Samantha Bee vs. Roseanne Barr: Double Standard? Twitter Reacts

Maria Puente of USA TODAY wrote:And just like that, America turned Thursday from harrumphing about Roseanne Barr's racist Twitter twaddle to sputtering about Samantha Bee's profane TV patter. Once again, judging from Twitter, the nation divided itself into warring camps.

Barr posted a shocking tweet early Wednesday and within a few hours ABC fired her, cancelling her hugely popular re-boot of Roseanne despite the potential loss of zillions in ad dollars and eyeballs.

On Wednesday night on her TBS late-night comedy show, Full Frontal, Bee criticized Ivanka Trump for her father's immigration policies by calling her "feckless" attached to the most offensive vulgar term for a female in the English language.  

By Thursday afternoon she apologized but she was not fired nor was her show cancelled. "It was inappropriate and inexcusable. I crossed a line, and I deeply regret it," she tweeted. "Those words should not have been aired," TBS added in a statement. " It was our mistake too, and we regret it.”

Cue the baying tweet choruses of whataboutism! Need to discredit an opponent's position without directly confronting it? Start tweet-shouting hypocrisy and "double standard" with lots of exclamation points.

The right, on the back foot ever since Barr suffered another of her periodic bouts of Twitter derangement, had been trying, without much success, to turn attention away from President Trump-supporting Barr's bald display of racism and focus instead on liberal miscreants and their misdeeds.

Then Bee's sexist obscenity hit and their task was made much easier, especially when it became clear Bee would not suffer the same consequences as Barr.

Now it was the left's turn to mount a campaign of deflection, as in: What about Trump's use of similar vulgarisms to describe women?

Let's sort the Twitter reaction in some buckets:

The "double standard" argument:

This is by far the strongest theme among conservative tweeters and right-wing pundits who tweet. "Fire Samantha Bee," was their rallying cry. Even Barr endorsed the idea via a retweet.

Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States via Twitter @realDonaldTrump wrote:Why aren’t they firing no talent Samantha Bee for the horrible language used on her low ratings show? A total double standard but that’s O.K., we are Winning, and will be doing so for a long time to come!

Ari Flescher, Former Spokesman for President George W. Bush via Twitter @AriFleischer wrote:I remember when a congressional staffer to a backbench GOP Congressman criticized the way the Obama children dressed at a Rose Garden event. It made the network news. The MSM was outraged for days.  She lost her job.https://t.co/GdVZfnDRuh

Compare ABC’s reaction to Roseanne Barr’s tweet w TBS’s non-reaction to Samantha Bee and you’ll see a double-standard in action. There’s no uprising against Bee. Why? Because she is liberal.  Because the MSM protects Obama and his aides, but not Trump. The hypocrisy is sickening.

Britt McHenry of FOX News via Twitter @BrittMcHenry wrote:If Samantha Bee said those comments directed at Ivanka Trump about the Obama or Clinton family, not only would she lose her show, she’d be shunned from Hollywood. Hypocrisy & cruelty from the Left, per usual.

The Trump Train via Twitter @The_Trump_Train wrote:If Roseanne lost her show for tweeting a joke, Samantha Bee should be on the same list for spewing real, vile hatred on live TV.

The double standard is REAL!

In Washington, statements of shock and outrage emanated from the White House, both West and East wings.

"Vile and vicious," declared the president's spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

"The double standard is truly astounding," said Stephanie Grisham, spokeswoman for first lady Melania Trump. "Time and again the Trump family and members of this administration are subjected to false reporting, hateful rhetoric and outrageous lies, all in the name of freedom of speech or comedy, yet the mainstream media stays silent."

Mike Martin via Twitter @historiarex wrote:So let's review...#Roseanne makes a terrible statement and loses her show. Samantha Bee, a #Liberal, says something awful about Ivanka #Trump but does not lose hers. Yeah, no double-standard here.

A tweeter named Jonny sees double standards everywhere.

