Kimmel’s back. The autocrats never went away.
“This show is not important: What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this,” Jimmy Kimmel told his audience Tuesday night. Under a flood of public pressure, ABC put his show back into production after suspending it last Wednesday night over conservative reaction to comments related to the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man,” Kimmel said, tearing up, but admitting that he was unlikely to change any critics’ minds.
“I don’t think there’s anything funny about it,” he asserted. “I posted a message on Instagram on the day he was killed, sending love to his family and asking for compassion, and I meant it. And I still do. Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions. It was a deeply disturbed individual. 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. If the situation was reversed, there’s a good chance I would have felt the same way. I have many friends and family members on the other side who I love and remain close to, even though we don’t agree on politics at all. I don’t think the murderer who shot Charlie Kirk represents anyone; this was a sick person who believed violence was a solution, and it isn’t.”
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened last week to have Kimmel suspended “the easy way or the hard way.” His comments pushed ABC executives into a hasty decision to take Kimmel’s show off the air, alarming free-speech supporters across the political landscape.
But in rising up to defend free speech, the public and the press paid too little attention to the fact that the Donald Trump administration had once again flouted the law. And a unanimous Supreme Court ruling from May 2024:
The case — National Rifle Association of America v. Vullo — has striking similarities to the current debate.
The National Rifle Association had sued the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) alleging its superintendent, Maria Vullo, had violated the First Amendment by coercing DFS-regulated insurance companies and banks from doing business with the NRA in a bid to punish or suppress the group’s gun rights advocacy.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the court, said: “Six decades ago, this Court held that a government entity’s “threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion” against a third party “to achieve the suppression” of disfavored speech violates the First Amendment. Today, the Court reaffirms what it said then: Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors.
As we see in the NRA case, suppression of free speech cuts both ways. Except the Trump administration makes plain again that it only deigns to obey only the laws it wants to.
Kimmel told his audience:
“[Freedom of speech is] something I’m embarrassed to say I took for granted until they pulled my friend Stephen [Colbert] off the air and tried to coerce the affiliates who run our show in the cities that you live in to take my show off the air,” he said. “That’s not legal, that’s not American. That is un-American. And it’s so dangerous.”
Kimmel might be back, but the autocrats never went away. Kimmel noted that the Pentagon just implemented a policy for reporters that they will need Chinese- and Russian-style “minders” to access parts of the building open to them under previous administrations. Plus, reporters will need “to sign a pledge not to obtain or use unauthorized material.”
One thing he learned from Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, and Howard Stern, Kimmel said, “is that a government threat to silence a comedian the president doesn’t like is anti-American.”
But I want to replay Kimmel’s slam last week against Trump regarding his “grieving” over Charlie Kirk.
Trump’s comments last week recall another president’s deep concerns expressed after a tragic event.
@performancegolfzone George Bush calls for an end to terrorism and then hits an iconic drive…straight down the middle! A great moment in American history. I hope they play the orginial clip in museums one day. #l#letsgogolfingd#djkhaledm#memed#djkhaledmemeg#georgebushg#golfg#golftokg#golfswinga#americap#politcsa#americanpolitics ♬ original sound – Performance Golf
Just to put the current “nontroversy” in perspective.
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