Ebony & Ivory: Abortion, Pirates, Guns, and Smoking

Though he works with them every single day and has known them for years, Imus kicked off today’s Ebony & Ivory segment by asking participants Rob Bartlett and Tony Powell where they stand on issues ranging from abortion and the death penalty to which Imus in the Morning business news anchor they prefer. Heady stuff.
 
So, for the record: Tony is pro-choice, anti-death penalty, and Rob is kind of wishy-washy on both. “I struggle with it,” he admitted. After a few moments hashing it out with Imus (or Imus chastising him for being a p-word), Rob finally concluded, “I’m for killing everybody, starting with you.”
 
Rob is also in favor of killing pirates in the Indian Ocean, particularly the ones who recently hijacked a yacht, held the four Americans aboard captive, and eventually murdered them. Tony was decidedly less sympathetic toward the boaters, who, lest we forget, are all now dead.
 
“I’m pretty sure when you’re on a boat, you have a map—you can circle in a big red pen where the pirates are, and avoid that area,” Tony said. “That we have our military standing out there trying to defend everybody who’s decided they want to sail where the pirates are is stupid.”
 
He insisted he’s not blaming the victim, only applying common sense. “I don’t walk into traffic, because I know I might get hit by a car,” he added.
 
More importantly, if Tony or Rob had their own hypothetical television or radio show, would they choose Connell McShane or Dagen McDowell? (To do what, exactly, remains unclear.)
 
Rob: “Dagen.”
 
Tony: “Connell.”
 
Lou: “What is the point of this question?”
 
Imus: “To cause trouble.”
 
Having established basically nothing except that Imus is a pain in the butt, Rob and Tony addressed the issue of whether students should be allowed to carry guns on college campuses, something Texas is on the verge of legalizing.
 
“We’ve lost the battle for gun control,” Rob said. “It’s over, it’s over, it’s over. So everybody should have guns.”
 
A former teacher, Tony had a different opinion. “The last thing I’d want to know is that my student has a gun in the classroom,” he said. To Bernard’s point that guns in the classroom would allow the good guys to shoot the lunatics, Tony said, “So then the cops see two guys with guns, and shoot them both?”
 
Before Imus shot himself just to end this portion of the show, he asked Rob and Tony their thoughts on Mayor Michael Bloomberg outlawing smoking in public spaces around New York City. Rob suggested smokers invent “smoke-a-toriums,” places they can gather and smoke to their hearts delight (or failure). Tony, however, isn’t too worried about anybody challenging the measure’s legality.
 
“What are they going to do, have a march?” he said. “That would be the shortest march on the planet, because they’re all smokers.”
 
Smoke this.
 
-Julie Kanfer