It's Not Just Imus

I heard some wingnut talk radio over the weekend, and all of the venom-spouting pundits are up in arms about their boy Donny being fired.

In the words of the Immortal Bard, "methinks thou protesteth too much" (Shakespeare, page 9).

Those guys have got to be running scared about this time, since they are seeing -- and rightly so -- that the Imus flap is a sea change in public discourse over the airwaves.

When you have people like inflated gas-bag drug addict Viagra-popping blowhard Rush Limbaugh, who has made a career out of hurtful comments (calling 12-year-old Chelsea Clinton "the White House dog", for example), or gay-baiting Michael Savage, who has called gay people "homos" on the air, or mad-dog frothing-at-the-mouth Neil Boortz referring to Hilary Clinton as a "raving bitch", still on the air, they've got to be shaking in their boots.

Unfortunately when it came right down to it, it was the bottom line that dictated the Imus firing, not some deathbed conversion to standards of decency. When the advertisers pulled out, Imus was toast.

But hey, that's capitalism, folks. If we don't buy the crap that the advertisers are pushing on these hurtful radio shows, they won't be sponsoring them, and those windbag assholes will be off the air and the next time we see them, they'll be showing up as a Trivial Pursuit question.

Just where they belong.