Cape Sneer

by JASmius

Time for another thought experiment.
Let's say that, four years ago, a center-right actor - Charlton Heston, say, or Jon Voight or Gary Sinise or Kelsey Grammer, had headlined a Republican fundraiser and had said the following: "Michelle Obama? Do you really think our country is ready for a black first lady?"
Rhetorical question #1: Would the audience have (a) laughed and applauded, (b) gasped in shocked astonishment, or (c) stampeded for the exits in stark terror of being cornered by a reporter or caught on a youtube video?
Rhetorical question #2: Would that hypothetical center-right actor (a) have guaranteed himself the hosting gig at the next Academy Awards show or (b) a Hollywood blackballing that would have made the "red scare" of the '50s look like a group hug?"
You can ask DeNiro himself backstage at next year's Oscars, a likely award for his racist smearing of Ann Romney and the also-rans' wives as well.
Newt Gingrich, in his proper party role as watchman on the wall (versus commander of the fort), stole the Max Cady role from DeNiro and forced him into Nick Nolte's cringing Sam Bowden character over DeNiro's, well, "raging bull":

"I do want to say one thing, both on behalf of my wife
and on behalf of Karen Santorum and on behalf of Ann Romney, I think that Robert DeNiro's wrong," Gingrich said. "I think the country is ready for a new first lady and he doesn't have to describe it in racial terms." ...
"This is not about the first lady," Gingrich said. "It's about the
president. That's where DeNiro missed the whole point. DeNiro is rich enough he probably doesn't notice the price of gasoline. He's successful enough he probably doesn't notice the unemployment rate. As the Hollywood actor, he might well be shortsighted enough he doesn't understand what it might do to our children and our grandchildren."...
"What DeNiro said last night was inexcusable and the president should apologize for him. It was at an Obama fundraiser, it is exactly wrong, it divides the country," Gingrich said. "If people on the left want to talk about talk show hosts, then everybody in the country should hold the president accountable when someone at his event says something that is utterly and terrible unacceptable as what Robert DeNiro said."

I concur with Tina Korbe about demands for apologies from the other side being, if not lame, then at the very least pointless. They're either not forthcoming, which makes the demander look impotent, or they are, but inevitably of dubious sincerity. The real problem is that they make the remark about the target's hurt feelings than about the perpetrator's moral responsibility for committing the offense in the first place. But at least somebody backhanded the miserable {ahem} Fokker.
And it must have had some effect - if a horrible sense of direction:

DeNiro's response was polite, if not particularly apologetic.
"My remarks, although spoken with satirical jest, were not meant to
offend or embarrass anyone --- especially the First Lady," DeNiro said in a statement to TPM.

IOW, the standard lefty excuse when they get called on their hate speech - "Oh, can't you take a joke?" And as always, if you accept that it was a joke, it's not remotely funny, or clever, and was in fact quite tasteless. But, also as always, there's no reason to believe that DeNiro meant what he said "satirically". He's a willing and eager "house honky" on the racist Obama plantation, not needing to be whipped and terrorized into submission to his scrawny "massah". He may have cast it comedically, but there's little doubt he meant every last word.
A Heston, Voight, Sinise, or Grammar in the opposite position would probably be in the hospital already. DeNiro glibly "apologizes" - not to Mrss. Romney, Santorum, or Gingrich, but to The Arms, I guess for the "insult" of comparing the Empress Consort to that trio of "cracker bitches".
Hmm; maybe his "apology" was sincere after all...
[cross-posted @ Hard Starboard]