Oh boy.

<a href="Air'>http://www.airamerica.com/">Air America</a> host <a href="Randi'>http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/live/">Randi Rhodes</a> has been suspended because, while delivering a "standup routine" off the air at an Air America event for an affiliate, <a href="she'>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/03/air-america-host-randi-rh_n_94863.html">she called Hillary Clinton a "dirty f*king whore". </a>

Over the line a tad? Yeah.

Look, it's one thing to slam a candidate for something they've said or done, but this is pure ad hominem name-calling of the most offensive kind. Even that could be defensible if it were funny, but it's not.

I understand what she was trying to do -be shocking and over the top, but in and of itself that isn't funny -particularly not in this context. Rhodes is noted for her pitt-bull style of political commentary and so a certain amount of aggression is expected, and because it's expected, it's not funny when she goes over the top. If it were unexpected -it would be funny. For example if Mother Theresa called Hillary a "dirty f*cking whore."

This is the same thing Michael Richards was trying to do, and just as when he did it, it wasn't funny. In his case it wasn't funny because he already has a "crazy" type of persona. Crazy and racist isn't a funny juxtoposition because it's not a far enough jump, i.e. you might expect a crazy person to utter racist statements.

The unexpected <strong>is</strong> funny -as an analogy consider the difference between people ignoring a dead body lying on the table at a <em>morgue</em>, and people ignoring a dead body lying on the table at a <em>fancy dress dinner party</em>.

In the latter case -the more outrageously disgusting the dead body is the funnier it is, whereas adding disgusting features to the body in the former scenario doesn't make it any more funny.

Additionally, Air America was completely justified in suspending her. True, this was not on the air, but it was at an Air America sponsored event, and the network can't be seen as sanctioning that kind of behavior -it'd kill them.

Moreover this is not a case of "censorship. The 1st Amendment only protects people from having their speech restricted <em>by the government </em>or by those acting under government authority. Having an FCC license doesn't make them a government entity any more than having a liquor license makes a liquor store into one. Air America is a private entity and is perfectly within its rights to have a policy restricting the behavior of its employees at one of its events. I would think they were incredibly stupid if they <em>didn't </em>suspend her.

So now Rhodes has been suspended and her career is in jeopardy, which is a shame because she has proven herself to be one of the more capable talk-radio voices because of her skill in distilling the issues and presenting them in an "average Joe" format.

Finally, it was horribly myopic of her not to realize that in the YouTube age -anything you say or do in public can be videoed and used to nail you.

Ironically, the person she was slamming (the <a href="Tigress'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BfNqhV5hg4">Tigress of Tuzla</a>) found that out before she did.

crossposted at Diary of an Obssessive Progressive