Imus Nation

The Rutgers women's basketball team makes the news by reaching the NCAA finals (and not for any of the scandalous reasons so common with sports teams these days); Don Imus makes a seriously derogatory remark about them, and triggers public protest.
Who gets the hatemail?

The Rutgers team! (from Don Imus's fans).Don Imus's wife had to appeal to fans not to send hate mail to the team.

This poisonous audience is sitting out there, and the corporate and political types will find another vehicle to cater to their low tastes.

Meanwhile, read this, with a 1995 criticism of the Imus show:

Late 'Daily News' Columnist Foretold Don Imus Conflict -- In 1995

"If you have never heard the Imus show, listen in. It is a cross between an endless infomercial and a bunch of 8-year-olds telling doo-doo jokes into a tape recorder. It is rescued only by increasingly rare moments of inspired, hilarious brilliance.

Tune in any morning and you'll hear Imus or one of his sidekicks joking about having "lipstick on the dipstick" and much worse. This is nationwide morning radio.

Lieberman worries, on the Senate floor, that the increasing vulgarity of network TV "is lowering the standards of what we accept on television, particularly in what used to be family programing hours."

But he's talking out of both sides of his mouth. This week's moments of supposed humor on Imus, broadcast at an hour when children are rising for school, included a reference to Attorney General Janet Reno in crotchless pantyhose, an interview with Screw Magazine's Al Goldstein and a drunken woman saying "s---" over the air. Teehee."