I used to watch the McLaughlin Group every Sunday morning. As I was putting my hours of Lamaz training to practice upon the approach of fatherhood, I turned the hospital room TV to the Public Television channel and listened to Fred Barnes over my wife's disciplined breathing. Don't think that will ever be forgotten.
Those years did not make me an admirer of Eleanor Clift, but she has managed to say something interesting about the Imus story. I have made the point that the Imus show was a venue where Democrats could reach a lot of otherwise unreachable white males. But maybe that isn't a valuable market anymore.
The swiftness of the corporate reaction says something about the velocity of today’s new media combined with the power of race. Imus’s comment about the women basketball players offered a peek into how at least some of white America thinks, and it’s not pretty. But white men of a certain age are getting to be a minority, and if you’re an advertiser looking at brand identity and bottom line, white men are not a growth industry. That’s the American Way--the power of the marketplace. Imus committed a double whammy. He offended women and people of color, and that’s a whole lot of Americans.
I am not sure that Don Imus represents how anyone thinks except Don Imus. But Ms. Clift is probably onto something. Like "married with children," white males "of a certain age" Democrats long ago moved off of their top target list. If market forces are following in hot pursuit, well, that just shows how shrewd the Dems were.
Still, white males represent "a whole lot of Americans" too. It's nice to know with whom we don't count anymore.
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