Imus

When a “firestorm” like this surrounds a major columnist or broadcaster, I normally regard it as another instance of the media gratuitously stroking its collective ego, managing to make itself the subject of the day’s news. But the Imus controversy – and by controversy I mean debate among pundits who espouse varying degrees of vitriol in their denunciations – conjures up dreaded identity politics. It’s important to note, as Timothy Noah at Slate does here, that the guttural old wanker has been in the business of insulting ethnic and gender identities for some time. A few samples:

On blacks:

"William Cohen, the Mandingo deal." (Former Defense Secretary Cohen's wife is African-American.)

"We all have 12-inch penises." (After being asked what he has in common with Nat Turner, Malcolm X, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Latrell Sprewell from the New York Knicks, and Al Sharpton.)

On Jews:

"Boner-nosed … beanie-wearing Jewboy." (Description of Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post, a frequent guest.)

On gays:

"I didn't know that Allan Bloom was coming in from the back end." (The homosexuality of the author of The Closing of the American Mind became widely known when Saul Bellow published Ravelstein, a novel whose protagonist was based on Bloom, who by then was deceased.)