The lights went up, the band struck its familiar chords, and Jimmy Kimmel reappeared at his desk. Not as a persecuted truth teller, but as a late night jester returning from a brief spell in the sin bin. For weeks, hysterical commentators had insisted that his absence signalled America’s descent into some Trumpian gulag, proof that censorship now marched under Republican banners.
Yet, here he was again. Grinning gamely into the camera, dispensing the usual cocktail of laboured gags and deflection. “As I was saying before I was interrupted, we are preempting your regularly scheduled encore episode of Celebrity Family Feud to bring you this special report,” he began, before offering the line that everyone expected: “I’m not sure who had the weirder 48 hours, me or the Ceo of Tylenol.”
After a few damp squibs, Kimmel quickly gave way to tears. “It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man,” Kimmel said of Charlie Kirk, his voice breaking. “Nor was it ever my intention to blame any specific group… that was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make.” He admitted his words had been “ill-timed or unclear or maybe both” and even praised Kirk’s widow for showing “a selfless act of grace… that touched me deeply.” Noticeably absent from his script was, “I shouldn’t have said that the shooter is Maga, he wasn’t, and I am sorry I told fibs.”
It was stranger still to hear him thank the conservatives celebs who had rallied to his defence when he was taken off air. “I never would have imagined, Ben Shapiro, Clay Travis, Candace Owens, Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul. Even my old pal Ted Cruz, who believe it or not, said something very beautiful on my behalf.”
But even without this concession, the spectacle itself was enough to puncture the myth. Martyrs don’t usually reappear in the same primetime slot a week later, grinning into the camera. If this was the Right’s attempt of “cancel culture,” it bore an uncanny resemblance to paid holiday leave. The only real overreach came from Brendan Carr of the FCC, who blustered that ABC could lose its licence for airing Kimmel – a threat so clumsy it embarrassed even his own side. Ted Cruz dismissed it as “dangerous as hell,” likening Carr’s tough talk to a mafioso shaking down a bar owner:“Nice bar you have here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it.”
Donald Trump, never one to resist a sideshow, took to Truth Social to wish Kimmel good luck before the show. He wrote that he “can’t believe” ABC had given him his slot back, called him “not funny,” and hinted that the network was making “a major illegal Campaign Contribution.” He had already cheered Kimmel’s suspension as proof of “bad ratings” – a view not shared by those on his own side, Hollywood grandees, or senior Democrats such as Barack Obama, who rushed to Kimmel’s defence.
But what stands out isn’t Trump’s bluster so much as the Left’s double standards. Many of the same voices now wailing about Kimmel’s supposed “cancellation” were only weeks ago celebrating the assassination of a young man whose politics they despised. Before that, not so long ago, they were cheering on government-backed restrictions on speech during the pandemic. Then, muzzling dissent was a “public good,” now, a late-night host’s week off is “a free-speech crisis.” Their creed is not “free speech for all” but “free speech for my friends who believe the same things I do.”
The truth is more prosaic. Kimmel shared a false rumour about the alleged shooter’s politics. Disney, spooked by advertisers, yanked him off air and made him say sorry. Carr blustered, Trump fulminated, conservatives pushed back and delivered Kimmel back to his chair, live at 11:30pm for anyone masochistic or bored enough to tune in. Progressives may wish to paint him as a martyr; but the show goes on. So much, then, for America teetering on the brink of fascism. If this is tyranny, it comes with an ABC logo, a studio audience, and the kind of recycled jokes that make you long for the ad break.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com ’
