Great moments in cognitive dissonance: Missoula Children’s Theatre “apologizes for lyric about beheading Palin,” blurts a headline in a Montana paper.
Found via James Taranto in Tuesday’s “Best of the Web Today,” who writes:
The Missoulian, daily newspaper of Montana’s second city, weighs in this morning with a story on the Missoula Community Theater story, which we brought to national attention in our Friday column.
The paper very kindly acknowledges our role in the story, noting that “political bloggers around the country quickly followed Taranto’s lead,” though reporter Joe Nickell makes an error at our expense: “Taranto argued that the Palin reference was an example–though he did not name others–of widespread hate speech in the arts world.” In fact, we did name others.
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The paper also quotes Michael McGill, executive director of the theater’s parent corporation;
“In retrospect, we made a mistake,” he said. “Anybody that gets singled out in such a way as that, whether it might be (President Barack) Obama or Palin or whomever [sic], it’s inappropriate. I take full responsibility for that.”
McGill’s quotation points to the double standard that is the real problem here: Can anyone imagine that Curt Olds, or just about any other theater director, would find it funny or appropriate to include a reference to the beheading of President Obama?
What, and violate the Era of New Civility?
Presumably, a legendary Hollywood actor defending calls for Dick Cheney’s death wouldn’t violate the spirit of the New Civility either, right?
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