Hi!

1  Bee gets an Eff. If I didn’t find Samantha Bee so loathsome and her transparent grab for headlines and attention by the cynical device of intentionally violating all standards of public civility and fairness, her on-air apology might warrant a full post here. “Where does it fall on the Apology Scale?,” I have been asked. She really does richly deserve to be shunned and ignored, however, not that she didn’t before. Her act is monotonous, obnoxious (Is there anything more revolting than someone who aggressively  presents themselves as smart and clever who obviously is neither?) and divisive. Like others, she exists to constantly reassure the “resistance” that they are justified in acting and talking like assholes because they lost an election.

Boy, they must need a lot of reassurance.

But since her apology on her show was an abomination (distinct from her apology on Twitter, which was a lie), I have to talk about it. What a crappy way to start a weekend. I’ll save time by commenting as we go. Yes, this is as long as a full post; it’s as long as a long full post. I know it’s silly, but even if it’s just a technicality, I refuse to give someone as contemptible as Samantha Bee more than Warm-Up status.

She said:

“You know, a lot of people were offended and angry that I used an epithet to describe the president’s daughter and adviser last week.”

In other words, “some people” were offended, not you, team member, because you LIKED me calling Ivanka a cunt, but we still have to deal with “those people,” who might be sponsors. Essentially Bee makes it clear immediately that this isn’t an apology  at all. The “you know” is a verbal shrug, and signals, “I don’t think this is a big deal, but I have to say something.”

This sentence, like the whole apology, is signature significance for a terrible human being. If she were my employee, I would stop her and say, “Start again.”

“It is a word I have used on the show many times..”

First rationalization in the second sentence! This is a subset of “Everybody does it”: “I do it all the time.”

“…hoping to reclaim it. This time, I used it as an insult. I crossed the line. I regret it and I do apologize for that. The problem is that many women have heard that word at the worst moments of their lives.”

Doubletalk. The word she used was “cunt.” It has never been anything but an ugly gutter word. What’s to “reclaim?” How it might have been used at other times is irrelevant, making this theme a flagrant act of misdirection, which is itself the theme of the whole phony “apology.” Imagine a male comic under fire for calling one of Obama’s daughters a “bitch”  saying “I have used that word many times–as a dog breeder, to describe swishy men, and in the phrase ‘son of a bitch’…” So what?

Bee’s bait-and-switch also cleverly reframes the issue. The offense was describing Ivanka Trump, on television, using a denigrating, misogynist word. Bee is now declaring that her offense was the rhetorical mistake of  misusing “cunt” as an insult. That was the line she crossed, according to her. Then: “The problem is that many women have heard that word at the worst moments of their lives.” Oh, the problem is when they heard it, not the use of the word itself.

Imagine a comic trying to weasel out of calling, say, Barack Obama a “nigger” making that argument in a parallel “apology.”

“A lot of them don’t want that word reclaimed. They want it gone, and I don’t blame them. I don’t want to inflict more pain on them.”

Wow—I hadn’t read this atrocity for a couple of days. It’s even worse than I thought.

Now Bee says the problem is that her using the word to denigrate the President’s daughter (who had done absolutely nothing to inspire such an attack) inflicted pain on other women—the good ones, you know. The ones who hate President Trump and his family.

“I want this show to be challenging and I want it to be honest, but I never intended it to hurt anyone, except Ted Cruz.”

Translation:  “You all know Ivanka IS  a cunt, but I didn’t want to hurt any other women by saying so, at least none who voted for Hillary.”

“Many men were also offended by my use of the word. I do not care about that.”

She’s a self-admitted sexist bigot, then, and a liar. In her immediately previous sentence, she said she doesn’t want to hurt “anyone.” But men don’t count. Men who make this kind of  statement about women risk being metaphorically lynched in the town square, but a “woke” female comic can express misandry to applause.

“I hate that this distracted from more important issues. I hate that I did something to contribute to the nightmare of 24-hour news cycles that we’re all white-knuckling through.I should have known that a potty-mouthed insult would be inherently more interesting to them than juvenile immigration policy.”

As they said in the old Limbo song, “How low can she go? ” Rationalization #22, “It’s not the worst thing.” Misdirection. A veiled insult to her critics.

Utterly shameless. Be proud, TBS, that you inflict this ethics corrupter on America…

“I would do anything to help those kids. I hate that this distracted from them, so to them, I am also sorry”

Flagrant, nausea-producing virtue signaling, featuring a heaping serving of “Think of the children!” with molasses on top. She’s apologizing to anonymous children for calling Ivanka Trump a cunt! I don’t even have this abortion of an apology in the list: apologizing to someone who wasn’t involved in act requiring the apology? Boy, how did Bill Clinton miss that one: he could have apologized to Tipper Gore for exploiting Monica Lewinsky! That doesn’t even make a #10 on the Apology Scale. What is it, a #13? Lower?

“And look, if you are worried about the death of civility, don’t sweat it. I’m a comedian. People who hone their voices in basement bars while yelling back at drunk hecklers are definitely not paragons of civility”

Impressive!  There are at least thirty-six (!) rationalizations embodied in those 37, slimy, smug words:

1. The Golden Rationalization, or “Everybody does it”
1A. Ethics Surrender, or “We can’t stop it.”
8. The Trivial Trap (“No harm no foul!”)
23. The Dealer’s Excuse. or “I’m just giving the people what they want!”
24. Juror 3’s Stand (“It’s My Right!”)
24. A. Free Speech Confusion
25. The Coercion Myth: “I have no choice!”
31. The Troublesome Luxury: “Ethics is a luxury we can’t afford right now”
32. The Unethical Role Model: “He/She would have done the same thing”
33. The Management Shrug: “Don’t sweat the small stuff!”.
36. Victim Blindness, or “They/He/She/ You should have seen it coming.”
38. The Miscreant’s Mulligan or “Give him/her/them/me a break!”
39. The Pioneer’s Lament, or “Why should I be the first?”
41. The Evasive Tautology, or “It is what it is.”
41 A. Popeye’s Excuse, or “I am what I am.”
43. Vin’s Punchline, or “We’ve never had a problem with it!”
44. The Unethical Precedent, or “It’s Not The First Time”
50. The Apathy Defense, or “Nobody Cares.”

50A. Narcissist Ethics , or “I don’t care”
53. Tessio’s Excuse, or “It’s just business”
54. The Joke Excuse, or “I was only kidding!”
55. The Scooby Doo Deflection, or “I should have gotten away with it!”
58. The Golden Rule Mutation, or “I’m all right with it!”
64A. Bluto’s Mistake or “I said I was sorry!”

“I am, I’m really sorry that I said that word, but you know what? Civility is just nice words. Maybe we should all worry a little bit more about the niceness of our actions. Ok. Thanks for listening.”

No, you vile ignoramus, civility is conduct, and the cornerstone of respect, which in turn is a cornerstone value of ethics. And what incredible hypocrisy, for one of the loudmouths of Progressive Land, that deluded, angry fantasy realm where hate speech is called unprotected speech and deserving of legal punishment and censorship, to say that when she denigrates a woman with a hateful and obscene slur, it’s just words..because the family members of the President  aren’t entitled to ethical treatment.

Bee lacks integrity, intelligence, honesty, and self-awareness. The faux apology exposes her as a fool as well as a hateful vulgarian. Bee’s apology encapsulates all that is so revolting about the “resistance”— hypocrisy,  intellectual shallowness, cruelty, self-righteousness, rejection of civilized norms of debate and public discourse, and absence of integrity.

The rest of the Morning Warm-Up will be along directly…