This isn't about Imus

Imus is gone. CBS fired him yesterday, making him now unemployed, since MSNBC sacked him earlier this week. But the truth is, this controversy is not truly about Don Imus and his comments.

Since the beginning of this controversy, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have been paraded across America by the mainstream media, condemning Imus and stirring people up against Don Imus. But yesterday, the true agenda behind this came out.

Let's be fair to Imus. What he said was wrong. He's admitted it was wrong. But if he deserved to be fired, it shouldn't have been over this, because let's face it: Imus has been saying things more offensive than this for a long time. If Imus deserved to lose his job for being offensive, CBS should have given him a pink slip back in the '80s. But this isn't about Imus, it's about starting a wildfire that will sweep across the nation. The only question is who will get burned.

Jackson and Sharpton have been out in the media saying that Imus is just the beginning. The leftist media is encouraging them to start a witch-hunt against conservative talk radio. Keith Olbermann is even making a list of all of the conservative talk radio hosts that he wants sacked, complete with outrageous & out-of-context quotes.

If this incident, which is shaping into the beginnings of a crusade, were to take a positive track, it would turn toward the rap music industry, wherein things many times worse than what Imus said are thrust into our society through television and radio on an hourly basis (and CBS, who canned Imus, is part of the parent company of MTV, who airs that trash).

But the leftists in America, particularly in the media, are trying to push the debate away from trashy rap music and into conservative talk radio. To them, conservatism itself is offensive, and on that basis alone, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Jerry Doyle, and Bill O'Riley should all be fired. And with the way this "debate" is taking place, all it takes is someone sitting by his radio, recording every show, looking for any quote that can be taken out of context, twisted, and exploited, and Jackson and Sharpton could very easily whip the ignorant masses into a frenzy and shut conservative talk radio down (besides, if Jackson & Sharpton's own standards would be applied to them, their own anti-Semitic comments would have them rendered irrelevant in no time at all).

The truth is that this is a crusade against free speech. Conservatives have a huge platform in talk radio - a platform that liberals have been unable to stand on commercially. They have most of television and print media, but liberal saturation of part of the media isn't enough for them - they also have to shut their opponents down. That is what this incident is truly about.