• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, April 16, 2007

Just hours before CBS Radio fired Don Imus last week, venerated news anchor and fellow CBS employee Bob Schieffer denounced the radio host, although he declined comment on whether the company should remove him.

Speaking at an industry event, Schieffer called the radio host's comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team "indefensible" and "inexplicable," but said he would leave it up to CBS management whether to follow MSNBC--which had done so the day before--and cancel the morning program.

Saying it was inappropriate to weigh in, Schieffer said, "I'm going to kind of leave that to the people I work for."

Schieffer, the host of CBS' "Face the Nation" and revered by many as a model of journalistic integrity, praised Imus' charity work, but said he "crossed the line" with his description of the Rutgers team as "some nappy-headed hos."

"I hate what he said and I can't defend it in any way," Schieffer said.

Imus--the former host of an eponymous morning radio program--worked for CBS Corp. under the CBS Radio umbrella.

Schieffer said he's been pals with Imus for well over a decade and would remain so, phoning the radio host and leaving a message that they would continue as friends. The CBS News anchor noted Imus' apology, and said he believed it was sincere.

Schieffer touted Imus as a "wonderful interviewer" whose "shtick" of trying to prod high-profile figures, like Schieffer himself, to say things they shouldn't made for appealing radio. But in reference to the Rutgers incident, he said, "I just don't think you ought to pick on kids."

"What Don said the other day is indefensible," Schieffer said. "It's inexplicable to me." Schieffer seemed a bit jarred when another CBS Corp. employee, "Inside Edition" host Deborah Norville, began a one-on-one with him Thursday without a softball, asking right away for his take on the Imus controversy.

Norville and Schieffer appeared at the Television Bureau of Advertising's annual marketing conference. CBS Corp. director Bruce Gordon, the former head of the NAACP, called for Imus' firing the day before. Around the same time, a slew of heavy-spending advertisers had pulled out of the show.