is an employee. He did something to mightily offend his employer's clients. His employer has every right to fire him.

I own a business. I have fired employees for failing to speak and act in a manner consistent with my goals of client treatment. It is that simple.

"Imus' ultimate fate depends on the CBS Corp., which owns both the radio station WFAN-AM that is the host's broadcast home, and the syndicator Westwood One, which distributes "Imus in the Morning" to stations across the country.

CBS Radio, which has suspended Imus for two weeks without pay beginning next week, said it would 'continue to speak with all concerned parties and monitor the situation closely.'"

Imus still has a show.

He still has a broadcast home.

He still has a mational distributor,

He still has a healthy paycheck.

His radiothon raised a million dollars, SINCE this incident.

Mr. Imus does not have to flee the jurisdiction to avoid unfair prosecution.

He doesn't have to ask that the case against him be dropped because he was tortured in custody.

He doesn't even have to worry where tomorrow's car payment is coming from, and he's being quoted by the associated press, TODAY.

Mr. Imus is being heard.

Frankly, I haven't personally "heard" this much from Imus since I left New York.

He was simply dropped from MSNBC for conduct unbecoming their corporate image.

I work in the entertainment industry, and if I alienated my clients and behaved in a way that deeply offended my boss - even if he changed the rules in the middle of the game - I would EXPECT to be let go, with my constitutionally guaranteed free speech intact.

This is all that has happened to Mr. Imus: ONE of his many employers declined to continue to sponsor his speech.

Commercial, as in "relating to commerce." I've never listened to Imus, and never will, which makes this an interesting decision by MSNBC as what he said probably would not cause any significant percentage of his audience to change the channel.

What it does signify is that MSNBC is perceiving a significant amount of collateral damage to markets outside of Imus' sphere of influence. This is encouraging as hopefully this perception will lead to less commercial sponsorship of ignorant and intolerant speech (including demeaning rap music lyrics). But let's not kid ourselves: no meaningful change will happen if the execs think there is a market and money to be made.

As to the free speech "issues," Joan is right: it only protects the government intruding on your right to speak freely. It doesn't extend to someone's perceived guarantee to lucrative media deals. I'm not privy to the details, but I would imagine that if he had signed a contract, he breached one of its provisions. Otherwise, he's toast whenever one of his clients feels he's more of a liability than an asset.

I'm sorry, but the drive to remove all potentially offensive language from public discourse is offensive to me. Did Mr. Imus say something deplorable? Of course. Is he a racist? Probably; I doubt that it's possible for anyone in this society to honestly say they don't have a racist bone in their body, and anyone, black, white, or purple, who thinks otherwise is almost certainly self-delusional.

But Imus's stock in trade is being offensive, in a sophomorically humorous vein; he's not spewing hatred in the manner of an Ann Coulter or Michael Savage. He egregiously crossed a line here, and has been called to account for it.

But that's neither here nor there. As much as I'm appalled by the vile slime spewed by the likes of Coulter and Savage, I'll defend forever their right to spew. And compared to the likes of them, Imus is a milquetoast!

Do Mr. Imus's employers have the right to fire him, suspend him, or whatever else? Sure! But I'm sorry to see them do it solely in response to the forces of rabid political correctness.

What a dull world it'll be when no one can say anything potentially offensive in public, and all we're left with is the sanctimonious oatmeal of the Brian Williams and Katie Courics of the world.

Most of us who are comfortable with MSNBC's decision also defend offensiveness.

There's a homeless guy who works a freeway exit I frequent, and he occasionally rants about the government. I support his right not to be rousted from his street corner, but I don't think he has the RIGHT to a subsidized national radio platform.

If all of the offensiveness is scourged from public discourse, and 81% of tweens (or 54% of women 18-49 making over $60,000 dollars a year, or the guys who are responsible for the Spike network) commence to bitch loudly WITH OUR DOLLARS about all the Katie Courics littering the landscape, we'll get our Ann Coulters back.

You seem very reasonable, for which I'm grateful, but I hope you can understand how frustrating it can be to see people claiming that Don Imus has had his right to free speech violated.

It's frightening to me personally because the "slippery slope" argument is not only unfounded but actually shows a lack of understanding of the freedoms we DO enjoy in America.

In countries where journalists get shot for telling the truth about their governments, they might be amazed to learn that the right to free speech actually guarantees you the right to a cushy paid gig speaking to millions over the radio.

Personally, I've never seen our Constitution interpreted that way.

