Feehery: Rogan should have never apologized — it’s a sign of weakness

Joe Rogan should have watched “She Wore A Yellow Ribbon” before he said sorry last week.

The John Ford classic, starring John Wayne, probably couldn’t be made these days. 

It features a stereotypical drunk Irishman, a hat-tip to the Confederacy (the funeral of Trooper John Smith) and depictions of various Indian tribes doing very bad things.

It also features Captain Nathan Brittles, who often says, “Never apologize, mister.  It’s a sign of weakness.”

When Rogan apologized to the world for some words he said among the millions of words he has uttered over the last several years, it was a sign of weakness, and the left pounced. 

They want to drive the Bernie-Sanders-voting, pot-smoking, question-asking, martial-arts-practicing comedian off of Spotify because he asked the wrong questions of the wrong people about the wrong subjects.

I started listening to Joe Rogan a couple months ago, so it would be a lie to say that I am a longtime listener. But I have tried to catch up for lost time by tuning in to Spotify, which I never had done before, when I walk my dog, Briggs, and when I take my kids to school. 

A Rogan podcast takes up to three hours to finish, and people who have the time to listen to all of them in one fell swoop have too much time on their hands.

Some of the discussions, like the one with Carrot Top, can be listened to casually. But others, like Rogan’s interview of Jordan Peterson, takes a lot of focus because Peterson is talking about complicated subjects. You can’t listen to that one and look at Twitter at the same time.

Rogan likes to get his subject comfortable when they talk, so they usually have a few drinks (Buffalo Trace Bourbon, which is excellent by the way) or smoke some weed or cigars. For the record, I am against pot smoking, but to each his own.

We all know what happens when somebody gets overserved and then goes on television.  Andy Cohen’s truthful rampage on CNN about the former New York mayor (I don’t like to say his name) is a case in point.

Speaking of CNN, one of the reasons that Rogan is such a threat to our society is because nobody in their right mind is watching Ted Turner’s former network anymore. Why? Well, because it turns out they don’t report the news anymore. What they do do is anybody’s guess, because like I said, nobody watches them anymore. But the news it ain’t.

And because people are now getting news from sources that can no longer be controlled by the Biden administration, Jeff Zucker or Mark Zuckerberg, the media elite is very, very nervous.  As well they should be, because the narrative that they have propagated on the American people — that lockdowns were good, that masking children was moral, that vaccine passports will save lives, that all science flows through Saint Fauci — is starting to fall apart pretty spectacularly. 

Rogan didn’t necessarily start the ball rolling, but his interviews of Dr. Peter McCullough and Dr. Robert Malone certainly gave some intellectual heft to the fringe who believe that our response to COVID-19 hasn’t been very smart or very effective (OK, that might be more than the fringe). 

The effort to deplatform Joe Rogan is part and parcel of a regime that no longer believes in free expression, the free interchange of ideas or the First Amendment.

Here’s the thing. We can’t allow left-wing monopolies to control the content of our political discussions. They can’t be trusted to play fair because, as we saw in the last election, they won’t play fair. 

What the left is trying to do to Joe Rogan is a wake-up call to anybody who values freedom and free expression. I might not agree with everything Mr. Rogan has said in the last decade, like when he said he was sorry last week, but I will defend his right to say whatever he wants, because I believe in freedom. And I hope you do too. 

Feehery is a partner at EFB Advocacy and blogs at www.thefeeherytheory.com. He served as spokesman to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), as communications director to former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas), and as a speechwriter to former House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.).