We Need Imus

I got up this morning. I discovered Don Imus is still not on. I have seen a number of his guests in various venues: David Gregory on MSNBC in the same time slot, Jon Meachum on Sunday morning... These are all intelligent individuals. However, they are not particularly interesting. David Grgeory in a conversation with the I-man can be quite witty. On his own he is...professional. Don Imus was an entertainer of a shocking nature. Do we need to be shocked? Unfortunately, I think we do. We were shocked into action on 9/11. However, we were not sufficiently shocked subsequently to dissuade us from our trek to disaster in Iraq. We desperately needed questioners and shockers all along the way to make us stop and think. We had Phil Donahue. Fired him. We had Bill Maher. Took him off the TV. In the middle ages, the king extended a latitude to the jesters to say things no one else in the kingdom could say; the jesters could mock the kings. We need these jesters. We need people who will shock us with humor. They may misfire badly, as did Don Imus, but this should not be sufficient to remove them, unless they demonstrate a consistent pattern of frequent abuse and intolerance. Otherwise we are left with the professionals. These never questioned the war. The Rev. Al Sharpton may step forward as our conscience, but this has inherent difficulties. He is not a comic and cannot say the outrageous things Imus could say. Furthermore, he is black. Like it or not, this country would probably only accept a scourge who was white. Blacks are viewed as having an agenda: getting out of poverty, trying to keep the young men out of prison. At this point, I no longer watch TV in the mornings. Why, indeed, should I? I have no taste for infommercials. Since most of the TV fare is appalling, interspersed with endless commercials, we are thinking of reducing our commitment to mindless entertainment to an absolute minimum, or abolishing it altogether.