'Scuse Me?

Senator John McCain said Wednesday that he had begun the process of weighing the names of possible running mates, and that he hoped to be able to make a selection before the Republican convention in early September.

Mr. McCain, 71, told Mr. Imus “I’m aware of enhanced importance of this issue given my age.’’

First of all, people still go on Imus? Really? I guess old racists never die.

Second, do we really need a President who's ALREADY thinking about leaving office - or dying in it - without serving more than one term?

And They Flocked To Him

It's not that Don Imus has returned to TV and radio after his racist remarks. It's that his first show featured John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Chris Dodd and James Carville.

The DC village protects its friends and always returns to them, no matter how corrupted and offensive they are.

The "Imus narrative" on Billo is forming

So almost a week ago, Bill O'Reilly went on his radio show and made the idiotic comment that he was "surprised" that diners at Sylvia's Restaurant in Harlem behaved just as normally as those do in "white" restaurants.

I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship... There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, "M-Fer, I want more iced tea."

The idea that anyone would express surprise that black people eat in a restaurant "normally" is an Imus-level statement. It's the latest in a long line of insensitive statements by Billo, a track record that rivals Imus. And indeed, it's now starting to get the broader media attention that Imus' statement did in the days following its broadcast.

CNN covered it, so did Imus' replacement on MSNBC, and WABC in New York. There's a narrative forming, and it's being pushed out on lower-profile shows like Morning Joe as almost a test to see how it plays. Read this exchange, it's almost like they're just seeing if this is sensational enough to work:

BRZEZINSKI: Oh, my God.

SCARBOROUGH: He could not --

BRZEZINSKI: Wow.

SCARBOROUGH: -- get over the fact that -- his words -- he could not get over the fact that there was no difference between that black restaurant and any other restaurant despite the fact -- his words -- despite the fact it was run by black people --

BREZEZINSKI: Hmm.

SCARBOROUGH: -- and the primary patrons --

BREZEZINSKI: That's attractive.

SCARBOROUGH: -- were black people.

GEIST: Sounds like Bill doesn't get up to Harlem a whole lot.

SCARBOROUGH: I don't think he does.

BRZEZINSKI: It sounds like a lot of things are going on there, that I, I, I --

GEIST: Also using the term 'blacks." I don't think anybody's said that since like 1973.

SCARBOROUGH: Well, that, you know, it's just -- it's very surprising that, that Bill O'Reilly would be stunned that you could go to a restaurant that is run by African Americans, and that it would be, his words again, "I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between a black restaurant and a white restaurant."

GEIST: What, what was he expecting? You walk in, and they throw the food in the middle of the room and everybody just -- it's a free for all. What did he think was going to happen?

SCARBOROUGH: I don't know, he also was surprised that they were quote "tremendously respectful."

BRZEZINSKI: Oh great, here we go.

GEIST: Wow

BRZEZINSKI: I believe, whatever, it seems a little bit --

SCARBOROUGH: That's just strange. That's all I'm gonna say. Listen, O'Reilly is the king of cable, he's been number one for six years. That is fascinating, by the way, and I'm sure we're going to be hearing more about that throughout the day.

They really sound like they don't want to touch this, yet they're compelled to. Similarly, on CNN, while Roland Martin had no problem calling this remark what it was, Rick "let's pretend to waterboard me" Sanchez sounds like someone who just had his brain wiped and is incapable of making a critical thought (though I do think that's what he always sounds like):

SANCHEZ: Now, O'Reilly's critics are saying that it's not the first time that he's made some questionable remarks publicly. Now, in fairness, he has a radio show and a television show. He's on the air for an awful long time. I want to find out, though, what our CNN contributor Roland Martin has to say about this after hearing some of this. I guess, let me just, you know, go right to it, here.

MARTIN: Sure.

SANCHEZ: What's wrong with a white guy making social commentary about other people's race, which is what he seems to be doing here?

MARTIN: The issue is not social commentary, the issue is how stupid can you be? The point about the restaurant is offensive because here's what he says: "I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference." Why couldn't you? It's a restaurant. People sit down, they eat. What's the big deal about that?

SANCHEZ: So, what are you saying? You're saying the fact that he was shocked by the fact that African-Americans --

MARTIN: Right. Right. They --

SANCHEZ: -- were no different than white people shows what? What are you trying to say?

"What are you doing with your mouth, making sounds come out and stringing them together to make a sentence?"

Billo, by the way, is SCREAMING YELLOW BONKERS about this. More than calling the whole controversy a "hatchet job" by Media Matters (hatchet job now defined as reprinting a transcript), he claimed that CNN has now entered the dark side, and weirdly vowed to "answer" them.

