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Mary Katharine Ham: Comparing Roseanne And Samantha Bee Is Not A False Equivalency

‘These are two women public figures, attacking women public figures… They both use what is universally recognized as the worst terms about which you can talk about African Americans or women.’

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Federalist Senior Writer Mary Katharine Ham joined CNN’s “Reliable Sources” on Sunday to discuss controversial comments from comedians Roseanne Barr and Samantha Bee. Maria Cardona, a CNN political commentator, said comparing Barr’s tweets to Bee’s commentary is a false equivalency.

“If Samantha Bee had done exactly the same thing as Roseanne Barr, tweeted exactly the same thing, let’s say perhaps about Condoleezza Rice, and she did it when she was employed by a company like ABC or Disney, which is very family oriented, I bet you she would have been fired,” Cardona said. “If you flip it, if Roseanne had done this on a late night show and used the same words that Samantha Bee did, let’s say towards Chelsea Clinton, she probably would not have been fired.”

Ham made a counter point, saying it is “extremely hard” to make these incidents two different things.

“These are two women public figures, attacking women public figures. They both have autonomous TV shows. They both use what is universally recognized as the worst terms about which you can talk about African-Americans or women,” Ham said.

“You could argue that the racism is a harsher one because just because it’s racism. You can also argue that Samantha Bee’s evens up because it was scripted by an entire staff at a network.”

“I am not surprised that the racism got Roseanne fired, and I think that this is roughly equivalent, and I’m sort of surprised that [Bee] is still being given awards.”