News Munchies
Ink by the Barrel
Originally Posted
Updated
We've all heard it: Never get into an argument with someone who buys ink by the barrel. You can't win, and it pisses off the pig ... Oh, wrong joke. [Never heard it? Contact us.]
Likewise, don't "tick off" or argue with someone who has the attention of millions of loyal listeners (WFAN and a nationwide radio network) and viewers (MSNBC) for several hours each weekday morning and who both controls the microphone and is surrounded by a handful of sycophants. (And, for balance, a couple of staffers who regularly tell the host what an idiot he is.)
That would be broadcast superstar Don Imus. His show, "Imus in the Morning," features prominent guests, along with, as his on-line bio puts it, "guests few have heard of and fewer still could give a rat’s ass about." Imus is opinionated and wonderfully acerbic, in the mold of Andy Rooney or our own Chief Curmudgeon, Rich Barger.
Anyway, it seems Stu Leonard's Dairy Stores and Superstores won't carry Imus-branded products, the profits from which go to support the Imus Ranch for kids with cancer.
As the I-Man talked about this today, he got more and more worked up. One of his staff members finally mentioned that Stu Leonard Jr. had said his chain would never carry "Imus anything," because Imus had called Leonard's father a crook.
Yee-ha! Imus was all over this. Said he called the old man a crook, "because he was!"
Newscaster and setup man Charles McCord started an enumeration of all the tax-related crimes the elder Leonard had served time for, calling each, one after another, "no big deal." The list droned on and on, and "no big deal" grew funnier and funnier. And, of course, it became more and more obvious that Stu Leonard Sr. was, indeed, a convicted crook (U.S. v. Leonard, 37F3D32 [1994]).
Jailed in 1994!
Here, 10 years later, Imus, with the power of the media and the microphone and pretty good writers, once again dragged Leonard Senior through the mud, emphatically making the point that the media will, by golly, perpetuate an argument when they choose to do so and that they will have the last word.
And there's not a damn thing you, or Stu Leonard, or anyone else can do about it.
At least Leonard was ridiculed by one of the best.