Tom Finneran has his Imus Moment

Oh Tom Finneran. Didn’t you learn anything from Don Imus? Or John DePetro? Or Bob Ryan? If you’ve got a hankering to advocate for smacking women around, it’s probably best to do so once you’re off the air.

Yesterday, Tom decided to talk about Britney Spears’ horrible performance at Sunday’s Video Music Awards on MTV. We didn’t know you were a fan, Tom:

“Come on, a lot of divas show up late for rehearsal,” [co-host Wendy] Murphy said.

“Then she comes down an hour later,” Finneran said. “So it’s 4 1/2 hours late. Diva? You know what she’d be if I was there waiting for 4 1/2 hours? She’d be a diva with a black eye. I’d give her a dope slap.”

“I mean,” Finneran said, “I wouldn’t do it as a guy to a gal.”

Right. Because a guy hitting a woman is wrong, but a woman hitting a woman is totally fine, and kinda hot.

Of course, domestic abuse groups are livid.

“Whoever ends up in front of that microphone seems to become a neanderthal,” [executive director of Jane Doe Inc. Mary] Lauby said. “Silly me, but I expect the former speaker to operate at a different level than that. It’s really a huge disappointment.”

WRKO is standing by its man, however:

WRKO spokesman George Regan said Finneran is a “gentleman” who wouldn’t mean “any disrespect toward women.””People are overreacting. This is talk radio,” Regan said.

Calm down, ladies. Tom Finneran will hold the door open for you like the gentleman he is, then give you a black eye.