Making news at the Newseum
Shock jock Don Imus brought his radio show to Washington for the first time in years Thursday morning … and he made sure to bring his explosive comments along with him.
When Imus’ sidekick Bernard McGuirk began to say that TV talkinghead Suze Orman wasn’t as attractive as some of her television counterparts, Imus interrupted him to state that “we don’t need to go down the path of insulting people.”
“We can say anything as long as they’re white,” said Imus. “We can beat the hell out of white people.”
Imus, of course, was referring to his own controversy last year, when both he and McGuirk made disparaging comments against the Rutgers University women’s basketball team, many of whom were African-American.
Imus’ sidekicks on stage with him at the Newseum for the live broadcast sensed another Imus controversy in the making.
“That’s so wrong,” responded another Imus sidekick, Karith Foster. “Uh-oh, here come the news trucks,” said newsman Charles McCord.
It’ll be easy for the journalists to jump on the remarks, said Imus. “After all, we’re already at the Newseum!”
But those weren’t the only fiery, sarcastic comments made by Imus & Co. during the four-hour broadcast.
Imus on the Newseum: “It’s a horrible idea. …The guy who runs it says hundreds of thousands of people come to see what all these Democrats did when they were supposed to be reporting the news.”
McGuirk on Sen. Barack Obama: “That tax crazy, infanticidal, socialist, terrorist appeaser…”
Imus on NBC’s Tom Brokaw: “That pretentious schmuck…” McGuirk on Brokaw: “Do they have Tom Brokaw’s spine in [the Newseum] anywhere? No one can find it.”
Imus on Sen. John McCain’s debate performance Wednesday: “Gramps just couldn’t get it done…”
Imus on President George W. Bush: “Stupider than this cup of coffee…”
Imus on CNN: “The most dreadful network ever.”
McGuirk on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow (a female, obviously): “That guy on MSNBC…”
Comedian Dick Gregory on McCain: “How can he be a hero if he got caught? John Wayne never got caught.”
McGuirk on CNN’s Larry King: “He gets angry all the time, like his diaper is full.”
But Imus perhaps saved his rawest joke for Vice President Dick Cheney, who entered the hospital Wednesday with heart complications.
“Oh, now he’s going to die…”
Even the always volatile McGuirk had to declare, “You can’t say that!”