Jonny via Twitter @hereeesjonny wrote:The Samantha Bee and Roseanne controversies are just proving that there’s a clear double standard and certain people can say whatever they want and get away with it while others get punished for it Either let everyone voice their opinion no matter how bad or take away free speech

The what-about-Trump's-vulgarisms argument:

Speaking of POTUS: After 48 hours of mocking and dismissing the right's whataboutism, suddenly the left was on defense — and turning to Trump's history of trashy talk, including the use of the very word that so infuriated them Thursday.

Some tweeters posted the full transcript of the infamous Access Hollywood tape of Trump talking about grabbing women's genitals (he used a different vulgar term) and getting away with it.

Others posted pictures of people at Trump rallies during the 2016 campaign wearing t-shirts that referred to Democrat Hillary Clinton by the C-word. Still others pointed out that rocker Ted Nugent called Clinton by that word, too, and Trump invited him to dinner.

Ricky Davila via Twitter @TheRickyDavila wrote:Seeing all of this fake outrage over Samantha Bee using the C-word towards Ivanka by the same people who wore, post daily, share memes, retweet posts calling Hillary Clinton that very same word is hypocritically amusing.

On Thursday, Chelsea Clinton commented on the hypocrisy surrounding Nugent's use of the slur, writing that she keeps “hoping for consistency” from the right, “though I’m not holding my breath." In a separate post, she told a detractor that the word "shouldn't be used to describe anyone, including my wonderful mother."

Tony Posnanski via Twitter @tonyposnanski wrote:The right isn’t outraged over Samantha Bee’s comment...

They just want to be able to justify defending Roseanne’s racist comment.

The blame-the-network argument:

Conservative syndicated columnist and talk-radio host Ben Shapiro (The Daily Wire) focused on the cable network TBS and Bee's production team, pointing out that her show was vetted beforehand.

(In fact, her use of the obscenity was beeped so the folks in charge must have known she was going to say it.)

Ben Shapiro via Twitter @benshapiro wrote:Here's the thing about @iamsambee's evil little rant that's particularly amazing: it was scripted. It was taped. Nobody thought twice about it.

Matt Walsh, who calls himself an "extremist" on his Twitter account, said everyone should demand TBS get rid of Bee and her "atrocious" show.

Matt Walsh via Twitter @MattWalshBlog wrote:I have no problem calling for the firing of Samantha Bee. Her show is atrocious and her rhetoric is vile and revolting. TBS should get rid of her and we should demand they do so. I supported ABC firing Roseanne and I will call for TBS to be held to same standard.

The there's-a-difference argument:

Some attempted to explain the distinctions between the Barr and Bee episodes.

That Guy via Twitter @The_Real_Tandy wrote:What #RoseanneBarr said was racist an inexcusable. What Samantha Bee said was also inexcusable, but was not racist. That's not a double standard. Stop with the "What about"-ism. Both things can be wrong, while also different, and therefore treated differently.

Chris Banhart via Twitter @Freudenfreude wrote:Another difference between Samantha Bee's situation and Roseanne's.
Roseanne was fired by her boss. Samantha Bee is being attacked by the federal government. If you want to talk double standards, let's start with that one.

The pox-on-all-their-houses argument:

The former congressman-turned-talk-radio host and right-wing firebrand Joe Walsh was in this camp.

Joe Walsh via Twitter @WalshFreedom wrote:This is what we sound like:

"@therealroseanne should be fired!"

"@iamsambee should be fired!"

"@IngrahamAngle should be fired!"

"@billmaher should be fired!"

Smh. We've become a country of cupcakes. On both sides.

Grow up.

The joke-it-away argument:

This might not have been entirely persuasive. Comedian Elayne Boosler noted that Barr was axed because she demeaned and debased African Americans and they made their voices heard. But the jury's still out on Bee, she tweeted.

"Nobody's yet heard from the feckless (gals)," she said.