Imus Blames Financial Crisis on the Likes of Chris Wallace

Chris Wallace, host of Fox News Sunday, was feeling down this morning because the Washington Capitols—yes, the hockey team—were eliminated from the NHL playoffs last night. As we all know, the Imus could not care less about hockey.

“It’s a real man’s sport,” said Wallace. “What do you like, badminton?”

Because “real” men like Wallace list Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” as one of their five favorite songs. “I wanted a little bit of a spectrum, from Taylor Swift to Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto,” he protested, and asked if Imus had a problem with it.

“I have a problem with you,” the I-Man shot back.

Having resolved that issue, Imus and Wallace shared their favorite moments from Tuesday’s Goldman Sachs hearings, which were so sad that they became amusing.

Imus enjoyed watching Goldman CEO Lloyd “Duh” Blankfein stumble around for an answer to the question of why he released embarrassing, irrelevant e-mails written by his employee, “Fabulous” Fab Tourre, who also testified in front of Congress on Tuesday.

Wallace, however, picked up on something almost equally hilarious. Responding to a question from Senator Lindsay Graham about whether he or Goldman Sachs as a whole contributed to the country’s fiscal crisis, Goldman exec Daniel Sparks paused for a while before admitting he’d never thought about that.

But the customers who bought the so-called “exotic” instruments Goldman was offering should have known better, in Imus’s view. “What are we complaining about other than the fact that they were playing us all for suckers, and it was all our money, and it wound up costing millions of people their jobs, and their life savings, and their houses?” he asked. You know, other than that.

The selling of bad bundled mortgages by Goldman to sophisticated clients, and the subsequent shorting of those investments, became “a vicious cycle,” in Wallace’s opinion, and an incomprehensible one at that.

“I don’t think the average person understood if not how immoral, how amoral this whole process was,” he said. What everybody now understands is that the Goldman name is not the standard-bearer it once was. “People used to pay more to do business with Goldman Sachs because they thought it had like a ‘Good Housekeeping’ seal of approval.”

Imus then basically accused Wallace and others in the media of giving Wall Street a “free pass” in the late 1990s. “You guys in the news business were all preoccupied with whether one of the greatest presidents in the history of this country, Bill Clinton, was getting it on with the intern!” he observed.

Broken down and battered, Wallace meekly told Imus he’d interview New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (“my homeboy!” Imus exclaimed), and former Arizona Congressman J.D. Hayworth (“he’s a phony and a creep”) on Fox News Sunday this week.

Despite having unleashed a minor beating on his guest today, Imus sent Wallace off with this loving sentiment: “Who knew you would turn out to be one of our favorite guests?”

-Julie Kanfer