Imus Gets Stuck Between a Rock and a Blonde Place
If Blonde on Blonde is a form of family therapy, as Lis Wiehl proposed today, then this is one dysfunctional friggin’ family.
And in that way, it’s not much different from the country as a whole, particularly in light of the return of former President George W. Bush, whose book Decision Points was published this week.
Lis, a liberal weenie (minus the weenie), was surprisingly happy to hear from Bush. “Every president has a right, and really the duty, to write a book,” she said, adding that she wants to know why Bush entered the U.S. into two wars and why he consented to waterboarding terrorism suspects, among other controversial decisions.
“Then he can go away,” Deirdre Imus chimed in. “After that.”
Admittedly a supporter of waterboarding (“it’s okay in certain circumstances”), Deirdre ignored her husband’s point that statistics have shown torture to be an unreliable means of obtaining information.
An attorney, Lis came down on the other side of the debate, chastising Bush for using a harsh interrogation tactic that provokes detainees to say anything that will get them out of being tortured.
Imus’s position was, um, somewhere in the middle. “Would either one of you be willing to admit that, barring anything else, at least it’s fun?” he asked the Blondes.
Already wading into treacherous water, Imus practically drowned himself by insinuating that the four women heads of state that will grace the G20 economic summit later this week are, like all women, woefully uninformed on economic matters.
“Women are the consumers,” Deirdre declared, noting that when prices change “we feel it first.” Then, to prove her point that men are out of touch with the market, she asked her husband what a carton of coconut milk costs. His answer? $3.79.
“That’s probably close,” Deirdre admitted in defeat.
Lis noted the hypocrisy of Imus even joking about women’s lack of economic knowledge, and wondered why anybody would question the competency of these female leaders from Germany, Australia, Brazil, and Argentina. “Would they ask that about men?” she asked.
Finally finding common ground, Deirdre observed that President Obama ain’t handling the economy so wonderfully right now. “He knows nothing,” she said. “And none of these men on Wall Street have done anything. All these people are men—aren’t they, Mr. Imus?”
Stuck between a rock and two blondes, Imus conceded he had only been trying to rile them up.
It’s a better alternative to, say, beating them up, something one in four women experiences at the hands of their significant other. Though Imus suggested those women get a gun and shoot the men who abuse them, Deirdre had a better idea.
“Waterboard them!” she cried, and stayed as emphatic when her husband broached the next topic: San Francisco’s proposed measure to ban McDonalds from offering “happy meals” because of the obesity epidemic in this country.
“I am so for this,” Deirdre said. Besides offering children plastic toys filled with toxins, she observed, happy “meals” offer food that is full of chemicals itself.
Lis, on the other hand, views happy meals as “a“rite of passage.” And even if she didn’t, a city ordinance banning them would be unconstitutional. “McDonalds has a First Amendment right to market, and you can’t target one corporation over another corporation,” she said.
From here, they went on to fight about Dominos, then dairy farmers, then cheese itself, until Imus finally took charge the only way he knows how: cutting to commercial.
-Julie Kanfer
Reader Comments (1)
Lis Wiehl said one out of twenty is twenty percent. This was said to represent female math skills. Then again not one male on the show challenged that.