There has been a lot of noise lately about the fact that Jimmy Kimmel was not on the air for a few days. There are still a few stations that have chosen not to air his late-night show. Considering the ratings of the show, I do wonder how long he will remain on the air. However, there has also been a lot said about the ‘tyranny’ of the Trump administration in wanting his show to go away. Hollywood has been very vocal about protecting their right to free speech. However, they have not been consistent.
On Wednesday, Jack Cashill posted an article at Substack reminding us of some of Hollywood’s not-so-recent history.
The article reports:
Those of us who know even a little recent history can only snicker at the CNN headline, “Jennifer Aniston, Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks join 400 artists to back Jimmy Kimmel against ‘government threats.’” To “back” here meant signing an ACLU letter. Such bravery!
The letter reads, “We the people must never accept government threats to our freedom of speech. Efforts by leaders to pressure artists, journalists, and companies with retaliation for their speech strike at the heart of what it means to live in a free country.”
Although I agree with the sentiment, I am astonished anew at Hollywood’s selective outrage. They sat in silence these past four years while the Biden administration used every lever of power to silence critics on the internet, even to the point of imprisonment. Those offenses they could pretend not to notice, not so the hunt through the Hollywood Hills in 2012 for filmmaker Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a hunt that the media gleefully joined.
Just three days after the September 11, 2012, disaster in Benghazi, the New York Times Ian Lovett reported that the feds were inquiring into whether Nakoula “had been the person who uploaded the video to YouTube.” The video was actually a 14-minute trailer for a proposed film titled, “The Innocence of Muslims.”
Nakoula was eventually arrested on September 15, just four days after the Benghazi attack, and held him in secret without charge or without access to an attorney.
The article notes:
Nakoula was vulnerable. He was on parole for his involvement in a check-kiting scheme. Even more worrisome, he had quietly cooperated with the feds and fingered the scheme’s ringleader.
Less than 48 hours after Secretary of State Clinton first alluded to Nakoula’s video, someone in the Obama administration had unsealed the indictment and exposed Nakoula to retaliation. “Why did the government release the deal?” Nakoula asked me when I first spoke to him after his release from prison. “Why did they put my life in danger?”
They put his life in danger because they knew they could get away with it. With Nakoula silenced, they could perpetuate the lie that the attack on the consulate in Benghazi was not a result of the administration’s disastrous policies but of a spontaneous protest inspired by Nakoula’s “hateful” film trailer.
No one’s life was endangered by taking Jimmy Kimmel off the air for a few days. Spare me your outrage when you kept quiet while an American citizen’s civil rights were totally violated to protect a false narrative created by the Obama administration. That also happened on January 6th, 2021, but the truth on that has not totally been revealed. Stay tuned.