No Outrage for Rosie?

This morning I happened to pass a stray TV set where Rosie O'Donnell was being mentioned.  Like any train wreck, I assumed that I had to remain focused on what they were saying.  I did, and I have so many questions.

Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, had sent out a message for Christmas, to the troops serving in the military.  I listened to it, and it was about as pleasant and otherwise unremarkable as a Christmas message can be.  It was a bit religious for a public official's message (it is a religious holiday, of course), but the Speaker is a very religious man and a devout Catholic, so I suppose it should have been regarded as coming from Paul Ryan the man, who has a following because he is also Paul Ryan, the Speaker.

Either way, the message was something you or I could have written -- I did, in fact, on Monday -- wishing everyone a wonderful day and reminding us that we were celebrating the birth of the baby Jesus on that day.  There was nothing, nothing in the content that was, in and of itself, out of the ordinary for such a message.

Except, it seems to Rosie O'Donnell.

Rosie O'Donnell, who is -- OK, I don't know exactly what it is that she does anymore, but everyone knows who she is -- well, she could not take it that Paul Ryan would think to issue a message of celebration on Christmas Day.  Somewhere in her addled brain, it must have struck a nerve.

She dashed out a tweet of her own, which I will quote with spelling and capitalization (or lack thereof) intact.

"paul ryan – don’t talk about Jesus after what u just did to our nation – u will go straight to hell.  U screwed up fake altar boy #JUDASmuch"

OK, work with me.  One person sends a message to our troops overseas celebrating the Christmas holiday and wishing them peace and joy for the season.  The other sends a rant based on a complete misreading of a tax law just passed that, by any reasonable reading is helpful to middle-class wage earners.  The rant condemned the first person and accusing him of being a betrayer of everyone and comparing him to the disciple who betrayed Jesus.

Which one has the high ground?

I realize that Rosie O'Donnell is so far down the importance scale, below measles, Burkina Faso and yttrium commodity prices, that we shouldn't care.  But when I looked at the leftist media to figure out if and how they tried to defend her, I found, well, nothing.  No articles, no nothing except on conservative-leaning outlets.  Yes, I know it was not very important, but it was at least news, in the same vein as Madonna publicly talking of blowing up the White House (except that one was on live TV and the media couldn't avoid it).  I couldn't evaluate their side, because they buried the story completely.

Where was CNN?  Where was MSNBC?  Where were the network news people?  Did they simply not find it appropriate to air a story when it is a leftist doing something obnoxious and stupid?

It is a bit frustrating, because not presenting news is on the same order as actual fake news, he kind that has been getting reporters suspended lately.  It is the manipulation of the public to believe what the media want you to believe, sort of like their repeatedly saying that the new tax law is "harmful to the USA" in the actual news broadcast, rather than the opinion segments.  Obviously if the Republicans thought it to be harmful to the USA, they wouldn't have passed it, from either a political or altruistic sense.

Yes, Rosie O'Donnell's opinions and, for that matter, the opinions of pretty much everyone in Hollywood who was never actually involved in politics as their business (so, about everyone there except Clint Eastwood and Arnold Schwarzenegger), are pretty much irrelevant.  But there is no reason the airing of them, particularly when done in such a contemptible way toward a man who has been diligently trying to fix the tax law for the USA for decades, is news only for a few conservative-leaning news outlets, and draws a blank on the left.

I know what it means.  It means that Rosie O'Donnell so badly embarrasses the left, that the last thing they want their media outlets to report is something that could sabotage the public perception of their opinions.

Speaker Ryan's office took the high road when they were asked about l'affaire Rosie.  "We wish everyone a merry Christmas", they replied when asked.

We assume Rosie O'Donnell has no high roads.  We don't know what we can say for the media of the left.

Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
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