by David Greenberg

As with so many contretemps in the news, I've refrained from blogging about Don Imus's most recent bigoted remarks because I didn't think I had much to add. But since it's my university, Rutgers, whose athletes were the object of his slur, and since my colleagues at Rutgers have mustered such a strong and heartening reaction today, I do think it's worth a word or two. In general, our public culture has become far too censorious. It was bad enough when the public, egged on by journalists, began to pillory any and all politicians for whatever unfortunately phrased comments, gaffes, or even genuine errors of judgment they made. Then, a number of years ago, we got even more hypercritical. We began applying these overly stringent standards not just to pols but also to other public or semi-public figures--including many who never struck the bargain with the media scandal machine that politicians tacitly make. Virtual vigilante mobs would swarm around such minor (in the scheme of things) celebrities as historians Joe Ellis and Doris Goodwin, around baseball players who did nothing worse than spit at umpires, around even relatively obscure folk thrust into the public eye by some dubious transgression. For many years now we've collectively been in the thrall of a juvenile "zero tolerance" absolutist morality. All that said, I see no case whatsoever to be made in defense of Don Imus. He is a thug and a boor, a poor man's Howard Stern. (Stern, though crude, obnoxious, and arguably sexist, also exhibits a real wit, intellect, and irony in his patter--a sense that he's making fun not just of his own vulgar fan base but also of his highbrow listeners for indulging their ids as they tune in to hear him tweak the vulgarians.) As for Imus, I've never understood why respectable journalists and politicians, including a few I admire, have anything to do with him, except as a forum for self-advancement. What disturbs me about this scandale as much as the bigoted epithets from Imus himself (from whom I wouldn't expect anything different) is the willingness of people like Evan Thomas and Tom Oliphant to offer him succor. Given all the unjustly persecuted public figures out there--the athletes, entertainers, writers, politicians, and so on who have been flogged in the media for misdemeanors--these guys stand up for this creep?