Now that Don Imus has lost his radio show, he won’t have to face additional criticism for reporting the death of Don Ho.
There really isn’t much more I could add on Imus’s comments since the best columns are here and here. I didn’t plan on writing about Imus until I read the original blogger for Wonkette.com Ana Marie Cox’s column in Time magazine last week. The article, “An Imus Guest Says No More” was written before CBS ended Imus’s contract. Cox first recalled her initiation into Imus’s circle, “Every time I've been on Don Imus' show, he has reminded listeners that he ‘discovered’ me. It's not exactly hyperbole. He first invited me on when I was just a foulmouthed blogger who ran the gossipy political site Wonkette.”
She told Time readers, “As the invites kept coming, I found myself succumbing to the clubhouse mentality that Imus both inspires and cultivates. Sure, I cringed at his and his crew's race-baiting (the Ray Nagin impersonations, the Obama jokes) and at the casual locker-room misogyny (Hillary Clinton's a ‘b****,’ CNN news anchor Paula Zahn is a ‘wrinkled old prune’), but I told myself that going on the show meant something beyond inflating my precious ego.”
For those that don’t know, Wonkette is basically Washington, DC’s raunchier version of Star magazine, like a political PerezHilton.com. Ana Marie Cox, who began writing as Wonkette in 2003, infamously broke the story of former congressional staffer Jessica Cutler’s blog about her sexual conquests. When Cutler talked about her, um, relationship with a Republican chief of staff, Cox posted all the pictures she could find of Republican and male chiefs of staff.
As a regular Wonkette reader, you can imagine my surprise upon reading about Cox’s newfound modesty. She ends her pathetic attempt to insert herself into last week’s scandal with this, “…He and his gang proceeded to discuss my ‘creamy’ skin and compliment my nice pair of ... ‘eyes.’ I later asked the producer to remind him that as far as I knew, my father was listening.” Did she ever let her father read her own website? Was this incident with Imus before or after she and Cutler met up at the Four Seasons and she thought it would be fun for readers if they got drunk, made out and took pictures of their escapades? There’s a word for these girls. It’s on the tip of my tongue…
At the South by Southwest Interactive Conference, Cox told the crowd that Wonkette is her alter-ego. “Wonkette is, to the extent that there’s a difference between me and the character on the blog, meaner. Also more obsessed with a**-****ing than I am. Ask my husband.” The site posting the transcript cautions its readers this was their “first non-family friendly post.”
Cox became a media darling for her raunchy writing and contempt for conservatives, especially conservative women. In 2004, MTV brought her on as a special correspondent during the Democratic National Convention. Her 2006 novel, Dog Days, sold a dismal 5,000 copies according to Nielson’s Bookscan, despite two New York Times reviews, as well as profiles and reviews in The Washington Post, USA Today, People and The Village Voice. Six months after her book bombed, Time magazine then hired her to be their Washington editor. Liberals love to reward failure, be it with our tax dollars or their leaders.
There’s another double standard that’s not being discussed. Cox (and the current Wonkette bloggers) never hesitate to make crude, politically and factually incorrect comments about women. If she (or any woman) would have said “nappy-headed hos” it would be called catty not racist. Or gossipy instead of sexist.
Conservative women like Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Katherine Harris and Michele Bachman have been insulted in the same vein by Wonkette. A picture of Ann Coulter speaking is captioned on Wonkette.com, “Nothin’ but Diet Coke, nicotine, and blow in her system.” A Wonkette “operative” asks if Michelle Malkin will be doing a sexual trick on her videoblog. Katherine Harris’s physical attributes (her “eyes” as Imus calls them) are discussed and she is called a “street whore.”
On the President, Wonkette writes, “We didn't accuse George Bush of being gay because he holds his hand in a ‘nelly way.’ We accused him of being gay because he likes ****.” And I’m supposed to believe this woman blushed when a couple old guys complimented her looks? Even Cox’s personal blog, anamariecox.com is peppered with the same sort of language. I don’t pretend to be offended by Wonkette because it’s convenient for this article. Cox shouldn’t pretend to be offended by the same language and “locker-room misogyny” that brought her into the elite media’s inner circle.
Don Imus’s critics complained that his supporters, including CBS and MSNBC up until a week ago, enabled his foulmouthed behavior because he brought in listeners and commercial dollars. The foulmouthed Ana Marie Cox doesn’t sell books and probably hasn’t sold any additional Time subscriptions. What does that say about her enablers?
