Yesterday the “Imus in the Morning” show was canceled after a prolonged and entirely predictable insensitive comment scandal. The well known ‘as long as you don’t offend anyone’ clause of the first amendment was invoked and formerly popular radio host Don Imus lost his job. Chalk up another victory for over the top moral outrage.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t care, but this particular case got me thinking, how should the Rutgers basketball team have responded to Mr Imus’ mortal insult?
This is the news conference I would like to have seen:
“Ladies and gentlemen of the press, on behalf of the Rutgers women’s basketball team I would like to formally respond to the comments made by Mr Imus.
I believe I speak for the team, the coaches and the fans when I say that nobody at Rutgers gives a damn what that cantankerous old fool has to say. We are too busy celebrating a fantastic run in the NCAA championship to spare even a moment’s consideration for the asinine opinions of a washed up radio hack.
This is a free country, which means that Mr Imus is perfectly entitled to hold and express any dumb ass opinion he likes.
And we are free to treat that opinion with the contempt it so obviously deserves.
Sticks and stones may break our bones, but the moronic ramblings of aging radio shock jocks will never hurt us.
While we would like to thank Jesse Jackson for his interest, he can take his moral outrage dog and pony show somewhere else. We are not fragile little flowers in need of his protection. Rutgers University takes pride in turning out strong confident young women who aren’t going to wilt in the face of a few unkind words.
If Mr Jackson is really interested in supporting the team he is more than welcome to purchase season tickets.
Regarding Mr Imus’ specific comments about the appearance of our team we will make one comment only. They were somewhat ironic, coming as they did from someone who has, to be brutally frank, a great face for radio.
I will now take questions about basketball.”
Leave a Reply