By now, most people have a vague notion of who Don Imus is. That awareness seems odd, because for most of his career, Don Imus was an obscure figure within broadcasting. In many ways, he was a pioneer of the “shock jock” style of radio that gave birth to Howard Stern and so many copycats. But oddly enough, Imus sought to shake the “shock jock” tag by going legit a few years ago. By inviting politicians and journalists onto his program, he began to blur the line between entertainment and serious political discourse, which is precisely what so many media outlets aim for these days, from Katie Couric to the View to most of the hosts on talk radio today.

The problem that Imus has, which seems to have ultimately done him in this week, is that he wants to have it both ways when it comes to his reputation. On one hand, he wants to be seen as the straight-talking, crusty old broadcaster who can hold his own with the pols, pundits, and scribes who drop by his show. But on the other hand, he still wants the luxury of making crass and crude comments when the mood strikes him. Is Imus a racist? Maybe, but he’s more likely just a 66 year-old white guy who has very little sense of what’s going on in the world anymore. The times have passed him by. His world consists of a plush upper West Side apartment and a sprawling New Mexico ranch. He no longer understands what most people will tolerate when it comes to humor. Should he have been fired? Probably not. In my free market view of the world, the people who don’t like Don Imus have already voted by not listening to him. His audience on MSNBC and on Westwood One radio was relatively small in relation to most of the talk radio heavyweights like Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern, and others. Imus is the kind of guy who can be ignored often enough that you will think he’s gone away, even if he hasn’t.

On the flip-side, guys like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton never seem to go away, no matter how hard you try to ignore them. Here are two men who have never been elected to any office, yet they claim to represent the interests of millions of black Americans. There are also two ment who have made their careers through corporate blackmail and white guilt. By coercing sponsors of Don Imus’s show to pull their advertising dollars, they effectively got him fired. Now, if those sponsors had stood strong, what consequences would they have suffered? Do Jackson and Sharpton control enought people that they could really effectively boycott any company?  Jackson can threated that, certainly, but if I’m General Motors or Proctor & Gamble am I really afraid of the small impact that a boycott headed by Jesse Jackson might have on my bottom line? Probably not. However, the appearance of being a racist for being on the other end of dispute with Jesse Jackson seems to be enough to frighten corporations into submission. That should provide a chilling effect on American free speech.

What good is the First Amendment if guys like Sharpton and Jackson possess the power to silence anyone who might disagree with them — racist or not? I hope that Don Imus returns to the airwaves very soon. He certainly has more name recognition today than he did a week ago. And in this business, that’s all that counts.