Ethical consistency is so 80’s.
This is one of the pictures that got Kathy Griffin in trouble. I’m wondering about our reaction.
Do I find the image offensive? No. But it wasn’t especially funny, either. Mimicking a President’s death is uncomfortable, so for this to work, she’d need a better payoff than we got. Overall 3SR evaluation? Meh. That’s as much ire as I can drum up.
Conservatives, of course, were reliably outraged, pulling out another round of Republican Apoplexy (TM). President Trump tweeted:
Kathy Griffin should be ashamed of herself. My children, especially my 11 year old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2017
Yeah… except Trump’s said too many stupid, hateful, and clearly false statements for me to be terribly concerned with what he thinks or what he says. His tweet should be a statement of honor, but Trump is wholly dishonorable.
Anyway, it worked. Several liberals expressed they were shocked and appalled, Griffin apologized, but CNN dropped the comic from their New Year’s Eve program anyway, and there are still calls to boycott her comedy tour.
Double standard, anyone? Think back to Ted Nugent on the campaign trail. It was covered everywhere (I’m choosing to quote Rolling Stone, because I can):
Renegade right-winger Ted Nugent recently went on a vicious onstage rant in which he threatened the lives of Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Decked out in full-on camouflage hunting gear, Nugent wielded two machine guns while raging, “Obama, he’s a piece of shit. I told him to suck on my machine gun. Hey Hillary,” he continued. “You might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch.” Nugent summed up his eloquent speech by screaming “freedom!”
Clearly a patriot.
So this rant got Nugent a lot of bad publicity, including a personal visit by the Secret Service. He pushed back, swearing it was just good fun or something like that. Must have worked, since Nugent is still a big deal in certain circles, and nobody seems to have fired him. Heck, as the Washington Post reminds us, Trump invited him over to the White House.
Apparently, Trump thinks that when people threaten to kill other Presidents and politicians… well, that’s just peachy. As long as they’re Democrats, anyway.