The point is not, of course, that Don Imus is prejudiced, homophobic and chauvinistic. It’s not even been a well kept secret that he is. For so many of us, stuck in the culture and legacy of America’s melting pot, where both fear and competition have taken their toll, the dark side of Imus’s style has often been a guilty pleasure amid this sometimes shameful “present” of Imus, from out our own kindred past.

The brightest side of Imus has been the brilliance of his intuitive understanding of the power centers of business and political interests, and how they affect the common man, how we both marvel and strain with it all. He has brought together the rich, the famous, the influential, the politicos, some intellectuals, even the religious, riveting together the best and worst in us, in what has been comedic, fascinating, and often, sadly, repulsive. And there has hardly been an exception to the irreverence he has brought to everything, people of every race, style and station. (Except kids with cancer, soldiers, etc.)

Some of us have bridled at the worst of Imus, while others have turned him off through the hard spots, endured him while waiting for the usually quick turning away from one dark side or another, laughing (or snickering!) either in agreement...or a kind of “letting go” that sometimes made us squirm to “see” our own resonance. That guilty pleasure thing. No doubt some of us are kin to the Imus darker side.

Or...it’s been that same guilty pleasure which so many, rightly, now in such great numbers, are excoriating, in outrage or denial, that it ever made us laugh, ashamed we did not complain by turning him off, or not returning. But Imus is a comedian and has made us laugh, for reasons often not prejudicial or homophobic, or racial or sexist. He’s been funny. And yes..he like us...is, and has been...bad.

Even so, we’ve both admired and envied Imus’s hauteur and the chronic displays of expensive clothes, homes, jets, cars - (even a much younger “trophy” wife!). Here was a reformed drunk and addict whose attractive insider status merged a kind of laid back and easy-to-take intellectualism, all wrapped up in a more or less authentic down home good-ol' boy style, often cynical, irreverent and changeable. So what if it was sometimes prejudiced, precious, “macho” chauvism?

Since “nappy hair ho’s”, it’s almost as though even as the time and tide of our collective impatience with prejudice, etc, and all the bad things Imus sometimes - (yet chronically) - tapped in upon have come to bear, that we have turned on the “King” in a kind of rebellion, both of observance and denial. Or is it payback? Is it payback for his “crimes”, even for his wealth and power, or is it payback for the shame we feel to have enjoyed it all so much?

Of course. Wrong is wrong. And right is right. It’s been so easy to see it now, in this moment, in a way that is undeniable, that his hapless “marks” have been kids this time, girls, heroic young athletes, innocents. I was watching that day, blinked in dismay, and once again, let it go by, as the silly old ravings of foolish old men, who had crossed that same old, same old line. I was not shocked...shocked. After a swallow, it went right down. I let it go by, waiting for something funny or interesting to happen.

Imus is now gone from tv. He who rose high, he who rose “rich”, he who “lorded” it over us in the rule breaking of his disdain for the evolving sensibility for empowerment and respect, both "'pc" and humane. No. No. We are not piling on in this moment of comtemptuous rebellion. We are shocked. Shocked. And righteous. We want payback. And punishment. No wonder Imus must have been early on confused, perhaps felt betrayed - now, “humiliated”; this has been a kind of coup-d’e-tat, where particularly the soul-less all-for-profit industries are abandoning him without a care for the show's artistry, led by a funny, irreverent, cynical, sometimes misanthropic, sometimes sweet, sometimes prejudiced man.

If there is punishment there must be a crime, and if there is a crime there is a victim. The young athletes, who are girls, who are mostly black. So how can we deny that Imus’s MSNBC firing is a good blow against what is wrong in favor of what is right, on behalf of the crime’s victims against an evil-doer? It will be a triumphant clarion call to the young women, regarding what they should expect in a politically correct and humane world. Even so, their encounter with Imus’s knee-jerk perfidy - (that yet if it is not evil than beyond the pale) - will set them to expect a world at least this “just”, as Imus’s MSNBC firing suggests. I hope that center will hold, but I doubt it. No. It is not enough, for the air waves, for offended people to be able to just turn the dial and turn “offenders” off. But Imus is not Father Coughlin, or simply a hate filled demagogue. He’s a comic. An artist. And it’s a sticky slope when one man’s prejudice may be another’s religion, habit, or comedic style. (How many ways into heaven are there, anyway?)

Even so, I hope still more patient heads will prevail

and let the Imus radio show continue. And I wish there will still be a place for Imus, on TV, too. I will miss him, if he’s no longer to be there, with his irreverence, foolishness, brilliance, in that amalgam of lively, fascinating guests, that in the measure of Imus, not only often are illuminating and beautiful, but as dumb and crass, sometimes, as foolish and cruel, as I am.

Lee

Simsbury, CT