Like most people, cartoonists love to watch stars fall. This was the week to watch Don Imus fall, in a media frenzy that was tailor made for cartoonists. Imus looks like a cartoon character already; his ugly comment, calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy headed ho’s,” put Imus at the center of a media feeding frenzy, with characters on all sides who wanted to see him bleed.

Many cartoonists pointed out the hypocrisy of crucifying Imus for a comment that was no worse than what we hear in rap music, and no worse than other nasty comments by other, ugly media personalities. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson demanded that Imus be fired and used the media frenzy to put their faces in front of television cameras at every opportunity.

In the end, Imus was fired by both MSNBC and CBS, and he no longer has a place on radio or television. I don’t think this week’s Imus rumble will do much to make the media less coarse, and I won’t miss Imus, but I enjoyed the spectacle and it was great fun to draw the guy getting bashed and skewered by his own words.

Daryl Cagle is a political cartoonist and blogger for MSNBC.com. He is a past president of the National Cartoonists Society and his cartoons are syndicated to more than 800 newspapers, including the paper you are reading. His books “The BIG Book of Bush Cartoons” and “The Best Political Cartoons of the Year, 2005, 2006 and 2007 Editions,” are available in bookstores now.

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