Don Imus is an Asshole.

I'm relieved that journalist Jill Carroll, recently held hostage by a group of serious cowards in Iraq who clearly need to re-read their Quran and Hadith, has just been released (physically) unharmed.

As a condition of her release, Carroll was forced to make a propaganda video in which she said she had no issues with her captors and was treated well.

In a video, recorded before she was freed and posted by her captors on an Islamist Web site, Carroll spoke out against the U.S. military presence. But in a statement Saturday, she said the recording was made under threat. Her editor has said three men were pointing guns at her at the time.

Emphasis mine.

It took literally two seconds, as many other blogs have already noted, for the jack-offs of our society who dare to think themselves the more patriotic amongst us to start up with the misogyny and the racism.

It's easy to excuse this sort of thing coming from the knuckle draggers like the commenters at a certain certain blog I will not link to or name (rhymes with 'little green no-balls'). But mainstream shows like Imus In The Morning should hold themselves to a higher standard.

MCGUIRK: She strikes me as the kind of woman who would wear one of those suicide vests. You know, walk into the, try and sneak into the Green Zone.

IMUS: Oh, no. No, no, no, no.

MCCORD: Just because she always appears in traditional Arab garb and wearing a burka.

MCGUIRK: Yeah, what’s with the head gear? Take it off. Let’s see.

IMUS: No, no. This is not –

MCCORD: That’s why the Arab world called for her to be released, because, you know, she defended Iraqis. She was against the war in Iraq and, I wouldn’t be surprised if —

IMUS: Well, so are we. So am I!

MCCORD: Exactly. She cooked with them, lived with them.

IMUS: This is not helping.

MCGUIRK: She may be carrying Habib’s baby at this point.

[laughter]

Emphasis mine.

I can't imagine what it would be like to go through an ordeal like this, held at gunpoint, begging for your life, a crime victim for fuck's sake, only to be released into the snake pit of American insta-celebrity, where people feel free to say flat out that you were literally in bed with the men who psychologically abused you for weeks.

How dare they? That video could just as easily have ended with Carroll's decapitation. Urgh, this makes me so furious! If I were Jill Carroll I would sue that rich white motherfucker Don Imus for all he's worth.

Everybody should send him hate mail.

imus@msnbc.com

It would be nice if he at least apologized for the conduct of his producer and sidekick, and for his own seriously weak 'golly gee, don't say such things' statements.

Gah, sometimes people really piss me off.

Story originally found via Majikthise.