Imus is the same. He's wacky and off-color, but once you've listened to him over the course of several weeks you really get a sense of just how much of what he says is really just tongue-in-cheek nonsense. A good indicator of this is the borderline abusive treatment he gets from some of his own regular guests ("Is that your wife or your daughter, Don?" ... "Are we going to hear about your prostate cancer again, Don? I don't need to hear about your urinary tract defects." ... "You look like Rose Kennedy wearing a cowboy hat." ... etc., etc.).
If nothing else, it's worth noting that even though he doesn't have the best ratings in the radio business, he has commanded incredibly high advertising rates for his radio show over the years. This is because his typical listeners tend to be in very high income brackets, and they listen to him while commuting to work in the morning.
Heh. Who said he looks like an elderly lesbian?
But IMO Imus is serious about his loathing of Palin and Congresswoman Bachmann -- as well as, he does in fact strongly dislike some Republicans but he did support what's his name last year.
BTW I started listening to Limbaugh when he first went on the air with a local talk show in Sacramento. Even then he said -- and in fact it was true for me -- that it would take a couple of weeks to "get it."
Imus was at his best during the Clinton years, IMHO. He had great parodies, including General Patton addressing the troops about Janet Reno, Clinton, etc..
Bernie McGurk used to do outrageous "man on the street" interviews.
Charles McCord was his straight man, besides being one of the best newscasters in the business.
Of course, all this was before the deal with the Rutgers girls' basketball team quip....and of course, Imus fell prostrate before Al Sharpton. What a fool, he never should have done that.
He always portrayed himself as a "shock jock"....and then fell down in a puddle of political correctness. Sad....
I tend to agree that Imus is an acquired taste. But the golden age of Charles McCord, Bernard McGuirk, and Rob Bartlett & the Bartlettes is over. Tim Russert is missed & he was the only one who really stuck it to Imus (”At least I don’t look like a stuffed mummy in a cowboy museum!”). Even the late Fred Imus lent something.
There’s some retro on youtube, especially McGuirk as John Cardinal O’Connor (”Wrong, you wrinkled up old bisexual!”)
I still have on VHS some of Wilfred Brimley’s Christmas messages featuring hot Quaker Oatmeal. Priceless.