Samantha Bee judge and jury on ‘acceptable’ satire

Samantha Bee has a rule when it comes to political satire: 

Mock a Republican, it’s hilarious. 

Mock Hillary Clinton, delete the punchline. 

Immediately. 

{mosads}Bee put this rule on full display on Monday night after TBS — the network that employs her — sent a Tweet out making fun of Hillary Clinton’s laugh. Note: the Democratic nominee’s laugh is mock-worthy just as former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s accent was. 

But to Bee, going after Mrs. Clinton — even in comedic circles — is absolutely unacceptable.  

To review, TBS tweeted: “Move over Donkey! There’s a new mascot in town … #ImWithHyena”. The Tweet included a 24-second video of Clinton laughing mixed with the sound from laughing hyenas. 

The tweet originated from the TBS website, “The Heckler”, a satire site of pop culture and politics. 

Bee — incensed that TBS would make such a joke — retweeted the network’s and wrote in a since-deleted Tweet,“Delete your account.”

TBS, petrified its adored talent in Bee was upset, put out a a statement not long after to apologize for the joke. Bee, a Daily Show alum who should have been Jon Stewart’s replacement instead of the ineffective and increasingly irrelevant Trevor Noah, is the host of “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” that began airing in TBS in February. 

“This post was obviously a poor attempt at humor and has been taken down,” the network said. “Moving forward we’ll leave political satire to professionals like Samantha Bee.”

TBS’s tweet has also since been deleted.

But really…who exactly is Bee to decide what’s funny and what isn’t? 

Ask yourself this: If the Tweet in question from TBS had mocked Donald Trump’s hair or George W. Bush’s diction (See: “Strategery”), would Bee be jumping in here to play judge and jury on what’s comedy and what isn’t? 

Of course not. Because she’s just another politically-myopic comedienne.  

Jerry Seinfeld once shared his rule for comedy: “If you’re funny, I’m interested. If you’re not funny, I’m not interested.” 

The TBS tweet was average comedy of the low-brow variety. If you think Hillary’s laugh is grating and therefore worthy of mockery, fine. If you somehow think it’s sexist, because at last check a laugh isn’t gender-specific, that’s fine too. Opinions are opinions… 

But Samantha Bee shouldn’t be dictating what should and should not appear on the network Twitter account. 

Especially when her sentiment has nothing to do with what’s funny and what isn’t, but the usual partisan perspective engulfing the very political media she ridicules. 

Concha is a media reporter for The Hill.

The views expressed by Contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.