Air America today announced that they are suspending Randi Rhodes for repeatedly calling Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro "fucking whores" during a stand up routine. This has already been reported on this blog several times, and each time the it was diaried, the diarist was defending Randi Rhodes, and blasting Air America.
While many commenters did post responses criticizing Randi for making her remarks, a lot of them defended her, and some went as far as agreeing with remarks. It has disheartened me to see so many Democrats do this. Randi's remarks were inexcusable, and Air America had every right to suspend her.
More after the jump...
For anyone who has still not seen the remarks, you can see them here:
It disheartens me to see so many Democrats defending Randi's remarks. It joins the ever growing list of things that I've seen during this primary season that I never thought I would see coming out of Democrat's mouths I have been as critical as just about anyone of both Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro on this blog (a simple comment/diary check will confirm this), but her remarks were completely unacceptable and over the line.
It doesn't matter if it was done as part of a stand up comedy routine. Doing something in the name of comedy does not give you carte blanche to say whatever you want to say. Michael Richards does not get a pass on his racist rant because it was done in the name of comedy. Don Imus does not get a pass on calling the Rutgers basketball team a group of "nappy headed ho's" because it was done in the name of comedy. All of these statements are wrong, and should be condemned.
In fact, if I think it was either Don Imus or Michael Richards that said the same remarks as Randi Rhodes, all of the people on this blog would be calling for their heads. Just because Randi is a liberal, and has made a lot of good contributions, does not make her comments anymore justifiable.
Several people have pointed out that Pat Buchanan, Bill O'Reilly, et al. have said plenty of racist/sexist things and gotten a pass. That may be correct, but since when did we start holding ourselves to the standards of the O'Reillys and Buchanans of the world? One of the biggest reasons that I am a Democrat is because I believe that Democrats are better than that. As such, we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard than Republicans hold themselves to. And that means punishing our own for statements that the right might get away with.
Under no circumstances is it acceptable to call a sitting senator and an ex-vice presidential candidate a whore. Under no circumstances is it acceptable to call ANY woman a whore. Ever. It is a blatantly sexist and offensive term.
When Randi Made these remarks, she was speaking as a representative of the network and Clear Channel talk radio when she made these remarks. They have every right to suspend her for it. If any of us made remarks close to these as a representative of the companies that we work for, I can guarantee that most of our employers would not be so generous to just give us a suspension.
You want to criticize Hillary and Geraldine on some of their comments and actions? That is completely okay. But using this kind of language lowers the discourse to levels that do nothing to help the Democratic party.
Barack Obama would unequivocally condemn these remarks, and I hope that all Kossacks, regardless of who they support, will join me in doing so as well.