ST. LOUIS, Missouri (AP) — A St. Louis radio station quickly fired a talk show host for uttering a racial epithet as he talked about Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on his morning show Wednesday.
Dave Lenihan apologized on the air immediately after making what he said was a slip of the tongue. KTRS president and general manager Tim Dorsey agreed the remark was accidental but said it was nonetheless “unacceptable, reprehensible and unforgivable.”
Lenihan had been heaping praise on Rice, who has frequently said she aspires to run the NFL one day but has more recently ruled out seeking to replace retiring Commissioner Paul Tagliabue.
“She’s been chancellor of Stanford,” Lenihan said on the air. “She’s got the patent resume of somebody that has serious skill. She loves football. She’s African-American, which would kind of be a big coon. A big coon. Oh my God. I am totally, totally, totally, totally, totally sorry for that.”
He said he had meant to say “coup” instead of the racial slur.
KTRS listeners soon began calling the station to complain. Twenty minutes after the utterance, Dorsey went on the air to apologize to Rice and KTRS listeners.
“There can be no excuse for what was said,” Dorsey said. “Dave Lenihan has been let go. … There is enough hate. We certainly are not going to fan those flames.”
Fired? Is that really necessary? Does anyone think that Lenihan said “coon” because he’s some sort of closet bigot who wanted to disparage black people on the air? Did we impeach Bush I because he said “For seven and a half years I’ve worked alongside President Reagan. We’ve had triumphs. Made some mistakes. We’ve had some sex … uh… setbacks”?
I understand the desire of the radio station to distance itself from hatespeech, but a little application of common sense here is, I think, necessary. Lenihan’s dismissal may reinforce the station’s zero-tolerance policy with racism, but who are they trying to warn? The legions of disaffected racists jockeying for host positions? Look at the context of the remark, for chrissake: he was praising Rice to the sky, and said that because of her race, if she became commissioner of the NFL, it would be a “big coon.” That doesn’t even make any sense unless he meant to say “coup,” and misspeaking, while unfortunately, is hardly indicative of bigotry, nor is it a dismissal-worthy offense. Morons.