An old picture of Roseanne Barr dressed as Adolf Hitler, wearing a swastika and pulling burnt cookies from an oven, splashed on the front of the New York Daily News Wednesday like a neon sign asking ABC executives: What were you thinking?
Given Barr's past incidents of bad behavior and questionable social media posts, ABC faced questions Wednesday about why it went back into business with her before it all blew apart. ABC canceled its successful reboot of "Roseanne" on Tuesday following the star's racist tweet likening former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett to a cross between the Muslim Brotherhood and a "Planet of the Apes" actor.
FILE - In this March 23, 2018 file photo, from left, Whitney Cummings, Michael Fishman, John Goodman, Jayden Rey, Roseanne Barr, Sara Gilbert, Sarah Chalke and Emma Kenney arrive at the Los Angeles premiere of "Roseanne" in Burbank, Calif. ABC has canceled its hit reboot of "Roseanne", Tuesday, May 29.(Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
Barr continued tweeting on Wednesday, at one point saying the offending tweet was composed at 2 a.m. after she took the insomnia drug Ambien. That led the drug maker Sanofi to say on social media that "racism is not a known side effect" of their product.
President Donald Trump, noting in a tweet that Robert Iger, CEO of ABC's parent Walt Disney Co., had called Jarrett to apologize, wondered why ABC hadn't apologized for "HORRIBLE statements made and said about me on ABC."
On social media, Barr wrote that what she said was indefensible, then retweeted several statements others made supporting her. She apologized to those who had lost their jobs because of her action, but also condemned cast members who threw her under the bus, in her words.
FILE - In this Jan. 8, 2018, file photo, Roseanne Barr participates in the "Roseanne" panel during the Disney/ABC Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour in Pasadena, Calif. ABC canceled its hit reboot of "Roseanne" on Tuesday, May 29, 2018, following star Roseanne Barr's racist tweet that referred to former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett as a product of the Muslim Brotherhood and the "Planet of the Apes." (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)
"I'm not a racist, I never was & I never will be," she wrote Wednesday. "One stupid joke in a lifetime of fighting 4 civil rights 4 all minorities, against networks, studios, at the expense of my nervous system/family/wealth will NEVER be taken from me."
Yet many saw a disturbing pattern being followed instead of a joke. Questionable actions date back to a cringe-worthy, crotch-grabbing rendition of the national anthem in 1990; a claim, later recanted, that she was an incest survivor; and the 2009 picture reprinted on the Daily News. Her social media past includes a racist tweet about former national security adviser Susan Rice and support for conspiracy theories like "pizzagate." On the same night as her Jarrett tweet, she posted a false claim about Chelsea Clinton that Clinton refuted.
FILE - In this Jan. 7, 2018 file photo, Roseanne Barr arrives at the 75th annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif. Barr is blaming a racist tweet that got her hit show canceled on the insomnia medication Ambien, prompting its maker to respond that "racism is not a known side effect." (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
ABC executives were not discussing their thought processes on Wednesday. It's clear, though, that Barr's social media habits were a sore point. She told USA Today earlier this year that "I had to get off social media because everybody's mad at me." In an Adweek article published only 10 days ago, she promised only to talk about what she's for, and not what she's against, when tweeting.
"Roseanne has said herself that she does not want what she says to overshadow the show in any way, and I do hope that she will continue to be thoughtful about what she shares on social media going forward," ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey said in the same article.
Was ABC's gamble worth the risk to its reputation?
FILE - In this Jan. 8, 2018 file photo, Roseanne Barr attends the ABC All-Star Party arrivals during the Disney/ABC Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour in Pasadena, Calif. Barr is blaming a racist tweet that got her hit show canceled on the insomnia medication Ambien, prompting its maker to respond that "racism is not a known side effect." (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)
Opinion writer Roxane Gay wrote in The New York Times Wednesday that ABC did the right in canceling "Roseanne." ''But before it did the right thing, it did the wrong thing," she wrote.
"Everyone involved made a decision to support the show despite its co-creator's racism," Gay wrote. "They decided that their career ambitions, or desire to return to network television, or financial interests would best be served by looking the other way. It was only when Ms. Barr became an immediate liability that everyone involved finally looked at her racism and dealt with it directly."
ABC executives talked shortly after the 2016 election about a need to have more on the network schedule to reflect the point of view that got Trump elected. When Sara Gilbert began rounding up the old "Roseanne" cast for a reunion in early 2017, ABC fought Netflix for the rights to show it. The network — indeed all of broadcast television — needed some successful comedies.
The rebooted "Roseanne," where Barr played a Trump supporter, worked beyond anyone's dreams — logging 25 million viewers for its premiere in March and settling in as television's second most popular comedy after "The Big Bang Theory."
"I tend to be pretty forgiving to people who feel they can get a good show out there and keep the star in check, and you usually can, because a lot of stars can be problematic," said Garth Ancier, a veteran television executive who ran entertainment programming at Fox, NBC and the WB networks.
"I think it was a reasonable bet to take, and it worked until it didn't," Ancier said.
Ted Harbert knows better than most what Dungey and her boss, Ben Sherwood, went through. He was ABC's top programming executive during the first run of "Roseanne" in the 1990s. Barr was his headache then; he recalled having to go to her home where she was holed up with Tom Arnold for a few weeks and refusing to work in 1994, and coax her out.
"This is a person who, left to her own devices, is not totally in control," Harbert said. She has the temperament, and the tendency to go to dark places, that fuels many artists, he said.
Social media complicates the efforts of networks to keep stars working and things running smoothly, he said.
"How do you stop someone who does something like this in the middle of the night?" he said. "She blows up her own life and that of all those around her."
