Frequent Guest Ana Marie Cox Drops Imus

The former Wonkette-turned-Time blogger had become part of Imus‘ rotating cast of media characters, and loved the ego-stroking attention. No longer, she says. Here’s why:

I had been invited inside the circle, and to be perfectly honest, I was thrilled to be there.

As the invites kept coming, I found myself succumbing to the clubhouse mentality that Imus both inspires and cultivates. Sure, I cringed at his and his crew’s race baiting (the Ray Nagin impersonations, the Obama jokes) and at the casual locker-room misogyny (Hillary Clinton‘s a “bitch,” CNN news anchor Paula Zahn is a “wrinkled old prune”), but I told myself that going on the show meant something beyond inflating my precious ego.