Two aging white guys stink it up again
04/09/07 11:13 PM
By ED BARK
Here's what happens with guys like Don Imus and Billy Packer. They get accustomed to people kissing their asses. They think they can say anything because no one can touch them. They stay too long at the party because their positions of privilege are intoxicating.
Imus, 66, and one of his toadying radio sidekicks aim racial slurs at the Rutgers University women's basketball team. Then they chortle about it and think no one's going to call them to account. The "I-Man," after all, already has most of America's powerbroking politicians and media elite eating out of his hand.
Packer, 67, tosses out a shorthand vulgarism for gay people and then laughs it up along with Charlie Rose, who's almost equally culpable for essentially playing along during their interview on the latter's show. They were talking about the NCAA basketball tournament's Final Four, with Packer in Atlanta for yet another go-around as CBS's increasingly inept game analyst.
Then America's windbag, Al Sharpton, has Imus on his radio show Monday. While a mega-media gaggle watches and listens, he pounds away at Imus and continues to demand his resignation.
Finally, CBS radio and MSNBC, which simulcasts Imus' show, suspend the grizzled old shock jock for two weeks, effective April 16th. CBS so far has done nothing about Packer, but should seize this latest golden opportunity.
Imus and Packer have amassed enough money to just go away and stay away. And if only they could take Sharpton with them. He's long been a steadfast self-aggrandizer, with enough skeletons in his own closet to stock an amusement park haunted house.
The "I-Man," of course, has apologized several times while also bristling at people who try to bait him. It's still ringing pretty hollow.
Most people aren't aware of what Packer said, but it's hardly the first time he's let his fat, coarse mouth double dribble. He also likes to belittle those he deems insignificant. You know, the "little people" who are supposed to do his bidding or else.
It's another sorry spectacle, with Imus in particular on a blistering hot seat of his own making. This time he should make it easy on himself by simply calling it a day as a big-time radio host. He's done a lot of good for kids over the years, but no good can come of his continuing to tempt fate.
As for Packer, surely CBS Sports can do far better. It's as simple as that. Get rid of him.
For the record, here's a combined video of each man's arrogant slurs.