less than that. I'm predicting he'll come back and take on all the politically correct, but chickenshit liberals that turned on him when he was down.

20 Saying offensive things on the air, is that really a profession? If it is, what's wrong with it being a precarious one? Imus is not the only out-of-control utterator around these days, but he is the one who kinda volunteered to serve as the canary in the coal mine. It's about time! Whether his punishment is proportional or not, this episode will put a bit of verbal humility in those who seem incapable of it without external, shall we say, guidance? One does not need to be offensive in order to express things of thought-provoking value. And what if Imus was not having fun with his "work" anymore, and did what he needed to do in order to force someone else to kick him out of his job instead of just quitting, like a man? Sometimes I wish microphones were exquisitely delicate devices, that they would simply cease to operate when one tries to use them for the broadcasting offensive comments. Before this kind of technology comes along, what in the world is wrong with self restraint?

21 I got a surreptitious picture of Rosie's honeymoon. Ain't it sweet!

22 Only a good Catholic girl like Annie would know about Torquemada and the obligatory auto de fe. She is going to be one tough lawyer. Can you imagine the briefs? (No, Kevin, you little weirdo, not those kind) The Imus story isn't dying; wanna bet he's in talks with Mel Karmizan right now? I'm guessing the announcment comes in April and he starts in May or June. Question is, will any cable company pick up the simulcast? They should, it was a big moneymaker for MSNBC, about 20 extra large a year.

23 For some reason, Imus in the Morning on MSNBC kept me awake when my youngest child was a baby and would wake up for his 4:00 a.m. feeding in 1997. Some years later, after years of dealing with this son's autism, I was glad to see that Don Imus gave air time to David Kirby, a journalist who has helped autism parents raise awareness that mercury was being injected into babies along with their immunizations, as well as to other autism topics.