James Kirchick: CBS almost replaced a bigot with a plagiarist

Say what you will about Don Imus. He let loose a string of bigoted comments over his nearly four decades in radio. But, at the very least, he never plagiarized other people’s work or invented stories out of whole cloth. The same cannot be said of the man who almost replaced him.

Up until the last minute, CBS radio executives were planning on hiring Mike Barnicle — MSNBC commentator and Boston-area radio host — as a temporary, and perhaps permanent, replacement for Imus. But Barnicle isno stranger to the racist blather that filled the Imus show.