Barr, Bee insults hard to forgive

Roseanne Barr and Samantha Bee both delivered nearly unforgivable insults last week...

One resulted in cancellation of a hit TV series; the other, an apology that was deemed sufficient.

Barr tweeted that Valerie Jarrett, a former aide to President Barack Obama, was what happened when “Muslim brotherhood and planet of the apes had a baby.”

Jarrett, who has been relatively obscure of late, was born in Iran and was a fierce defender of Obama as an adviser. I don’t know what she did recently to get on Barr’s radar.

Almost immediately, ABC, Roseanne’s network, dropped her whole “Roseanne” series, which had been a hit.

Personally, I regret this because I think John Goodman is a great actor. A lot of people lost jobs over Roseanne’s tweet, though, and that’s sad.

A day or so later, Samantha Bee, who hosts a show called “Full Frontal” on TBS (Ted Turner’s TBS, not Trinity Broadcasting’s TBN), called President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump a “feckless” body part.

An internet dictionary defines “feckless” as “lacking initiative or strength of character; irresponsible.” I guess “feck” is character?

“Feckless” is commonly bandied about in public debate. The body part reference is not.

Roseanne reacted in absolute horror to her own tweet, maybe even before she saw the reaction. Despite her abject apologies, the series got canceled.

She went way, way over the line.

Samantha Bee, on the other hand, regularly intersperses her very liberal, very political comedy monologue with common epithets.

No one gasps at her usual f-bombs and other obscenities and, quite often, they cheer.

When she delivered the c-bomb about Ivanka, there were a few gasps.

Then the usual cheer.

This crossed a line, to be sure, and Bee’s apology was quick and thorough.

That was enough. I agree with TBS’ decision to keep her on.

Bee’s comment offended a public figure who is the daughter of the most public figure in the land. That gives her a lot of leeway.

U.S. court law gives freedom of speech far more respect than public figures, which is a good thing. We need to be able to criticize public officials, especially presidents, to protect our other rights.

Barr’s comment, however, expressed baseless prejudice against 38 million African-Americans, 820 million Africans and 1.8 billion Muslims. That’s why she got canceled.

Both went over the line, however. It can be explained, but not condoned.

The explanation is that today, many liberals and conservatives are so full of a self-righteous sense of right-ness about their views that they think they have license to treat the opposition as members of another species.

News to both sides: Real people disagree with you for real reasons. It’s better to figure out why they disagree than to assume they’re less human than you.

Barr and Bee have been around long enough to know this. That’s what makes both of their gaffes hard to forgive.

Steve Hansen writes about our life and times from his perspective of a retired Tucumcari journalist. Contact him at:

stevenmhansen

@plateautel.net