Jimmy Kimmel Live on YouTube
Jimmy Kimmel is — to its great embarrassment — the American Left’s cause célèbre du jour.
Kimmel was suspended by ABC’s parent company, Disney, last week after Nexstar and Sinclair, the two telecom giants who collectively own a quarter of ABC affiliates across the country, announced they would not air his show.
The proximate cause of the decisions reached by each of these three companies was Kimmel’s monologue last Monday, during which he unambiguously and erroneously implied that the man who assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk was part of “the MAGA gang.”
Complicating this simple story of crime and punishment are two meatheads with far more power than they deserve. Hours before Kimmel faced consequences for his egregious error — or outright lie — Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr issued a threat.
“Frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” remarked Carr last week. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Welp. Carr stepped in it so bad that even one of Kimmel’s most notable nemeses, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), compared his words to those of a mobster. It should go without saying that the federal government should play no role in moderating content — even the meritless, oftentimes untruthful content Kimmel produces.
Moreover, President Donald Trump left little doubt that this was the intention of his administration while raging over Kimmel’s return to the airwaves on Tuesday night.
“I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled!” wrote Trump in an ill-advised rant on Truth Social. “He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution. I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative.”
Another day, another unhinged threat.
It’s hard to say how much of Disney, Sinclair, and Nexstar’s choice to bench Kimmel was attributable to the specter of reprisals from Carr and Co., and how much could be chalked up to concerns about the consequences of the comedian’s conduct for ABC’s bottom-line. But in any case, Trump and his toady muddied the waters to the point that Kimmel transformed from mendacious mediocrity to free speech icon in the eyes of much of the public. Talk about an own goal.
But the administration’s poor conduct shouldn’t distract from Kimmel’s. He is an embarrassing figure whose defenders of his remarks on their merits have beclowned themselves.
In his now-infamous monologue about Kirk’s assassination, Kimmel said:
We hit some new lows over the weekend, with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.
The attempts to sanitize his comments have been galling.
“To the news outlets stating that Jimmy Kimmel *suggested the suspect was a MAGA Republican*… I would strongly encourage you to watch the actual clip and see if you still think that’s the case,” declared Puck’s Dylan Byers last Wednesday with an entirely unwarranted surplus of self-righteousness.
The next day, CNN’s John Berman made a pathetic attempt at fact-checking Scott Jennings after the conservative commentator accurately observed that Kimmel had misled his audience about Kirk’s assassin’s motive.
And on Tuesday, Kimmel himself failed to take responsibility for his actions.
“Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions — it was a deeply disturbed individual,” he insisted. “That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make, but to some, that felt ill timed or unclear or maybe both, and for those who think I did point a finger, I get why you’re upset.”
The problem for Kimmel and his champions is that there’s really no other way to interpret his comments — which, bear in mind, came amidst a massive, media-wide failure to report on the assassin’s ideologically “progressive” motive for murdering Kirk — other than how his critics did.
Why would the “MAGA gang” be “desperately trying to characterize” the shooter as “anything other than one of them” if he wasn’t one of them? Where does the desperation come in? Why would it mark a new low for a group to truthfully point out that a culprit did not emerge from its ranks? Kimmel’s formulation makes no sense at all if you willfully ignore the falsehood he hoped would take hold.
In the wake of a national tragedy that saw a left-wing activist gun down a father, husband, and son for his conservative speech, a millionaire progressive with inertia alone to thank for his continued employment, used his platform to smear his political opponents.
And then he refused to own up to it, instead electing to insult the intelligence of his audience and talk down to those who “felt” he had made a mistake.
The Left ought to be ashamed of and condemn not only Kimmel’s initial infraction, but his cowardice now.
The post The Left Should Be Embarrassed by Jimmy Kimmel first appeared on Mediaite.
