One of the most corrosive and dangerous message embedded in the revelations uncovered in how the Justice Department was run under President Obama is that there are different sets of rules for Americans based on their connections or their politics.
The Hillary Clinton email fiasco resonates with so many Americans because it appears to them that if she was not the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, she would have been dealt with very differently for keeping classified government secrets on a private, unsecured email server. Furthermore, the FBI would not have written their findings months before even interviewing Mrs. Clinton and they would not have granted immunity to the major players and co-conspirators in the email scheme.
Additionally, the FBI launched a massive counterintelligence investigation on the hunch that the Russian government was trying to infiltrate the Trump campaign. Meanwhile, they not only ignored the fact that Clinton had paid for a massive piece of campaign opposition research that was chock-full of propaganda created by shady, unnamed Russians with direct links to the Kremlin, they actually used that unverified propaganda to obtain a secret FISA warrant on a person linked to the Trump team.
There are tons of other examples but the message seems clear: Justice was not meted out in an equal and blind manner when it came to Clinton versus Trump in the 2016 campaign.
Which brings us, unexpectedly, to the matter of Samantha Bee and Roseanne Barr. The way these two vulgarians have been treated by their respective employers and the mainstream media sends the same, damaging message.
A side-by-side comparison of the two comedians’ offenses, their remedies and their punishments is confusing and demand an explanation:
Both are comedians working for major broadcast and entertainment corporations: Bee for Time Warner, Barr for Disney/ABC.
Both make frequent public remarks about politics, Bee from a normative, liberal Democrat perspective, Barr from a Trump-friendly (but hardly traditional conservative) perspective.
Barr made a vulgar and offensive remark about a former presidential adviser, Bee did the same toward a current presidential adviser.
Barr’s remark included a comparison of an African-American woman to an ape, an unacceptably racist statement that is normally not acceptable in American political or social discourse:
“muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj,”
Bee’s comment was so vulgar, it can’t be reprinted on this page without censorship as she employed a term that is not only profane but has been considered the very worst word one can use to describe a woman. However, somewhat lost in the outrage over that word, is the fact that Bee also implied in her remark that the President’s daughter should dress in a sexy and provocative manner in an attempt to titillate her father.
“You know, Ivanka, that’s a beautiful photo of you and your child, but let me just say, one mother to another: Do something about your dad’s immigration practices, you feckless c***! He listens to you! Put on something tight and low-cut and tell your father to f***in’ stop it.”
That’s kind of extra offensive, right? Apparently, not.
Barr apologized and deleted her remark from Twitter. She was fired within hours.
Bee also apologized but her remarks can’t be deleted because it wasn’t made on Twitter or social media in her private life it was broadcast on TBS, the cable network owned by Time-Warner, and that’s in interesting distinction, isn’t it?
Barr’s comment, as offensive and racist as it was, was communicated in her off-time via Twitter. It was not broadcast on ABC’s network but they fired her anyway. Bee’s comments were written, collaborated on, vetted, approved and broadcast using the infrastructure and brand of her employer. And that employer has accepted her apology and kept her on.
To most objective observers, this appears to be an example of unequal justice for similarly offensive behavior. So why the difference?
One could argue that no matter how horrible and offensive Bee was with her use of the forbidden “C-word” and her allusion to an incestuous relationship between Trump and her father, it didn’t have the racial element of Barr’s insult, and the racial component is the real game-changer.
Fair enough, if that is the explanation, then let’s just be clear about it. The American media and cultural watchdogs on the progressive Left have determined that calling a woman a c*** is not nearly as awful as referencing the Planet of the Apes in describing an African-American’s appearance.
To the American left, there is zero tolerance for a racist remark, but, apparently, quite a bit of tolerance for calling a woman a c***. Fine, as vulgarian Bill Maher (who says equally horrible things and keeps his gig at Time-Warner) would say, “New rules.”
In reality, this “New rule” may be a distinction that can only be understood if one went to graduate school at a major, liberal arts college. But for the rest of us, we are left scratching our heads.
Offensive and vulgar is offensive and vulgar. If after a public apology one person is fired while the other gets a pass, most people want a fuller explanation. An explanation we haven’t received. So we must resort to an obvious assumption:
Samantha Bee is a champion of the liberal political world. She uses her program to attack Trump and those who voted for him. She champions causes like gun control and abortion. She won an Emmy award for a special broadcast celebrating the White House press corps. She’s the perfect personification of a liberal elite. In short: her politics are correct and she has kept her job.
Meanwhile Roseanne Barr is… well, it’s complicated. When she offended the country with her bastardization of the national anthem, she was liberal. She used to be a supporter of Hillary Clinton and she ran for president on the Green Party ticket with Cindy Sheehan as her running mate. Lately, she’s been openly supportive or President Trump and her show gave voice to his voters… and she is fired.
New rules? Actually, sadly, we’ve seen this rerun before.
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