Liberals, Don Imus, and the Chocolate Jesus

I'm trying to find a way to relate the Don Imus story with the chocolate Jesus flap from last week.

The reason, of course, is that different groups of people are protesting Don Imus's "nappy-headed ho" comment from the groups of people protesting the chocolate Jesus.

So far, I haven't heard that Don Imus has received any death threats, although the HuffPo commenters have been really quiet. Which is an improvement over the nuts who threatened the chocolate Jesus artist.

But the nutroots are calling for Imus to get fired for saying something not so different from the things he says every day. I'm not going to say that no one should be upset at Imus--or at the chocolate Jesus, for that matter.

I just find it interesting what will get different groups of people exercised. One group protests artwork that they feel denegrates their religion. The other side sneers at them for this.

Then that group gets incensed that a shock jock, who's made a living for 20 years out of being offensive, says something offensive. Now that side wants his head--figuratively speaking, of course. I haven't seen anybody really defending Imus. How can you?

I guess the main thing I see out of this is good ol' American free speech at work again. For the people who complain about protesters and shouting matches, such displays are annoying. But to me, both just illustrate that freedom of speech is the right to protest the thing that offends you.