I don't think the traditional media really wants to pick this fight. The rollout is very tentative. But we can absolutely make this snowball. O'Reilly is off-balance here, and a concerted effort by the progressive movement may be able to push it over the top and send cable news into 24-hour mode. The Congressional Black Caucus, last seen trying to partner with Fox News on a Democratic debate, may or may not be of help here, but certainly individual members may be interested in speaking out when confronted with the statements.

Considering that Billo has turned defaming Daily Kos and Media Matters into a personal crusade, this is well-deserved pushback. It's time to make a coordinated effort. That means calling advertisers, calling cable networks, etc., etc.

The Fox News Race Card

Al Sharpton got set up (predictably) by Fox News this morning, asked to defend the entire rap industry, the the Duke rape case, Tawana Brawley, and everything else Chris Wallace could scrape up and use as a weapon to force Sharpton into a corner. He capped it off by asking if Sharpton was a "kingmaker" in the Democratic Party because all of the candidates were speaking at the National Action Network meetings. Sharpton acquitted himself well, which I'll discuss in a moment. But I think the episode is a harbinger of where this debate will be headed, at least by those on the Fox News/Republican propaganda side who think they can capitalize on it.

A smart liberal friend of mine sent me an email after Imus' sacking by CBS Radio, saying he was shocked that two corporations "caved to Al Sharpton," and that the end result of this was that Barack Obama would not get elected, because white Middle Americans would cringe at the prospect of the "Sharpton/Jesse crew whispering in his ear," and that this whole incident shows how much power they wield. He admitted that the premise was somewhat crazy, and asked if I thought he was insane.

I reacted to this by saying it was nonsense, and that it gave far too much agency to Sharpton and Jackson for what transpired. Al Roker had a lot more to do with MSNBC dropping Don Imus than Al Sharpton. And the most politically powerful person in the room in the CBS Radio meeting was certainly Kim Gandy of the National Organization for Women. But the media face of this has always been Al Sharpton. It's typical laziness on the part of the media, which Eugene Robinson acknowledged today on Meet the Press. When a white person gets in trouble saying or doing something to black people, the rolodex gets spun and Al Sharpton gets a phone call. Or a hundred phone calls.

And this was confirmed by a phone conversation I had with a family friend, an Imus listener who said essentially that he shouldn't have been fired, that Al Sharpton opened his big mouth but what has he ever done about the rap industry (the answer is he's tried and tried, but more on that later) or those boys at Duke, and then Jesse Jackson and Hymietown got involved in the discussion, and I simply said that you're giving these people far too much power, far more than they have, that this was a media phenomenon because it was about a member of the Washington insider club and they self-reported it to death, and it was incredibly selective to pick out Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson as dragonslayers who speak for the entire black community and who can move mountains by the weight of their discourse. It's silly and it rejects all facts and history.

But I was beginning to understand my other friend's email. This is the story that a lot of people want to tell: that big bad Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson took America's white funnyman away, and that these "race hustlers," as Joe Klein almost exclusively calls them, will continue persecuting the white man until white people fight back. This was exactly the trap that Sharpton walked into with Chris Wallace today.

I don't think Don Imus was ever even mentioned by Wallace once the entire interview. He started by asking Sharpton why he never goes after those "foul-mouthed rappers" the same way he goes after Imus. Sharpton mentioned at least 4 campaigns his group has personally undertaken against the music industry, including marches, discussions with the FCC, boycotts, etc. The real problem, he said, was how the news media like Fox doesn't cover those campaigns, but only the ones where white people are involved. I certainly didn't know Al Sharpton marched against The Boondocks for using the N word. I didn't know that they protested the Oscars for giving an award to 3-6 Mafia for "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp." I'm quite sure Al Sharpton wasn't hiding his involvement with those campaigns. The "selective outrage" line being pushed by Fox and other media parrots should justifiably be turned back on them; they select which protests they will decide to broadcast. Wallace said that he "couldn't find" any information on Sharpton picketed black media; Sharpton said that he went on FOX NEWS and talked about The Boondocks controversy, so that must not have been an extensive search.

Then Wallace pulled out the front page of the New York Daily News (Russert did the same thing today, byt the way), hyping the fact that Hillary Clinton held a fundraiser at Timbaland's house, and Obama has raised money with Ludacris, and they're scary black men, and isn't this a double standard (first line of that article: "Leading Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama may have a "ho" problem of their own.") Sharpton mentioned that P.Diddy went to the White House and the RNC, and how none of this has anything to do with Imus, but clearly the stage was set. Predictably, we got a shot of Tawana Brawley, and talk about the Duke lacrosse team, and why hasn't Sharpton apologized for that as well. Al was fine on this (saying he already stated his position that the DA was wrong for damaging the kid's lives in the Duke case on his radio show, and that he disagreed with the jury verdict on Brawley, just like many whites disagreed with the Michael Jackson or OJ verdicts, and anyway it's comparing apples and oranges). But here's the thing. This is the Fox News/right-wing noise machine strategy for how they're going to portray this situation moving forward; that a bunch of hypocritical black men massed their armies and got a poor white guy fired, and we can't have the Democratic Party in bed with these people. As I said, Wallace's last question was, "You are hosting all the Democratic candidates at a forum, are you a kingmaker in the Democratic Party now?" When any constituency like AFSCME or NOW or the Sierra Club hosts Democrats that's the normal process of meeting with constituents, but when it's Al Sharpton's group he's playing "king." This is stoking racial fears, plain and simple.

