Double Standards: What Would Happen If A Conservative Celebrity Beheaded Obama?

Yesterday, Kathy Griffin drew the ire of the internet outrage machine when she released a photo from a shoot with photographer Tyler Shields of her holding up a decapitated head of a doll that resembles President Trump.  Once she (quickly) realized how bad of an idea the photo shoot was, she offered up her apology:

“I am sorry. I went too far. I was wrong,” Griffin tweeted Tuesday evening.

However, if you take a close look at her videotaped apology, you’ll see that it was really just an insincere statement filled with an attitude of disdain that featured several eye rolls:

However, it was hardly as tepid as the response from the left to the incident.  Vox.com didn’t report on the story at all – at the time of this article’s writing, its own search filter yielded no news results for “Kathy Griffin” in spite of the high traffic the story received.  Its homepage opted to attack Trump in every other way possible:

Slate.com‘s coverage was limited to one story which was very buried on its homepage:

Salon.com (whom this writer refuses to link to) also buried the Kathy Griffin story in its homepage, but not before first publishing a story with a title mocking the whole affair, that (of course) was later changed:

And finally, The Huffington Post also buried the story on its homepage, opting instead to mock Trump’s response to Griffin in their promo instead of daring to talk down Griffin herself:

Which is stunning, but hardly surprising, considering HuffPo’s understanding of the first amendment itself:

Huffington Post’s senior culture writer, Zeba Blay, blasted Vice President Mike Pence on Monday for “perverting the idea of free speech itself” during his recent commencement address at the University of Notre Dame. However, her own editors had to correct her faulty understanding of the First Amendment.

The original version of Blay’s piece apparently contained an argument that the Bill of Rights doesn’t protect “hate speech.” The website’s editors later added a correction at the end of post: “An earlier version of this story indicated that the First Amendment never protects hate speech. It does.”

Even with the correction from her editors, Blay still attempted to defend the “speech codes, safe spaces, tone policing, [and] administration-sanctioned political correctness” that the Vice President singled out for criticism during his commencement address.

The Huffington Post writer underlined that Pence’s “pristine ideal of ‘free speech’” is too often “used to dismiss legitimate criticism of language and policies that harm marginalized communities.” She cited how “figures like Milo Yiannopoulos, Ann Coulter, and Bill Maher have invoked the ‘free speech’ argument when they’ve been called out, criticized, or boycotted for their rhetoric.”

Look on the bright side; you might not agree with anything on HuffPo’s homepage, but it all (allegedly) complies with and is protected by the first amendment. 

CNN just severed its relationship with Griffin, which was perhaps the first time any anti-Trump celebrity has faced any repercussions for attacking Trump.  Snoop Dogg made a mock music video of himself shooting Trump, but has gone on with his life without issue beyond some minor outrage.  Same with Lil Bow Wow, who defended Snoop Dogg.  Madonna said she wanted to blow up the white house the day after Trump was inaugurated; no repercussions.

So, let’s take a look at the other side of the coin.  What did it take for the liberal rag websites to get riled up when conservatives criticized Obama?

Clint Eastwood gave a speech to an empty chair, addressing an “invisible” former President Obama at the Republican National Convention in 2012, and just that got all the liberal rags riled up, even to this day:

A “Rodeo Clown” wore an Obama mask at a Rodeo in Missouri, and not only did it get liberal media in a tither…

…said “Rodeo Clown” lost his job to the outrage machine’s response to the incident.

And who could forget ABC/ESPN and Monday Night Football’s Hank Williams Jr.?  Williams Jr. sung his rendition of “All My Rowdy Friends” for the football broadcast for over 20 years, only to lose his job to the outrage machine’s ire over his position on President Obama.  Notably, all he did was express his position when he was prompted on Fox News, but his “Hitler” remarks alone were enough to get him fired in 2011.

The liberal media response was just as you would have expected it to be, but amazingly, even after Williams Jr. was moved into irrelevance, the liberal media still loved to make his commentary a headline.  Over a year after the outrage machine cost him his job, they still had a field day with him:

The guy lost his job of over 20 years due to you, liberal outrage machine.  Couldn’t you have just let Williams Jr. slide off into irrelevance and make his remarks in peace, as well as express his frustration like any disgruntled ex-employee would?

Unlike Huffington Post, Free Market Shooter knows exactly what the first amendment does and doesn’t mean, and a direct or implied threat against the President of the United States is not “covered” in the definition.  If the average American did such a thing, the Secret Service would be at the front door in short order to extensively question and/or detain the individual in question.  Yet, with President Trump, it seems far too common for celebrities to not only advocate violence against the President, but to escape the clutches of the law with no punishment or reprimand whatsoever and continue their day-to-day employment without issue.

Threatening the President is a crime; if it is not treated as such, it will not be such.  At what point will the Secret Service do more than launch a few tweets?  At what point will the liberal media attack their own as they attack the right?  Just look at the treatment Clint Eastwood, Rodeo Clown, and Hank Williams Jr. received for their behaviors.  Can you imagine how the whiny left and liberal media would have behaved if a celebrity did this to former President Obama?

The hypocrisy of the left and liberal media and the outrage machine is on full display when it comes to threats against President Trump.  They are content to turn a blind eye, and if the shoe was on the other foot, the wailing and gnashing of teeth would be a constant fixture in their media outlets, which would indeed incite the typical protests, many of which would likely turn violent.  Then again, the whole affair should be no surprise; they’ve broken all their own rules and pulled out all the stops to criticize Trump at every junction and using every possible venue.

And yet somehow, Reason.com author Robby Soave says the exact opposite; he actually says that Griffin’s behavior isn’t a threat of violence against Trump, in spite of the obvious violence it could lead to:

It’s true that threatening the president is a crime. But there’s a difference between a true threat—a statement likely to be interpreted as a real, actual threat to harm the president—and hyperbole, satire, and humor. South Park character Mr. Garrison murdered Donald Trump (the president of Canada) in season 19 of the show, but this was clearly not an illegal threat of violence

Hey Robby, maybe it wouldn’t have been a crime is Griffin was actually funny like South Park, but she has never even been funny, and there’s nothing “satirical” about posing for a photo doing your best ISIS impersonation with a mannequin of the President’s decapitated head.

Hey, a crappy joke is a crappy joke; the stupid and unfunny “act of comedy” didn’t offend or bother me, but we can’t go around having different rules for different people.  So the liberal should (but of course won’t) make an example out of Kathy Griffin.  Make sure she gets the same treatment that any ordinary American who put on a similar display against Obama would have gotten; fired, career on life support, and an extensive sit-down grilling with the Secret Service.

Eh, who are we kidding; Kathy Griffin always sucked anyway.  She just cut off her own head to spite President Trump’s face.  Questioning or not, she’ll be irrelevant soon enough.