Piers Morgan is astonished at Newt Gingrich's outrage over Robert
DeNiro's knock on GOP white First Ladies – but it's a slim chance the
liberal CNN host would be trying to calm the tempest if Michelle Obama
were the butt of a celebrity joke.
DeNiro, speaking at an Obama fundraiser, had joked that after seeing
the wives of the Republican candidates, America wouldn't be ready for a
"white" First Lady. Newt Gingrich denounced the joke as "inexcusable,"
and then Morgan decided to pounce on that "hideously politically correct
overreaction" to "poor old" Robert DeNiro's joke on his Thursday night
show.
Morgan may be defending the right to make jokes, but his double standard for political satire is quite clear. He laughed out loud last July when his guest Bill Maher used the vulgar term "M*** [1]" in reference to conservatives Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin. In contrast, he stood up to defend [2] President Obama against what he saw as "racist" elements of the Tea Party in October.
So while Morgan praised DeNiro's "joke" and denounced racist, sexist,
and bigoted jokes at the end of his show, he laughed at Bill Maher's
vulgar slam of conservative women and encouraged him. "May you remain
gloriously uncensored," he told Maher, and added, "Love the show."
On Thursday night, Morgan also praised Maher's "brilliant" New York
Times op-ed telling the public to take a joke and stip taking affront to
political satire.
"[W]ith regard to all the innocuous asides of politicians, pundits,
co-workers, your neighbors – let's just get a grip, shall we? Instead of
pretending to take imaginary offense. Have a laugh," Morgan told his
audience at the show's end.
[Video below. Audio here [3].]
A transcript of the segment, which aired on March 22 on Piers Morgan Tonight at 9:57 p.m. EDT, is as follows:
PIERS MORGAN: Well, tonight's "Only in America," I'm sorry. I'm really,
really, really sorry about everything. Because one thing's for sure.
I'm going to offend somebody in the next couple of minutes. Somewhere
out there someone is going to be really upset. When did a harmless joke
become a criminal offense? On the left, on the right, or on the GOP
campaign trail, any attempt at humor is now met with instant ferocious
condemnation and gaffes offaux outrage. Into groveling apologies and
desperate pleas for forgiveness.
Look at poor old Robert De Niro. Introducing Michelle Obama at a
fundraiser, he had some fun with a joke about the wives of Republican
candidates. Asking the crowd do you really think our country is ready
for a white first lady? It may not have been the funniest joke in the
world, but what it was, quite obviously, was a joke.
A light-hearted flip on the type of remark that Mrs. Obama had to put
up with in reverse from certain quarters in deadly seriousness for the
most of the last election campaign. It was not, as some have tried to
portray it, an offensive racial slur by De Niro. Yet this didn't stop
one of my guests tonight, Newt Gingrich, yesterday labeling the remarks
inexcusable and divisive, almost compelling Michelle Obama's office to
then call them inappropriate.
Now given this hideously politically correct overreaction, I
confidently expected Mitt Romney's wife Ann, one of the three targets of
De Niro's joke to have a similar sense of humor failure. This is
politics after all. And an easy chance to make Democrats squirm. But
then she said this.
(Video Clip)
ANN ROMNEY, Mitt Romney's wife: I took it for what it was, a joke. And,
you know, again, we take everything so seriously, we have to be so
correct and everyone's got to apologize.
We're all overreacting to so many things and making things so
difficult. Which means we have to watch every single word that comes out
of our mouth.
(End Video Clip)
MORGAN: Hallelujah. In one fell swoop of common sense, the whole
indignant balloon popped. If Ann Romney, the supposed victim of De
Niro's joke, can laugh, why the hell can't everybody else?
Bill Maher, in a brilliant op-ed piece in the New York Times today cut
to the heart of this nonsense. He (Unintelligible) who said, in a
country where nobody can say anything offensive ever again. He's
pleading to stop all the apologizing. He said this.
"Let's have an amnesty on every made-up, fake, totally insincere,
playacted, hurt, insult, slight and affront. Let's make this Sunday the
National Day of No Outrage."
I couldn't agree more. Now this doesn't mean that people should feel
free to be homophobic or sexist or bigoted or racist. Well, that's a
Rush Limbaugh or Kirk Cameron, even Maher himself with that ugly
profanity about Sarah Palin, should be held to account for unnecessarily
inflammatory language, but with regard to all the innocuous asides of
politicians, pundits, co-workers, your neighbors – let's just get a
grip, shall we? Instead of pretending to take imaginary offense. Have a
laugh. Go on. Robert De Niro, as Ann Romney said, was being funny.
That's it.