The Vent Pipe: Why is it ok for her, but not for him?

In her apology for her supposedly culturally insensitive remarks made recently regarding Chinese news reports, Rosie O'Donnell did more to infuriate me than she ever has in the past. She said, and I quote as closely as possible, that after having said "ching-chong" repeatedly in describing what a Chinese newscast might sound like she though, "so what, on you go, I do many accents...this apparently was very offensive...apparently ching-chong unbeknownst to me is a very offensive word to make fun or mock...any Asian accent. [It is] very offense...some people have told me it's as bad as the 'N' word. It was never intent to mock any[one]...I'm also going to give you fair warning there's a good chance I'll do it again...The audience laughed, [so] it's a little bit funny."

Ok, so what, right? Wrong. Why does that work for her? Is that an acceptable apology? I don't think so. I few months ago during then senate candidate George Allen's macaca incident, he was not afforded the luxury of simply apologizing and having it all go away, was he? No. I personally did not know "macaca" was a racially charged term, and I suspect the senator didn't realize this either. But rather than simply saying, "it was unbeknownst to him" as Rosie has claimed and then moving on, a big deal was made of it.

To me, this is not even the worst part, though. The worst part is that Rosie is one of the champions of the left, a true pillar of political correctness. She is so politically correct, in fact, that she caused the whole big stink over Kelly Ripa's so called anti-gay comments when she told Clay Aiken not to put his hand on her mouth because she, 'didn't know where it had been,' but she follows her apology with a disclaimer that she is probably going to do it again even though she now has a full understanding of the fact that such mocking is hurtful to Asians?

Perhaps the most unreasonable part about the whole thing was the structure of the apology. Like Mike Richard's apology on Letterman, Rosie's was met with laughter and hilarity. To me such behavior takes away all aspects of sincerity.

Outrageous. Simply outrageous.