Last night before her show Full Frontal, Samantha Bee apologized again for calling Ivanka Trump, a “feckless c***.”
The apology was about as sincere as Hillary Clinton apology for calling half of America “deplorables.”
Here’s what Bee said:
You know, a lot of people were offended and angry I used an epithet to describe the president’s daughter and adviser last week. It is a word I have used on the show many times, hoping to reclaim it. This time I used it as an insult. I crossed the line, I regret it and I do apologize for that.
Her mea culpa was only that she used that word, which she admits using all the time. She did not regret the spirit behind her words and intent of demeaning the White House advisor, businesswoman, and the First Daughter.
Here is a full transcript of her apology:
You know, a lot of people were offended and angry I used an epithet to describe the president’s daughter and adviser last week. It is a word I have used on the show many times, hoping to reclaim it. This time I used it as an insult. I crossed the line, I regret it and I do apologize for that.
The problem is, that many women have heard that word at the worst moments of thelr lives. A lot of them don’t want that word reclaimed. They want it gone. And, I don’t blame them.
I don’t want to inflict more pain on them. I want this show to be challenging and I want it to be honest, but I never intended it to hurt anyone, except Ted Cruz.
Many men were also offended by my use of the word. I do not care about that.
I hate that this distracted from more important issues. 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-mouthed insult would be inherently more interesting to them than juvenile immigration policy.
I would do anything to help those kids. I hate that this distracted from them. So, to them I am also sorry.
And look, if you are worried about the death of civility. Don’t sweat it. I’m a comedian. People who hone their voices in basement bars while yelling back at drunk hecklers are definitely not paragons of civility.
I’m really sorry that I said that word. But, you know what? Civility is just nice words, maybe we should all worry little bit more about the niceness of our actions.
Thank you for listening.
This is apparently Bee’s third apology which she and producers had been working on since last Thursday. She probably felt the need to do this to quell the bipartisan backlash over what she said and the bleeding of coveted ad dollars. At least two advertisers announced suspending sponsorship of her show.
In addition, TBS, the network which carries her show, is promising greater oversight of her show. However, more nanny hand-holding won’t prevent this from happening again.
Comedians like Bee and Kathy Griffin (who said Bee shouldn’t have apologized) join even well-known actresses like Sally Field in contributing to the coarsening of society as my colleague Charlotte highlighted. They do this because today, politics trumps civility when we’re talking about the Trump Administration. They can’t seem to moderate their own hate and the negative attention boosts their ego.
The irony is that Bee ends by downplaying the civility of words and preaches the “niceness of actions,” but she doesn’t even live up to that standard.