ABC News: Imus Producer Angry at Firing

ABC News: Imus Producer Angry at Firing

The former producer for the Don Imus show was talking about the end of the show and his job on Hannity and Colmes. On the Fox News channel show, Bernard McGuirk called Al Sharpton, a terrorist for his role in leading the charge.

While admitting that the statements that were made by himself and Imus were wrong, he expressed that it would be dangerious to have a society where we cannot poke fun at each other. The nature of the language involved in the dialogue clearly goes beyond the level of poking fun though in my opinion.

"It seemed like he terrorized broadcast executives," he said. "It seemed like they were in a fetal position under their desks sucking their thumbs on their Blackberrys, trying to coordinate their response."

While I agree with his statements about Sharpton, it is not reasonable to say that calling someone a "ho", even if it is not a racial slur, should be a joke. He goes on to complain about crossing the line, when he did not know where the line was. This is something that comes with freedom of speech, in a controlled environment it is easy to know what it allowed and what isn't. In a society like ours with changing standards it is possible that what is said one day, and accepted won't be the next. I think this means as a society we should extend a little patience and understanding to those who are willing accept their mistakes.