He Who Settles Last, Settles Best

If you happen to be strolling past CBS headquarters in Manhattan and you catch a fragrant and sweet scent, your olfactory nerves are not playing games with you. That there is Don Imus, coming out smelling like a rose.

Of course, you remember Imus, the 66-year-old deejay whose stupid, tasteless comments about the Rutgers womens basketball players led to loud-mouthed protests by Al Sharpton and others until the clamor became so loud that CBS Radio fired Imus. End of story, right? Ha.

Imus is not like you or me. If we made boorish, racist comments at work, we'd be out on our keesters, and properly so. Racial bigotry doesn't belong in the workplace. But over the public airwaves? That's a different story.

You see, not long before Imus made his dumb remarks, he signed a five-year, $40 million contract with CBS Radio. Part of the contract encouraged Imus to be controversial. To his way of thinking, he was only doing his job. Chances are, a jury would agree.

So he sued CBS for $120 million for breach of contract and, this week, reached a settlement. The terms are confidential, but that can't stop us from guessing. What do you think? Five million? Ten million? Twenty million? Chances are, he got at least a couple of million dollars for each offensive word he uttered.

OK, but at least we're rid of him, right? Good riddance. No one with a shred of dignity or self-respect would ever give Imus a job behind the microphone again. Not so fast. This is radio, after all, talk radio. It's the land of the freaks and the home of the ravers. And there's still room for good ol' Imus.

The word is that Imus is about to make his comeback on WABC-AM, which is home to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. So at least it's a good fit.

Posted by Barry Garron

Comments

[Anna]

Sharing studios with Limbaugh is a good idea. Apparently nothing you could say will get you thrown off the air there. But I will say that I find the image of Don Imus smelling like a rose a little hard to imagine. Pee-yew!