CBS Fires Imus

The ongoing saga of Don Imus has moved to the next level, with CBS President and CEO Les Moonves announcing in a company memo that the Imus In The Morning radio show has been terminated.

The long memo showed that CBS was duly repulsed and distressed by the statement that had been made against the Rutgers Womens Basketball team. And Moonves indicated that there had been copious emails, phone calls and discussions among CBS colleagues across the Corporation and other constituencies.

It was also curious to note that Moonves acknowledged that Imus had been allowed to flourish in a medium that allows a certain amount of objectionable content, and that he hoped CBS was taking a positive step to being instrumental in changing that culture.

Moonves ended by say that at the end of the day, the integrity of the Company and the respect that people feel for CBS becomes the most important consideration.

It came as no surprise to Don Imus who had intimated on his radio show Thursday morning that his days of his 30-year career were probably numbered and he called the media "hypocritical" in its coverage of the controversy. While at the same time Imus remained combative, also saying he had "apologized enough" to the public for his mistake and that he only now wants to apologize in person to the team he ridiculed.

Meanwhile on the other side of the issue, it looks like Senator Hillary Clinton will get a mileage boost out of the controversy. On Monday April 16th she will be speaking at Rutgers Eagleton Institute of Politics. Wednesday, in a mass mailing, Clinton called Imus on the carpet for "small-minded bigotry and coarse sexism."

Aside from her political boost with women, Clinton's personal motive in taking on Imus probably had a lot to do with the fact that he constantly attacked her on the air, and even referring to her often as "satan" or the "devil."

The Rev. Al Sharpton also met with the CBS executives to demand Imus' ouster.

Thursday night, in the New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine's mansion near Princeton, the Rutgers Womens Basketball team met with Don Imus. The meeting went on for three hours and ended around 10:45 PM. It was classified as "very intense" in a text message sent to an AP reporter.

Governor Corzine was returning to the mansion from Atlantic City for the meeting when he was involved in a car accident that required him to be flown to Cooper University Hospital to undergo surgery for a broken left leg and several broken ribs.

Another casualty of the controversy is the book tour for Dierdre Imus. Simon & Schuster, also a CBS unit and the publisher of her book, said on Thursday an author tour to back "Green This! Volume 1: Greening Your Cleaning" was postponed.