Extreme Over-Reaction to Katie Rich's Tweet

By Jeralyn, Section Media
Posted on Tue Jan 24, 2017 at 08:31:00 AM EST
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You'd never know it from the news headlines, but as the San Francisco Chronicle reports, there are people supporting SNL's Katie Rich, who tweeted a joke about Barron Trump, deleted it and got suspended by NBC, notwithstanding her profusive apology.

The Chronicle reports supporters can be found at the new #KeepKatieRich hashtag on Twitter, where many point out that Donald Trump posts worse things about people every 30 minutes.

There are legitimate topics to discuss about Trump's children, including 10 year old Barron, that affect us all -- like how much extra it's going to cost taxpayers to provide continuing security for him and his mother in New York while Trump is living in the White House so the child doesn't have to be inconvenienced by changing schools in the middle of the school year. This isn't a second residence, which most Presidents have had, but dual residency. While they have the right to decide where they sleep, Trump should be footing that bill, not us. [More...]

Instead of shutting down the extravagant security costs at Trump Tower, the Government is going to spend millions to make it secure. Secret Service and local law enforcement security details will drive Trump's wife and kid to and from school each day in a convoy. TMZ reports:

We're told the plan is to block off streets in a rolling pattern -- for just a few minutes -- to allow the First Lady's convoy to move quickly. NYPD will assist the Secret Service by blocking streets and re-opening them as soon as Melania's ride passes.

Glad to know there won't be gridlock, but I still object to taxpayer dollars paying for it. So do at least 135,000 people who have signed a Change.Org petition to stop New York from funding it. Security at Trump Tower after Trump's move to the White House is $1 million a day. (NBC reports their jaunt to Palm Beach for Thanksgiving cost $7 million in security.) And since the reason for the extra cost is the Trumps' preference for his son's schooling, his son is not off limits on that issue. At least not to me. Not when Trump's total security costs are approaching or exceeding $2 million a day.

Trump has put his family front and center during the campaign. They have been using their kids, including young ones, as photo props for years. If they insist on publicizing photographs of them, why don't we have a right to respond to what we think when we see the images?

If Trump wants family privacy, he should have thought about it before he ran for President. It doesn't help that he appointed his son-in-law as his advisor and put him in charge of things he has no experience dealing with, like peace in the Middle East and Mexican trade issues. In almost every photo op of Kushner, he's holding one of his kids. Ivanka has posted hundreds of pictures of her kids on social media. If the Trumps are going to push their family in our faces every day, they have to expect some pushback. Maybe not at the level of Katie Rich's impulsive and hastily deleted tweet, but I'm not buying the Norman Rockwell painting the Trumps are selling and I'm not going to have a blanket silence policy about any of them.

Victim of this, Victim of that, Get over it. Rich was making a joke. It was over the top, she apologized. It's going to happen when you have someone like Trump, who seems to be reviled by tens of millions of people in this country, and millions more around the globe, pretend he has a clue what he's doing.

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Extreme Over-Reaction to Katie Rich's Tweet | 12 comments (12 topical)

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No matter his or her social status in life, ... (5.00 / 2) (#1)
by Donald from Hawaii on Tue Jan 24, 2017 at 04:06:31 AM EST

... a 10-year-old child is ill-equipped to handle and in no real position to respond to a public attack or mocking by an adult, even when it's presented as so-called humor.

President* Trump, his plagiarizing wife Melania, his three elder children Ivanka, Donald, Jr. and Eric, and his ingratiating son-in-law Jared Kushner are all fair game for such comments, given their own very public statements and roles during the campaign and transition. Barron Trump is not, nor are Trump's young grandchildren.

Katie Rich was absolutely right to quickly apologize for making the boy the butt of a mean-spirited joke. While I find NBC's decision to suspend her regrettable, that's an internal personnel matter which is entirely their business, and really none of my concern. It was unfortunate that they instead chose to make their action public.

While I obviously can't speak for anyone else, I know that I certainly didn't like it when Rush Limbaugh once compared then-13-year-old Chelsea Clinton to a car's hood ornament, and later offered that her parents didn't need a pet because she qualified as the "White House dog."

Those horrible comments were meant by Limbaugh to be in jest, too, even though there's really nothing very funny about a grown man publicly abusing an adolescent girl. It's rather quite pathetic, actually.

