Funny, No Laughter For Radio Shock-Jock

With President and Hillary Rodham Clinton squirming in stony silence a few feet away on the dais at the Washington Hilton Thursday night, radio shock jock Don Imus made jokes about Clinton’s alleged extramarital affairs, his wife’s alleged financial misdeeds, Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey’s “wooden leg,” television appeals for starving children, people who suffer from obesity, the homosexuality of House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s half sister and other matters way too tasteless to mention in a family newspaper.

Funny? Well, there were moments when the 3,000-strong audience at the 52nd annual Radio & Television Correspondents’ Association Dinner made barely a sound, except for a halfhearted boo or an occasional whimper.

As the “I-Man,” as he insists on calling himself, went on and on, and on, cracking wise about the speech impediments and deeply personal marital difficulties of real people in the room - for the edification of, among others, a nationwide C-SPAN television audience it was as though he were spraying abuse like a terrorist with an Uzi.

The Secret Service stood mutely by, instead of doing the right thing and wrestling Imus to the floor. So he laid waste the room.

Before the “festivities,” a reporter jokingly asked the first lady, who actually seemed to be enjoying herself, whether it was dinners like these that make public life worthwhile.

Mrs. Clinton threw her head back and laughed.

“Ask me a year from now,” she said.

She probably could have given her definitive answer sooner than that.