An open letter to Stuart Varney
Dear Mr. Varney:
You asked viewers whether anything else could have been done other than canceling the show in response to Roseanne's unfunny and vulgar joke. A first principle of justice is that punishment should be proportional to the offense. Here the punishment is extreme to the point of cruelty even before one considers that innocents are being punished along with the offender. Justice is supposed to be constructive and so to lead to healing. Here the punishment is far more destructive to our social harmony than the original offense. It is obvious that an ulterior motive of the leftist mindset is being served. Leftists don't like the show. Roseanne's joke provided leftist management with a pretext to scrub a show they wanted off the air. The fact is that the joke is harmless. The fact is leftists are hypersensitive, which is the real problem in this sorry situation.
What might have been done? Management might have simply ignored it and let left leaning commentators reproach her. Management might have quietly given her a warning. And finally management might have given her a public rebuke. Any of those alternatives would have been superior to what was done.
I am disappointed that none of the many Fox pundits weighing in on this had remarks like these. Fox is “PC” phobic like the rest of media.