XPost: alt.drugs.meth, neworleans.general, nj.politics   
   XPost: alt.fan.letterman   
   From: pure.malice@salon.com   
      
   Well, at least we know there’s still a line.   
      
   On Tuesday, when Tyler Shields’ intentionally provocative photo   
   of comedian Kathy Griffin holding what appeared to be the   
   bloody, severed head of President Trump hit social media, the   
   condemnation was swift, complete and unequivocal. Whatever her   
   initial intention, Griffin found herself the subject of   
   something that has become increasingly rare in American   
   discourse: bipartisan, multicultural agreement.   
      
   Virtually everyone in America was horrified.   
      
   Some, including Donald Trump Jr., attempted to politicize the   
   moment by making Griffin a de facto spokeswoman for “the left,”   
   but it was impossible to make that stick.   
      
   No one, not even the president’s most outspoken critics,   
   defended the image.   
      
   Instead, the words “vile,” “disgusting” and “unacceptable”   
   united the social media response from both sides of the aisle   
   and every social stratum. By late Tuesday afternoon, Griffin had   
   called for Shields to take the image down and issued an abject   
   apology via Instagram. Stripped of her usual high-glam look,   
   Griffin conceded that the image was too upsetting and literally   
   begged for forgiveness. “I’m a comic, I cross the line, I move   
   the line and then I cross it. I went way too far.... I made a   
   mistake and I was wrong.”   
      
   For many, the apology was too little too late; the president and   
   the first lady took to Twitter on Wednesday to express their   
   personal hurt and outrage, and CNN, which had initially taken a   
   “wait-and-see” attitude, quickly announced that it was firing   
   Griffin from her 10-year gig as co-host of its New Year’s Eve   
   countdown with Anderson Cooper.   
      
   (There have also been calls for further cancellations, including   
   Griffith’s July 7 appearance “In Conversation” with Sen. Al   
   Franken [D-Minn.] at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the   
   Performing Arts in Beverly Hills. Franken told CNN the event   
   will go on as planned.)   
      
   Cooper let his feelings be known almost immediately, tweeting   
   that he was “appalled by the photo shoot Kathy Griffin took part   
   in. It is clearly disgusting and completely inappropriate.”   
      
   His reaction sparked, in turn, a fair amount of social media   
   scoffing, as many pointed out that Cooper recently had been   
   involved in professional line-crossing.   
      
   In the wake of Trump’s recent firing of FBI Director James B.   
   Comey, Cooper had suggested to Trump supporter Jeffrey Lord that   
   if the president “took a dump on his desk” Lord would defend it   
   (for which Cooper then apologized) and rolled his eyes at a   
   response from Kellyanne Conway (for which he didn’t.)   
      
   Of course, “the line” has always been open to negotiation. As   
   was written in the 1987 film “Broadcast News” — which remains   
   the bible of the intersection of news, politics and popular   
   culture — sometimes it’s hard to avoid crossing the line   
   “because they keep moving the little sucker.”   
      
   But it has not vanished entirely, or even moved as far as   
   Griffin and Shields thought it had.   
      
   Which is strangely reassuring given the state of our nation,   
   where just last week Greg Gianforte, campaigning to become a   
   House representative for Montana, reacted to a reporter asking   
   about healthcare by body-slamming him.   
      
   For which Gianforte also apologized, but only after he had won   
   the seat.   
      
   Indeed, in the almost two years since Trump entered the   
   presidential race, many seemingly unmovable boundaries have been   
   breached and redrawn.   
      
   As a candidate he crossed lines of civil conduct, threatening   
   Hillary Clinton directly with jail (“Lock her up”) and seemingly   
   with assassination (when he suggested that Clinton’s bodyguards   
   disarm and “let’s see what happens” or that “the 2nd Amendment   
   people” might have a solution should she, as president, curtail   
   their rights.)   
      
   A similar vitriol fuels the Trump White House, where late-night   
   rage-tweets against individuals, Democrats and the “fake media”   
   have become the new normal. And increasingly, the media are   
   responding with a new normal of their own. After Comey was   
   fired, Cooper was not the only journalist to vent his emotions;   
   as my colleague Lorraine Ali wrote, even Wolf Blitzer blanched   
   and Chuck Todd was reduced to a flabbergasted “Wow.”   
      
   Traditional news outlets, including this one, are pushing back   
   with the type of direct and often accusatory language — the   
   accurate use of the word “lie,” for an example, became a topic   
   of media debate — rarely used for a sitting president, much less   
   one in office for less than six months.   
      
   And as for comedians, well, Trump’s bare-knuckles approach suits   
   most of them just fine. After the election, Seth Meyers revealed   
   a surprisingly deadly aim, Jimmy Kimmel recently became the face   
   of healthcare, and Stephen Colbert, having re-embraced stinging   
   political humor, shot to the top of the late-night ratings,   
   leaving Jimmy Fallon to regret that he ever thought to muss   
   candidate Trump’s hair.   
      
   Indeed, until Griffin’s photo went live, it seemed there was   
   nothing negative a comedian could say about Trump that would get   
   them in trouble; when Colbert recently went on a profane rant   
   that included a crude reference to the president’s mouth,   
   #firecolbert spluttered briefly to life and quickly went out.   
   Colbert apologized, but to anyone who found his remark   
   homophobic, not to the president.   
      
   Far more alarming is the ongoing, and increasingly vitriolic,   
   battle between average citizens; the red/blue conflict, which   
   normally recedes after a presidential election, has grown only   
   more pronounced. Even as statues dedicated to the Confederate   
   generals who literally wanted to divide the country are pulled   
   down, another division, deeper and more difficult to define,   
   takes firmer root.   
      
   Social media, particularly Twitter, has never run on subtlety or   
   complex thought; for better or worse, a single remark or image   
   can spark a trend or ruin a career.   
      
   That it has become the main platform of political discourse   
   makes fading lines only blurrier. “It was only a joke,” a   
   refrain once restricted to sassy teenagers, has become the   
   standard excuse for an offensive or objectionable remark, and   
   one the president has used often.   
      
   But as the professional comedian just discovered, some jokes   
   really aren’t funny and some lines still cannot be crossed.   
      
   And though it would have been better to be reminded of this in   
   another, less offensive and news-cycle-generating way, it’s   
   still good to know.   
      
   http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-et-st-kathy-griffin-   
   20170601-story.html   
                      
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)