Mr. Lorraine Wallace Takes a Beating

Chris Wallace’s chat with Imus today was just shy of nine minutes long. Chances are it was the longest nine minutes of Wallace’s week.
 
As a result of a sentence Wallace claimed he neither wrote nor approved, the I-Man called into question not only his guest’s integrity, but his respect for his wife, and his loyalty to Imus.
 
Sensing trouble before knowing exactly what landmines lay ahead, Wallace expressed how delightful he and his wife Lorraine had found Imus just two days ago, when they joined him in studio to promote Lorraine’s book, Mr. Sunday’s Soups.
 
“You couldn’t have been nicer, you couldn’t have been more generous,” Wallace told Imus. “Because of your efforts, it is the number one cookbook in America on Amazon. And you’re about to turn it into something ugly. What would you do that?”
 
Partially because he can’t help himself, but mostly because the biography of Lorraine Wallace provided by the publisher of Mr. Sunday’s Soups is so offensive, Imus just can’t stand it.
 
The prose in question reads, “Lorraine Wallace is the wife of Chris Wallace, the anchor of the popular network show Fox News Sunday. Wallace also appears every Friday on Fox and Friends and does twenty-two "hits" every week on local TV and radio to promote his news show.”
 
Following Imus’s recitation of this sentence, Wallace said, “Well, that’s unfortunate, isn’t it?”
 
Also unfortunate: the inclusion of Imus in the Morning under the umbrella of one of 22 “hits” Wallace does every week, despite this show’s huge audience numbers and standing as a nationally televised radio and television program. As if to prove his status, Imus boasted that when he ran into Fox News head honcho Roger Ailes yesterday, Ailes complimented Imus on an interview with Glenn Beck earlier that morning.
 
“You are a broadcasting legend,” Wallace observed. “And you’re clinging to a chance encounter with the boss?”
 
To which Imus replied, “That’s all I’ve got, baby.”
 
Wallace offered no defense of Lorraine’s bio as it exists in the book’s publicity materials, so he endured another few minutes of Imus ranting about how the country music legend Hank Snow once rudely referred to his wife, in an award acceptance speech, as nothing but “Mrs. Hank Snow.”
 
Sadly, though probably not for Wallace, this week’s appearance drew to a close with nary a moment for him to promote Fox News Sunday. But, as Imus told his wayward guest, “You have 21 other shows you can do that on.”
 
-Julie Kanfer