Ben Shapiro Goes Soft on Joe Rogan

Ben Shapiro has weighed in on the antisemitic comments by Joe Rogan. And his reaction is - to put it bluntly - rather lame (hat tip: Eli).

I had an idea his remarks were going to elicit this reaction when he starts off describing the idea about Jews dumped out by Rogan, as "at the very least not good," which, because he is friends with Joe, he would chalk up to just "riffing." Really?

To then suggest that Rogan's remarks could be interpreted in a "non-antisemitic" way is just insulting our intelligence. To call that interpretation a stretch is an understatement.

Shapiro finishes by stating he "knows Joe well, he is not an antisemite", followed by a second "that statement is not good" and declaration that if he called Joe up, he would tell him he meant the second, way less likely interpretation.

To my mind, he is letting Rogan off the hook, choosing friendship and perhaps mutual benefit over principle.

Rogan's statement was so clearly beyond "not good". It was clearly antisemitic. Not only that, but as I wrote in my previous post about it, he jumped to the Jews in a discussion about Ilhan Omar's Benjamins tweet, which dealt with the Israel lobby. Why did Rogan jump to the Jews with this "not good" insinuation?

I am not aware of how close Shapiro is with Rogan, but it is possible for one to be friends with someone and not really know whether or not they are actually antisemitic. I can only go by what I see and hear, and it wasn't looking good before these comments, given Rogan platformed antisemite Roger Waters and the detestable Abby Martin (multiple times) on his show, without pushing back (and in Waters' case, fanboyed over him).

Either way, as I wrote about Candace Owens following her defense of Kanye West and Shapiro's equally lame non-response:

I find it even harder to believe that she does not understand that she is helping perpetuate the idea of the rich, powerful, greedy Jew destroying the fabric of society for money – even if this is not her intention.

So whether or not Candace Owens is antisemitic is not really the point. The fact she is enabling antisemitism is.

The same applies to Rogan. He is a intelligent guy who has to understand his comments materially enable antisemitism, given his huge following in the millions. And if he didn't understand this before he made the comments, he must understand this now, given the backlash. Yet we have not heard him apologize or make the clarification about meaning the "second, non-antisemitic interpretation" that Shapiro is so sure he would do if he called him.

At the very least, Shapiro should have invited his friend on to his show to discuss his comments, explaining why they were dangerous and asking him what he really did mean by them. Instead, he has given Rogan a pass.

Talk about "not good."