DON IMUS’ national radio/TV show Friday included an in- studio appearance of semi-regular Joe Lieberman, Democratic vice presidential candidate.
Imus noted Lieberman’s leadership position in the war against an entertainment industry that relentlessly feeds kids sex, violence and crudity. He then spoke of being in the presence of kids, 12 to 16, who knew by heart the lyrics of rap star Eminem’s most vile songs.
Imus seemed genuinely staggered by what came out of these kids’ mouths.
Then Imus suggested that by accepting campaign donations from the same entertainment industry that Lieberman attacks, Lieberman was being “hypocritical.”
Whoa. Stop right there. For years, Imus’ radio shows have not only regularly featured crude language and lewd sexual expressions, his flagship radio station in New York, WFAN, has gone out of its way to turn many of those moments into ambush promos that are played at all times of day, including on Sunday afternoon baseball pregame shows.
As long as Imus was shaken up by the kids who repeated Eminem’s obscene lyrics, and as long as Imus was quizzing Lieberman about the proliferation of the indecent behavior of the entertainment industry, the question about Lieberman’s hypocrisy should’ve been: “Aren’t you being hypocritical in again appearing on this show?”
Imus didn’t seem to recognize his own hypocrisy. He didn’t seem to understand that as a founding father of the mass-audience shock genre, he has not only grown rich and famous, he has helped make it safe for the likes of an Eminem to grow rich and famous.
Almost all of the toothpaste is out of the tube, Don, and you, starting a long time ago, have done plenty of squeezing.