Imus Gets Leading Political Commentator to Resort to Begging

No, Jonathan Alter, Imus hasn’t yet read your book The Promise, about President Obama’s first year in office. But he has taken the initial steps that will allow him to maybe-someday-but-probbly-not browse the tome.

“I downloaded the Nook app on my iPad,” Imus reported. He was also successful in the crucial step of getting the app to actually work, downloading a book, and then reading a book. That book, however, was not The Promise, and Imus instructed Alter to calm down about the whole thing.

Despite Imus’s suggestion to the contrary, Alter, a political columnist for Newsweek, did not attend the Glenn Beck. While Imus thinks Beck is insane but sincere, Alter believes he’s nothing but “a very talented con man,” an view Imus tried to change. 

“Here’s a barometer I use to determine whether somebody’s legitimate or not: he has a great sense of humor,” Imus said of Beck. “I know some people—and I’m precluded by my contract from mentioning their names—who don’t have a sense of humor, and they’re pretty much jerks.”

Kind of like some of the people taking advantage of the controversy over whether to build a mosque and Muslim community center near Ground Zero in Manhattan. Alter is in favor of the project, but is not opposed to moving the mosque elsewhere, if possible. 

“People are not thinking with their heads screwed on right about this,” he said. “They should go back to where we were nine years ago.”

He commended President George W. Bush for trying to hammer home, in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, that Islam did not attack America; terrorists did. “To turn this into some sort of a confrontation with Islam—with a billion muslims around the world—is insane,” Alter said. 

This clash has kicked off something “pretty ugly,” in Alter’s view, leading people like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to say that the U.S. should not build any mosques at all until Saudi Arabia allows churches and synagogues to be built in their country.

“He’s a moron,” said Imus. “Plus, he’s really fat.”

Alter further observed a particular bias—gasp!—in the media pertaining to this story. General Petraeus and other top military commanders have warned the largely right-wing contingent stoking the anti-Muslim rhetoric that their actions and words could endanger U.S. troops overseas.

“If this were Democrats and Liberals…right-wing talk radio would be all over it,” Alter said. Instead, those spewing the hatred are “pretty much getting defended,” he said.

In an effort to convince Imus to actually read The Promise before his next appearance, Alter resorted to this line of reasoning: “Then you can tell me you hate it.”

Sad.

-Julie Kanfer