Atrios was great on this today.

Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are not the only black people in America, and more than that they do not have the ability to force themselves onto your news shows. There's a pattern here:

1) Bigot eruption somewhere
2) Lots of people condemn it
3) Al Sharpton goes on every teevee program
4) The media people turn around and use Sharpton's past as a distraction/excuse for the current bigot eruption

If Al Sharpton is an imperfect spokesperson for an issue, and you keep putting him on the teevee to be the spokesperson for that issue, then the obvious conclusion is that this is a deliberate strategy.

The Fox News-inspired media is lazy and does actually think that the spokesmen for black America are Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Or rather, they don't; but that's what they want everyone else to think. They pick them because they have developed their flaws over 20 years (how many times have you heard "Hymietown" and "diamond merchants" over the past week) and have created a critique to make white America resentful of them. So anytime there's a racial controversy, they can tap in to this simmering rage that they've created.

The cynic in me believes that this whole escapade may have the impact that Fox News desires. It boils down to "Democrats talk to those black people you hate; vote for Republicans." Which makes it all the more important for progressives on the Internet and out in the community to forcefully rebut this total nonsense. The Imus story is being turned into an Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson story for no reason, and it's sickening to see the same racial prejudices be used again to insidious effect. I haven't written much at all about the Imus controversy, but we all have to understand that this is now part of a deliberate strategy to use racism to win elections.

Standards in Journalism

OK, that was hilarious.

MSNBC is doing their all-Imus-was-fired, all-the-time coverage, and David Gregory on Hardball just introduced a panel to discuss the situation for the umpteenth time. He starts out by introducing Armstrong Williams. Good to know their policy of who to give a public megaphone to is so SELECT.

Craig Crawford, who clearly didn't know he'd be paired with a guy who was taking money from the Department of Education to shill for them, VISIBLY LAUGHED and rolled his eyes.

Hysterical.

Only the Beltway Listens To Imus

Digby has a great piece about how the Beltway media and political class will return to Don Imus' show again and again because he's part of their little fraternity and he helps them sell their crappy books. What's even more stunning about this is the fact that nobody actually listens to Imus. When he suddenly became this Beltway darling about 10 years ago, I was very confused, because his ratings practically don't exist. But Bob Schieffer gives the game away in this 2005 piece:

CBS’s Bob Schieffer, Senators John McCain, Chris Dodd, Richard Santorum, and so on, seem remarkably, at times, willing to be part of the Imus gang on every morning from 6AM to 10AM on radio in 50 major markets, plus the MSNBC simulcast. The recent Arbitron ratings, if you find them reliable (and many don’t) show Imus listeners were down 25% in the first quarter. But up in others.

Book sellers, Senators, Congressmen, media personalities and even clergy are always after the same audience as Imus’s advertisers: affluent, educated and influential men, many of whom not only buy books, but count as swing voters. Imus’s show, while politically charged, skews neither right nor left, which makes it a refreshing switch from the wing-nut harangue of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or the Air America Crew. “I don’t know anyone in Washington who doesn’t listen to Imus or watch him on TV,” says CBS News and Face The Nation anchor Bob Schieffer, a frequent guest, who politely admitted to me the show has become a more valued outlet for many DC elite than either of his programs. “I get more feedback off my spots on Imus than from my own shows,” laughs Schieffer.

Notice how the author has to discount the sincerity of the only radio ratings service there is to make his point?

Just like everything else, the Beltway elite think that because all their friends are paying attention, everybody is. Don Imus gets 3 million listeners in 50 markets. Break that down, and those numbers are wretched. Absolutely awful. He'll probably do better now, after his suspension. This is the only time in the past 10 years that anyone but the pundit class has paid any attention to him. Of course, they've been overlooking his incivility for years because they all feel like they're part of his little club. Not that they wouldn't clutch their pearls and tut-tut about the deeply incivil blogosphere, mind you.

Imus

Anyone that's listened to Howard Stern for two minutes (and I have for 20 years) could have told you that Imus is a racist and has been for years. He's also a particularly mean person who has contempt for everybody beneath him. There's a 30-year record going back to the "How's Your Donkey Kong" days. I'm glad he's finally getting some come-uppance, but nobody should pretend this is anything new. He's always been an irascible coot, and the fact that the Washington establishment cozied up to him at all shows their blindness when it comes to one of their own.