A&E goes duck hunting, shoots self in foot

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'Duck Dynasty' star suspended: Did A&E do the right thing?

Fair and balanced debate over Phil Robertson's comments on homosexuality

Talk about defecating in Sarah Palin’s mouth? You are allowed to resign a few weeks later. Be known as an actor with a violent temper and anger issues who even called his daughter a “pig,” you get rewarded with your own MSNBC show. But run afoul of the LGBT police at GLAAD and you are pulled from one of the most successful shows on cable TV.

That’s not reality television, that’s the reality of television, where traditional values are hated even when they bring in big ratings. And liberal attacks are tolerated until even liberals can’t stomach the result.

“Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson was quoted in GQ describing how homosexuality is, newsflash, a sin. (He also discussed many other sins, but they don’t all have activist defense organizations – yet.) Yes, he did so in his typical folksy way which some might call inartful, but what he said was straight from the book.  THE book – the Bible.

And the network execs couldn’t stand it, bowing instantly to the gay agenda as practiced by GLAAD. Free markets have nothing to do with TV. It’s all now about not offending some victim group.

And it’s not about free speech either. TV networks want nothing to do with that archaic concept. They only support free speech they agree with and that most diehard lefties approve.

The conflict was inevitable. Television used to love people from what the media call flyover country. TV scored with hits such as “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “Green Acres,” “Hee-Haw,” and “Mayberry RFD.” Those were celebrations where Americans were reminded of their roots. And when country met city, it was always country that won out with homespun wisdom triumphing over big-city egos and fancy degrees.

But “Duck Dynasty” comes from another era where TV doesn’t celebrate ordinary people, it mocks them. This is the time of “Honey Boo Boo,” and “Buckwild,” the “Jersey Shore” style shows about rural people. These programs were designed so coastal liberals could watch and mock and feel better about themselves while reading their New York Times. That’s likely what A&E bosses thought they had with “Duck Dynasty.”

Boy, were they wrong.

A&E created a show that tried to make fun of rustic rubes and discovered it had inadvertently created the opposite. Instead of Hollywood values triumphing as we watched the stars’ backward ways, traditional values won out every time. They weren’t Obama’s bitter clingers. They cared for each other and kept their faith close. Each episode even ended in a family prayer. Before network execs could try to figure out what John 3:16 meant, they had created a program where faith, family and freedom ruled.

And it became wildly popular.

The bearded stars soon were everywhere, with promotions seemingly in every store. That success didn’t matter. The network still wanted to rein in its stars. Back in April, Phil Robertson said the network had even wanted to delete mentions of “Jesus” from the family prayer, trying to bleep the Savior like He was a four-letter word.

A&E didn’t want its high-profile stars mentioning Jesus. And it sure didn’t want them saying anything else out of the Bible. When Phil did, GLAAD cried foul and that was it.

That’s GLAAD’s typical strategy. It’s a hardcore lefty organization that wants to ban opponents to gay marriage from the airwaves – even the news shows. It even helped get liberal Alec Baldwin kicked off MSNBC. It runs its Commentator Accountability Project that tries to brand traditional marriage supporters as “extreme” and not worthy of TV time. Its list of commentators reads like a Who’s Who of the conservative movement. Yet to GLAAD, they “do not accurately represent the ‘other side’ of” gay issues.

To the left there is no other side. There’s only their side. All other views must be silenced.