He Meant “Kook”
A KTRS radio personality was fired after he used the word “coon” while discussing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during his morning show today:
Dave Lenihan was dismissed after what he called an inadvertent slip of the tongue. Within 20 minutes, station CEO Tim Dorsey apologized on the air to listeners and announced that Lenihan, who had been with the station for less than two weeks, had been let go.
Lenihan immediately corrected his Freudian slip and apologized; however, he was summarily dismissed.
I don’t know anything about Lenihan, but it’s hard for me to imagine that this morning’s live radio broadcast was the first time that particular epithet left his lips.
As I mentioned yesterday morning, KTRS is the new radio home of the St. Louis Cardinals, who hold a fifty-percent stake in the station.
UPDATE: In a Post-Dispatch interview, Lenihan claimed he’s never uttered the word before yesterday and its use on the air was a mere slip of the tongue:
“I’ve never, ever really used that word in my life. Maybe psychologically-wise deep down perhaps, but it’s not how I feel,” Lenihan said. “It’s not how I raised my kids. It’s kind of wrecked my life to be honest.”
Lenihan described himself as a Rice supporter, and said he has already written an apology to her.
“I’m a big fan. I’m a conservative talk-show host,” said Lenihan “Or, was a conservative talk-show host.”
Lenihan said that he intended to use the word “coup.”
His puzzling “maybe psychologically-wise deep down” remark notwithstanding, I’m willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt; however, I’m not sure that the world needed another “conservative talk-show host,” anyway.
UPDATE II: This story has apparently become today’s water cooler buzz. We’re getting a lot of traffic (due to a high ranking at search.msn.com), and CNN has now picked up the story with an article which, incidentally, bears one of the most awkwardly punctuated headlines in the history of journalism. It’s amazing how these topics now percolate through the e-culture.
UPDATE III: Although we enjoyed, curiously, two days at the number one spot in MSN’s rankings, MSN’s link to this little bloggy blog for discussion of Lenihan’s “permit me to tell you about a black person whom I admire” bit is now buried under various links to real news outlets. Alas, poor MOsanthrope! I knew him, MSN….
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