Bog-trotting Paddy producer cries in his ale

Don Imus' shanty-Irish producer has dragged his mackerel-snapping arse off his barstool long enough to cry in his figurative beer -- as opposed to his real one back at the pub he crawled from -- about getting canned along with Imus for using racist and sexist slurs against the Rutgers women's basketball team.

In addition to "hos," I do believe Bernard McGuirk used the word "jigaboos" to describe the team. But what do you expect from a stupid Mick, you know?

According to The Associated Press, here's what Paddy O'Dumbass said on Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes show:

McGuirk, in an interview on Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes," said he "didn't get the memo" that the phrase 'hos' had reached the level of the n-word in offensiveness. But apologies to the Rutgers team were appropriate, he said.

But McGuirk said he and Imus had engaged in the same locker-room humor for many years, and received pats on the back and raises from their superiors before CBS Radio fired them this time.

He sharply criticized the Rev. Al Sharpton, who led the campaign to get them fired.
"It seemed like he terrorized broadcast executives," he said. "It seemed like they were in a fetal position under their desks sucking their thumbs on their Blackberrys, trying to coordinate their response."

The concept of "crossing the line" is hard to understand when it's not clear where the line is, he said.

OK, LET'S GRANT McGuirk what he says about the broadcast execs being craven hypocrites, Sharpton being a publicity-loving race-baiter and no one knowing where "The Line" is on any given day.

But like everybody's mother or teacher (or both) has lectured a million times, "I don't care what (fill in the blank) did. I care about what YOU did."

And what Imus and McGuirk did for far too long was to act like a couple of horse's asses, slurring innocent people for kicks and giggles. Which they got away with.

Until they got their comeuppance.

What goes around, and all that rot.

AND SPEAKING OF "THE LINE" McGuirk couldn't find until he and Imus crossed it . . . I'll bet he'd think I crossed it pretty good by using every Irish stereotype and slur I could fit into a short blog post. I think I crossed it pretty good, too.

In fact, if I were McGuirk, I'd want to knock my block off. God knows, I'd have some justification in doing so.

The question is, how would what I just did to Bernard McGuirk be any different from what he and Don Imus did for a living? On the public airwaves. Just like any number of other "shock jocks" on the air from Maine to Malibu.

That the jerk McGuirk and his pal Imus were egged on by amoral and spineless radio execs means nothing, except that we're overdue for another Day of Reckoning. And when that Electromagnetic Enema of the Airwaves takes place, God willing, it will be every bit as deserved as the one just administered.