CNN anchor Don Lemon has come to the
defense of Carson Daly, saying everyone needs to be able to take a
joke.
Daly created a firestorm of protest
last week when he made a joke on his radio show about JetBlue Airways
pilot Captain Clayton Osbon, who was wrestled to the ground by
passengers as the airplane made an emergency landing.
“On this particular flight, most of
the people were on their way to some sort of security conference in
Las Vegas,” Daly said. “So it was a bunch of dudes, and
well-trained dudes.”
“If that were me … with my luck, it
would be like, 'This is a flight going to the [Gay] Pride parade in
San Francisco.'”
“Uh, we're headed down to Vegas for
the floral convention,” he added with an effeminate voice and a
laugh.
Daly later apologized for the joke,
saying
he was a “proud” ally of the gay community.
Appearing on SiriusXM's The
Six Pack, Lemon, who came out gay about this time last year,
said everyone needed to get a sense of humor.
“I think we should stop apologizing
about every single thing. Aren't we about freedom of speech?”
Lemon said on the radio program. “Listen, can we just have a sense
of humor here? Can we get the PC police and stop it, because if you
really want to be, as they say, 'tolerant' or accepted, then you have
to be able to take a joke. Because the larger culture takes a joke.
White men take jokes about them …. or when people make jokes about
black people, you don't always go, 'Oh, my gosh, it's so offensive!'”