I for one won’t lose any sleep over the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! The show was suspended by Disney, the parent company, over comments the host, Mr. Kimmel, made about the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
In his monologue on Monday, Kimmel said the “MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them” and of trying to “score political points from it.”
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In other words, a Republican far-right radical rather than a Democrat far-left radical assassinated Kirk This, of course, is nonsense, and Kimmel should know better.
Transcripts of alleged assassin Tyler Robinson on social media platform Discord clearly show his antipathy toward everything that Kirk espoused, hardly typical of a MAGA stalwart.
When Robinson confessed on Discord that he had taken Kirk out, his roommate asked why, to which Robinson replied: “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”
I can’t imagine a MAGA supporter thinking Charlie Kirk was full of hate.
At any rate, the backdrop to Kimmel’s comments are not the focus of my post. I’m more concerned that people can be relieved of duties or fired for their opinions, but that unfortunately happens all the time.
In this case, Brandan Carr, the chief of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), threatened the ABC/Disney network with sanctions or other actions due to Kimmel’s comments.
Now, as I noted, I am certainly no Kimmel fan, and from the clips I’ve seen of him, he definitely has Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).
However, I think we may be setting a dangerous precedent here. I for one took Kimmel’s comments about Kirk in the context of his political views.
Unlike the fellow at MSNBC who got fired over Kirk comments, Kimmel did not directly disparage the victim. He just shifted the blame elsewhere.
Let’s all take a deep collective breath and arrive at a much-needed renewed perspective of First Amendment free speech.
Gary McCarty