Samantha Bee apologized again on her TBS show "Full Frontal" Wednesday night for using a vulgar word to describe Ivanka Trump.
Will it be enough?
Who are we kidding? But it's a start.
Last week Bee used the word — easily Googled if you've been without electricity for the last week — in talking about Ivanka Trump not standing up to her father, President Donald Trump, for his immigration policy that in some cases separates children from their parents.
She spoke during the opening to the latest episode of her show Wednesday night, and her last words were her most powerful.
"I am, I'm really sorry that I said that word," she said. "But you know what? Civility is just nice words. Maybe we should all worry a little bit more about the niceness of our actions."
RELATED: Samantha Bee comment offensive, but not racist. Here's why that matters
Bee's timing last week couldn't have been worse. Her insult came hard on the heels of Roseanne Barr's late-night racists tweets about an adviser to former President Barack Obama, which got her show, "Roseanne" — the No. 1 show on ABC — canceled with head-spinning speed.
TBS merely issued an apology for Bee's words, which led to conservatives — and Trump — decrying it as a double standard.
All of this ignored, of course, how much worse racism is than vulgar language.
Believe me, I can tell you from the emails and comments I've gotten since writing that very thing, a lot of people will bend over backwards 27 different ways to defend Barr, or to drum up a false equivalency (along with willful ignorance, the most-dangerous product of our divisive times).
That is, again, in no way a defense of Bee's use of the word. At all. It's not a zero-sum game. Bee herself addressed the ugliness of her word choice Wednesday night.
"It is a word I have used on the show many times, hoping to reclaim it," she said. "This time I used it as an insult. I crossed the line, I regret it and I do apologize for that. The problem is, many women have heard that word at the worst moments of their lives. A lot of them don't want that word reclaimed, and I don't blame them."
She is a comedian, after all, and she followed with: "I want this show to be challenging and I want it to be honest and I never intended to hurt anyone. Except Ted Cruz."
MORE: Samantha Bee addresses Ivanka Trump comment on 'Full Frontal': 'I regret it'
Two other things she said really stood out. One is her observation that trumped-up outrage on both sides takes away from real debate about policy we so often ignore.
"I hate that this distracted from more important issues," Bee said. "I hate that I did something to contribute to the nightmare of 24-hour news cycles that we're all white-knuckling through. I should have known that a potty-mouth insult would be inherently more interesting to them than juvenile immigration policy."
The other important thing she said was easy to miss. She referenced what she said about "the president's daughter and adviser." Note the word "adviser."
This in no way excuses what Bee called Ivanka Trump, but it does remind us that she's not one of the Bush twins, or Chelsea Clinton, or one of the Obamas' daughters, off-limits to media scrutiny. She's a public official in her own right, thus fair game for criticism.
But not vulgarity. Maybe now we can get back to something close to normal. Good luck with that.
Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk.
MORE: Roberts: Samantha Bee is no Roseanne Barr
Thanks for reading Goodykoontz: Samantha Bee apologizes for Ivanka Trump insult, urges actions over words. Please share...!
0 Comment for "Goodykoontz: Samantha Bee apologizes for Ivanka Trump insult, urges actions over words"