When Laura Ingraham wrote her book "Shut Up and Sing" in 2003, the Left didn't read the book as much as overreacted to the title. The title implied something important. While celebrities gain a "platform" they feel compelled to use, do their opinions reflect any expertise? Or is fame more important than logic?
Celebrities often lead with emotion and expect to cause an emotional reaction. They don't expect "independent fact-checkers" to examine their emotions.
Exhibit A is an April 15 interview of Hillary Clinton on "The Kelly Clarkson Show." Pop singer Clarkson brought up an Arizona judge ruling that an abortion ban originally passed in 1864 could stand.
"Did you ever think in your lifetime we would see that happen?" Clarkson asked. "It's just insane to me the thinking that went on in 1864. It's a very different world. We know a lot more now. We are going backwards." Hillary agreed: "It is horrifying in every way." She said, "There's a cruelty to it."
No one gets to suggest that maybe there's something cruel or horrifying about ripping apart the body of an unborn baby.
Clarkson said she was hospitalized both times she was pregnant. "I literally asked God, this is a real thing, to just take me and my son in the hospital for the second time, because I was like, 'It's the worst thing,'" she said, growing emotional. "It was my decision, and I'm so glad I did it. I love my babies, but to make someone ... You don't realize how hard it is. The fact that you would take that away from someone, that can literally kill them. The fact that if they're raped by their family member and they have to -- it's just like insane to me."
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Emotion dominates. Realities don't intrude. Pregnancy from rape (especially from a family member) is uncommon. The abortion lobbyists always play up the rare cases, but the dead baby is the "solution" in every deadly "choice."
On the same day, MSNBC host Jen Psaki played a preview of an upcoming interview with singer John Legend, who thinks his opinions match his stage name. Psaki was touting the man's robotic repetition of every MSNBC and CNN pundit spinning against former President Donald Trump.
"He is part of a two-tiered system of justice, but not in the way he thinks he is," proclaimed Legend. "He is getting way more concessions than the average criminal defendant would get. He is getting delays, he's got access to all kinds of lawyers that are filing this and filing that, delaying every trial, and most people don't have access to that kind of lawyering, don't have access to the kind of concessions the justice system will provide to you if you can afford it."
Of course, Trump is a wealthy man who can afford a team of lawyers. So was O.J. Simpson. All of that resolutely ignores Trump is not "the average criminal defendant." He's a former president and the presumptive Republican nominee for president. I think we can guess in advance that Psaki, the Biden press secretary didn't ask this crooner how many of these Trump prosecutions would be proceeding if Trump retired from politics in 2017, or why Trump was indicted for things when Biden wasn't (like possessing classified documents).
Celebrities can echo progressive pundits like Joyce Vance or Van Jones, but somehow their proclamations are especially deep thoughts. We love how they sing, so their political views resonate with a crackle. They are not smarter than the average voter, but they can expect no one will disturb their emanations with any fraction of opposition. Call it celebrity privilege.
Tim Graham is the director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org.
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