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Yes, condemn Roseanne, but ignoring others is true hypocrisy

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Roseanne Barr has never been a wallflower.

Throughout her controversial career, the over-the-top comedian has screeched “The Star-Spangled Banner,” grabbed her crotch on national TV and declared that, just like Donald Trump and rapper Kanye West, she too possesses amazing “dragon” energy.

{mosads}Surely the American Broadcasting Company was familiar with the self-proclaimed domestic goddess’s propensity to speak out before they hired the comedian to revive her 1980s-era hit, “Roseanne.” Yet they chose to hire her anyway.

 

That was then.

Mere weeks ago.

As they say in Washington, “There’s never an egg timer around when you need one,” to clock just how quickly a relationship can go south in the age of social media.

However, Roseanne’s tweet aimed at former President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Valerie Jarrett, was racist, and if she deserved to be fired, then so do the people on the other side of the aisle.

Egregious language, like Roseanne’s, has no place in society. The cancellation of her top-rated American sitcom now thrusts into the spotlight a different show playing out on the airwaves: the mainstream media’s rush to judgment and the sheer hypocrisy of the left.

It’s ironic that ABC would cancel Roseanne’s program when its very own program, “The View” bitterly sets its sights every weekday morning on Republicans, President Trump and the women who work at the highest levels of government in the White House.

Personalities on the left have made entire franchises and careers out of poking fun at conservatives — Saturday Night Live with its Trump impersonator, Alec Baldwin, to name a few. In addition, late-night comedians from Jimmy Kimmel to Stephen Colbert make fun of Republicans just about every night across the airwaves of the major broadcast TV networks.

Time and again, these “artists” have denigrated Republicans — especially Republican women — with very few consequences.

Let us count the ways.

The left called Michele Bachmann “bats–t crazy,” “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” called Sarah Palin “dumb,” and Parenting magazine reported that Wonkette made fun of Palin’s Down Syndrome son. The left (including Kimmel) mocked first lady Melania Trump’s accent and lambasted her #BeBest campaign. They have previously bullied Barron Trump, a child.

Recently, the female comedian who performed at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner body-shamed White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, comparing her to a rough softball coach.

The difference with these attacks from the left? Not a single person was fired for them.

In fact, liberals are often rewarded for them. WHCD comedian Michelle Wolf launched her new Netflix series just this week.

Indeed, the double standard is alive and well.

Now, with the cancellation of “Roseanne,” ABC is casting aside millions of conservatives across America who feel they remain in the silent majority, that they mustn’t speak out or they’ll face dire consequences at work, at their children’s schools and among their neighbors.

However, the joke will be on ABC in the end.

Just as it missed the punchline when it signed the “Roseanne” revival, so, too, will the network miss the point entirely in its cancellation of the popular show. It is exuding the textbook elitist “Free speech for me, but not for thee” mentality of which Americans have grown so tired.

It was precisely this behavior by the media conglomerates that drove voters into the arms of the unvarnished then-candidate Trump. More than a year after his surprising election, the media’s hypocritical behavior continues to add more fuel to the fire for Americans who are fed up with the elites who allow the left to get away with slanderous behavior while feigning outrage if the same comes out of a conservative’s mouth.

To ABC, thank you for baring your true colors to America. We now know precisely where you stand on freedom of expression for all, regardless of how tasteless some jokes may be.

With an eye toward the 2018 midterms and the 2020 reelection effort, in the words of Roseanne on that other fateful day in 1990 over home plate: “Play ball!”

Jen Kerns has served as a GOP strategist and writer for the U.S. presidential debates for FOX News. She previously served as communications director and spokeswoman for the California Republican Party, the Colorado Recalls over gun control, and the Prop. 8 battle over marriage which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Tags Barack Obama Donald Trump Donald Trump Melania Trump Michele Bachmann Roseanne Barr Television United States

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