ABC has decided to cancel “Roseanne,” the highest-rated, most watched television series of this past broadcast season. It cancelled the show because of this tweet by the show’s star, Roseanne Barr, about former top Obama aide Valerie Jarrett:
Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj.
This is a truly vile statement. When I heard about it, I could hardly believe a public figure, even Roseanne Barr, would tweet such a thing. (The tweet about Jarrett apparently was part of an extended rant, but it was this comment that most clearly crossed the line).
I don’t blame ABC for cancelling Barr’s show. Barr has a right to tweet such garbage, but ABC has the right to eschew a relationship with the author of such a sickening remark. I can well understand why ABC wanted to.
There is no political content to what Barr said. It’s simply an insult about Jarrett’s appearance, stated in highly repugnant terms. Thus, ABC’s decision isn’t a case of political correctness, in my opinion. It’s an attempt to uphold minimum standards of decency.
My question, though, is whether ABC would have cancelled the show of a leftist who made this sort of vile comment about, say, President Trump, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, or Kellyanne Conway. I don’t believe it would have. Rather, it probably would have accepted an apology (which Barr provided) and slapped the offending celebrity on the wrist.
Meanwhile, those on the left who demanded that Barr be sacked would not have complained about a much less severe punishment for an anti-Trumper.
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