The latest unfair conservative assault on Jimmy Kimmel led me to do a quick survey of all the Ethics Alarms “Stop Making Me Defend X” posts. With this one, Jimmy indeed becomes the leading non-political figure in number of SMEDX entries, with three. I bet you can guess the leader in the political figure category: yes, it’s Donald Trump. (In second place is Joe Biden.)
President Trump was the subject of the very first such post, way back in 2015 when I was writing a “Letting Donald Trump be President is like letting a chimp pilot a passenger jet” post almost weekly. The list of figures (and sometimes other things) that have prompted rueful defenses here is a rogues gallery: Kathy Griffin, Robert De Nero, Bill Maher, Bill and Hillary, Eric Swalwell, Eric Adams, Chris Cuomo…the most recent was Jeff Bezos, just a week ago. The previous SMEDX effort in defense of ABC’s disgusting late night host was last September. I began it like this, quoting my first defense of this asshole in 2017, and I wouldn’t change a single word today:
“I detest Jimmy Kimmel. I loathe him. He is the most revolting of all the Left-Licking late night and cable progressive comics, worse than Colbert, Maher, Samantha Bee, all of them. All of them combined. He is an ongoing blight on the ethics of American society, and yet he is self-righteous in the process.’ My opinion of Kimmel has, if anything, deteriorated since I wrote that.”
However, the current conservative pundit, website and MAGA attacks on Kimmel as the symbol of Axis hate-rhetoric that irresponsibly encourages Trump Deranged assassins is completely unfair. (So are the attacks on House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries for his “total war” statement.)
On his show last week, Kimmel was riffing on what he might say if he were the MC at the upcoming White House Correspondents’ Dinner. “Our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow,” Kimmel said. Of course Kimmel didn’t know that there would be an assassination attempt that night. But more importantly, there was nothing violent about the joke at all. In fact, it was well-constructed; the line can be interpreted in several ways, but taking it to be referring to Trump’s assassination is not among them.
Melania is considerably younger than her husband: in an earlier era, she would be called a “trophy wife.” I think I may have heard a wag make nearly that same joke decades ago when I attended a trial lawyers association convention. The number of decrepit antediluvian millionaire lawyers with gorgeous 20- or 30- something women on their arms was fairly revolting. Kimmel’s joke could have easily been made about the late professional bimbo Anna Nicole Smith when she married, at 26, an 89-year-old billionaire. Remember?
I can see why the First Lady was insulted by the innuendo (a bit “too close to the bone”), and, taking a cue from her husband, exploited Kimmel’s bad luck to pounce on Jimmy the way Jimmy pounces on the President literally every night his show airs. Nonetheless, it was unethical. “Tit for tat,” revenge and deliberate mischaracterizations are still unethical no matter how much the target “has it coming.”
Ethics Alarms 
I’m not sure I agree. If this is a standard issue joke, does it really apply here? Does Donald Trump look like Jay Howard Marshall II in that photograph? In the joke’s scenario, how was Mrs. Trump to become widowed? Certainly not from natural causes. I was not aware of this being a standard issue joke. It didn’t make sense to me. In Kimmel’s satire, if he was roasting the president, wouldn’t he be there in the room? Wouldn’t he be alive? Maybe it’s just incompetent writing by the ABC writers.
Well sure it does. Trump is almost 80 (his birthday is in June). Melania is 56. My dad called 80 “the Red Zone,” meaning once you hit that age, waking up each morning is far from assured. She was a model, married Trump when she was 39 (and he was 60): she’s a textbook trophy wife. And she stands to inherit a fortune when he predeceases her, which is extremely likely.
The joke isn’t violent, so I agree on that. He isn’t responsible for any assassinations, but he isn’t funny, and he has no class. Those are good grounds to fire him. He’s too old to have any hope he will change.
No, Kimmel could not have known there would be another attempt in the wake of his joke, but there is still a big ick factor here. Kimmel is one of the so-called Resistance members who have spewed hate against Trump for years and, with the guise of the Jester’s Excuse, tries to avoid any consequences for contributing to the toxicity of civic discourse in this country. There have already been attempts made against Trump’s life. Joking about him dying soon is a little to close for comfort.
Technically Jack is correct here. My question is why we should care. Given all the censorship and cancel culture from the left in the last decades, I am a bit jaded about Jimmy Kimmel’s fortunes, and I think the burden of defending him should be carried by himself and his leftwing friends as long as the left is trying to cancel conservatives.
By the way, he is not funny, and that is the deadliest thing you can say about a comedian.
The sophistry of Kimmel’s first statement undermines his last. Especially for a comedian who’s job is to “read the room” (“I’m not sure” my arse).
And given the state of the left today and mass media (as Steve Hayward would often write, “but I repeat myself”), how do we know he wasn’t aware of at least the possibility? A mass media event at a hotel that was likely booked solid weeks in advance? Someone shady checks in and the desk clerks don’t know a reporter?
Yes, conspiratorial, surely, and reeks of Network, but in the modern age I’m not sure that’s far off. And on that side, there are no William Holden types that get a conscience at the end.
This is the kind of thing the left foments and hopes for all while feigning “horror” when it takes place. Renee Good didn’t deserve to get shot. Alex Pretti had a right to carry, he didn’t deserve to get shot. Look at how evil the administration is! The organizers of those events absolutely hoped somebody would be injured or killed, it’s very sexy media to spout off about while we on the right are stuck trotting out the boring old law as a (right and just) explanation.
Kimmel’s joke and apology is just another part in their grand play.
Useful idiots.