If he were in Dungey's position when the rebooted "Roseanne" was being considered — mindful that his job is to produce hits, or it won't be his job much longer — Harbert said he probably would have taken several meetings with Barr to figure out how she was doing. He probably would have made the same decision ABC made, he said.
Both former executives praised ABC for moving swiftly when presented with Barr's tweet. Ancier said ABC probably had a plan in place for that eventuality, given how quickly the show was erased from network web sites.
"A lot of comics say terrible things," Harbert said. "As long as they make us laugh, it's easy to forgive. What Roseanne said was not funny."
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States vetoed a widely backed U.N. resolution Thursday that would have paved the way for full United Nations membership for Palestine, a goal the Palestinians have long sought and Israel has worked to prevent.
The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 12 in favor, the United States opposed and two abstentions, from the United Kingdom and Switzerland. U.S. allies France, Japan and South Korea supported the resolution.
The strong support the Palestinians received reflects not only the growing number of countries recognizing their statehood but almost certainly the global support for Palestinians facing a humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Gaza, now in its seventh month.
The resolution would have recommended that the 193-member U.N. General Assembly, where there are no vetoes, approve Palestine becoming the 194th member of the United Nations. Some 140 countries have already recognized Palestine, so its admission would have been approved, likely by a much higher number of countries.
U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood told the Security Council that the veto “does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood but instead is an acknowledgment that it will only come from direct negotiations between the parties."
The United States has “been very clear consistently that premature actions in New York — even with the best intentions — will not achieve statehood for the Palestinian people,” deputy State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said.
His voice breaking at times, Palestinian U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the council after the vote: “The fact that this resolution did not pass will not break our will and it will not defeat our determination.”
“We will not stop in our effort,” he said. “The state of Palestine is inevitable. It is real. Perhaps they see it as far away, but we see it as near.”
This is the second Palestinian attempt for full membership and comes as the war in Gaza has put the more than 75-year-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict at center stage.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas first delivered the Palestinian Authority’s application for U.N. membership in 2011. It failed because the Palestinians didn’t get the required minimum support of nine of the Security Council’s 15 members.
They went to the General Assembly and succeeded by more than a two-thirds majority in having their status raised from a U.N. observer to a non-member observer state in 2012. That opened the door for the Palestinian territories to join U.N. and other international organizations, including the International Criminal Court.
Algerian U.N. Ambassador Amar Bendjama, the Arab representative on the council who introduced the resolution, called Palestine’s admission “a critical step toward rectifying a longstanding injustice" and said that “peace will come from Palestine’s inclusion, not from its exclusion.”
In explaining the U.S. veto, Wood said there are “unresolved questions” on whether Palestine meets the criteria to be considered a state. He pointed to Hamas still exerting power and influence in the Gaza Strip, which is a key part of the state envisioned by the Palestinians.
Wood stressed that the U.S. commitment to a two-state solution, where Israel and Palestine live side-by-side in peace, is the only path for security for both sides and for Israel to establish relations with all its Arab neighbors, including Saudi Arabia.
“The United States is committed to intensifying its engagement with the Palestinians and the rest of the region, not only to address the current crisis in Gaza, but to advance a political settlement that will create a path to Palestinian statehood and membership in the United Nations,” he said.
Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, reiterated the commitment to a two-state solution but asserted that Israel believes Palestine "is a permanent strategic threat."
"Israel will do its best to block the sovereignty of a Palestinian state and to make sure that the Palestinian people are exiled away from their homeland or remain under its occupation forever,” he said.
He demanded of the council and diplomats crowded in the chamber: “What will the international community do? What will you do?”
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been stalled for years, and Israel’s right-wing government is dominated by hard-liners who oppose Palestinian statehood.
Israeli U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan called the resolution “disconnected to the reality on the ground” and warned that it “will cause only destruction for years to come and harm any chance for future dialogue.”
Six months after the Oct. 7 attack by the Hamas militant group, which controlled Gaza, and the killing of 1,200 people in “the most brutal massacre of Jews since the Holocaust,” he accused the Security Council of seeking “to reward the perpetrators of these atrocities with statehood.”
Israel’s military offensive in response has killed over 32,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and destroyed much of the territory, which speaker after speaker denounced Thursday.
After the vote, Erdan thanked the United States and particularly President Joe Biden “for standing up for truth and morality in the face of hypocrisy and politics.”
He called the Palestinian Authority — which controls the West Bank and the U.S. wants to see take over Gaza where Hamas still has sway — “a terror supporting entity.”
The Israeli U.N. ambassador referred to the requirements for U.N. membership – accepting the obligations in the U.N. Charter and being a “peace-loving” state.
“How can you say seriously that the Palestinians are peace loving? How?” Erdan asked. “The Palestinians are paying terrorists, paying them to slaughter us. None of their leaders condemns terrorism, nor the Oct. 7 massacre. They call Hamas their brothers.”
Despite the Palestinian failure to meet the criteria for U.N. membership, Erdan said most council members supported it.
“It’s very sad because your vote will only embolden Palestinian rejectionism every more and make peace almost impossible,” he said.
Algeria's Permanent Ambassador to the United Nations Amar Bendjama speaks during a Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters, Thursday, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan speaks during a Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters, Thursday, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour holds tears while speaking during a Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters, Thursday, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Representatives of member countries take votes during a Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters, Thursday, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour, left, and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speak before a Security Council meeting at the United Nations headquarters, Thursday, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour speaks during a Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters, Thursday, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Representatives of member countries take votes during a Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters, Thursday, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan speaks during a Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters, Thursday, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour speaks during a Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters, Thursday, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood votes against resolution during a Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters, Thursday, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
