Ever since long-time radio talker Don Imus inked a deal with the Fox Business Network to simulcast his morning radio program, he said he has been getting pushback from several acquaintances.
And as he explained and showed on his Oct. 28 program, he's not particularly pleased with the reaction about his deal with Fox News.
"I get this email and the e-mail says, ‘Sorry to see you've sold out to Fox Business, or whatever. But I am not surprised you sold out to Fox Business, disappointed.' Could you explain to me exactly what does that mean? When you walk in the door here, Roger Ailes or Neil Cavuto or what's the other fat guy's name? Kevin McGee? Not the other fat guy, that was unfortunate."
He explained that the conjecture from some in the mainstream that Fox News is somehow an arm of a political movement with contrived guests is incorrect.
"You think they say to you, ‘OK, you can have these guests on, you can't have these guests on? You have to think this?'" Imus said. "What are you nuts? I mean, who thinks that?"
However, he ramped up his attack on one Fox News critic, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. In a few of her previous columns, Dowd has attacked Fox News for things said on two of Fox's highly rated opinion programs - Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, failing to differentiate them between the actual news on Fox.
"Then I have to read this idiot, and she's is a friend of mine, too, Maureen Dowd," Imus said. "She takes an idiotic shot at Fox News, talking about things that Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck may say about the President. Well, those are opinion programs. That is not Fox News. Just a gratuitous, stupid shot. ... And by the [way], Maureen is getting long in the tooth to be referring to girlfriends, OK sweetheart?" Imus continued. "Coming up on 60 years old, they are not going to the mall."
He also pointed out the double standard when it comes to criticizing Fox News versus their competitors, CNN and MSNBC.
"I don't want to hear about Fox News," Imus said. "Nobody says anything about CNN or MSNBC. They have opinion programs and they have news. The news is pretty good on both of them, and it's pretty good on Fox."
But one comment Imus made, and has been said by other Fox commentators, is that the President has managed to dedicate resources to taking on Fox News, but has been vague on how he plans to handle the war in Afghanistan.
"Because the President is a whiny little titty baby and a girly man and doesn't have enough guts to figure out what to do in Afghanistan, he's going to take on, what - Fox News and get his ass kicked there?" Imus said. "There has got to be some reason that Fox has 10 times as many listeners that all of them. Somebody must think it is news."