I fully understand that many people are terribly upset at what has transpired over the course of these last few months, myself included. But let's not allow our own unhappiness over those events to cause us to lose sight of our own basic humanity and dignity, or tempt us to lower our standards of personal conduct to the vile levels of Rush Limbaugh and his deplorable ilk.

31 years ago, during a particularly trying time in my young adulthood when things weren't exactly going my way, my late grandmother once gently admonished me over my own angry and vindictive behavior with one simple statement: "It's during such times when above all, you need to remember who you are."

In other words, we're better than this. Therefore, let's please remember that, and conduct ourselves accordingly in principled opposition to whatever challenges lie before us in the days and months to come.

Aloha.

Agree with D from HI on this. (5.00 / 2) (#3)
by vml68 on Tue Jan 24, 2017 at 10:14:17 AM EST

Barron Trump should be off limits. Melania and the rest of the adult family are fair game.


: I'm not a big fan of off limits comedy (none / 0) (#6)
by McBain on Tue Jan 24, 2017 at 01:55:36 PM EST

If it's funny it's funny. Perhaps a tweet isn't the correct forum for that joke. A stand up club would have been better.

: Yes, children are off limits (none / 0) (#9)
by Aspidistra on Wed Jan 25, 2017 at 03:27:15 PM EST

I remember how sorry I felt for Chelsea when Rush Limbaugh said those awful, mean things about her. Growing up can be tough no matter who you are. You don't get to choose your parents. Barron is only 10.
Trump has four adult children and a wife who are indeed fair game. Please feel free to attack them with the full force of all your fury. But leave the 10-year-old alone.

Agree also, great comment. (none / 0) (#5)
by Lora on Tue Jan 24, 2017 at 10:52:55 AM EST

Katie's comment was, indeed, over the top, and her apology was appropriate.

This is not meant to be in defense of Katie Rich's comment, but in general there have been far too many over-the-top vindictive actions taken against too many inappropriately expressive people (with some glaring exceptions such as Rush, who gets away with saying anything).

If people who are generally not prone to over-the-top verbal attacks slip up and then apologize, let us acknowledge that to err is human, and move on.


Agree (none / 0) (#7)
by Abdul Abulbul Amir on Tue Jan 24, 2017 at 04:26:20 PM EST

Note that the time of this posting the tweet was so bad its contents were not mentioned here.


Will you start (5.00 / 2) (#8)
by Ga6thDem on Tue Jan 24, 2017 at 05:04:19 PM EST

asking conservatives to apologize to the Obamas and Clintons for the nasty things that they said about their children? Yes, Barron should be off limits but conservatives need to take some personal responsibility here too. It's not only "bad" when a child of a Republican gets this kind of stuff.


Sure. (none / 0) (#11)
by Abdul Abulbul Amir on Thu Jan 26, 2017 at 09:34:34 AM EST

The worst thing I can recall about the Obama kids was a "classless" comment but some congressional staffer that lost her job over it. In the last election the Clinton child was a politically active adult. Unless you can refresh my memory nothing about any of them was near as bad as the "shooter" comment.

As for apologies, those should come from whoever made the offending comment.


: Rush Limbaugh (none / 0) (#12)
by Ga6thDem on Thu Jan 26, 2017 at 09:59:06 AM EST

called Chelsea Clinton the white house dog on national TV when she was 12 or 13 years old. There were no consequences whatsoever for him doing such and he was actually cheered on by conservatives. Chelsea is such a class act she went to bat for Barron. Too bad conservatives are so vulgar and tasteless.

His mother has to go to school with him? (5.00 / 1) (#2)
by Towanda on Tue Jan 24, 2017 at 04:37:49 AM EST

More explanation is needed -- since we're paying for it, and I am sure that my security is needed for the two of them than for just him.

A lot of ten-year-olds are capable of being -- or have to be -- latchkey kids, before and after school . . . because of those millions per day that are coming from their parents' hard-earned taxes to pay for this.

response to this comment (none / 0) (#10)
by Jeralyn on Thu Jan 26, 2017 at 05:24:04 AM EST

has been deleted for repeating withdrawn claim about Barron. That's exactly the kind of comment that is inappropriate and you cannot publish it here.


: My apologies. I thought I was being careful by not (none / 0) (#13)
by vml68 on Thu Jan 26, 2017 at 10:20:36 AM EST

stating in the comment what the claim was and by calling it speculation.