The Illuminated Donkey

Celia Farber: Don Imus attacked you as well?

Bernard Goldberg: Oh yeah. I’ve done 400 radio programs and he was by far the worst. By far. And yet he told me on the air that he agrees with my premise.

CF: Why the animosity then?

BG: Because he’s friends with Dan Rather and he’s friends with Bob Schiefer and he has these other people on. You see, Don Imus is really the anti-Imus. Don Imus presents himself as the tough guy who takes no prisoners. But he’s a pansy. He’s a semi-senile pansy. And what I mean by pansy is…because he’s got these friends who come on, almost every one of them who kisses ass shamelessly on the air, he’s going to take off after me to show them what a good guy he is.

CF: What was your gut reaction to the Koppel-Letterman shakeup?

BG: Do you have the Barbara Walters quote? She said that journalists deserve more respect. Is that something like what she said?

CF: Yeah.

BG: She ought to think about that the next time she decides to interview Anne Heche and ask her whether she’s crazy, and about her sex life with Ellen DeGeneres. Part of the reason journalists don’t have respect is because of what Barbara Walters does for a living.