Dear Amy Kushnir

Dear Amy Kushnir,

I get it; you’re looking for a step-up from a local show to a national one. You can stop now.

You’re tired of your little show, The View Wannabe, AKA The Broadcast, down there in Texas and you were looking for an out, a way to attract attention of bigger fish, say, up in New York City, and you found the perfect story to take you home to the Mother Ship of Crazy, Fox News.

A kiss. A kiss between two men, Michael Sam and Vito Cammisano, who just happened to be celebrating some history-making news. And that sent you storming off the set of your little Texas TV show.

Funny, though, that it wasn’t shown live during your broadcast, so all your self-righteous “Think of the children” indignation came from a taped piece of The Kiss, and, well, since it’s TV and everything is planned, you knew the tape of “The Kiss” would be played so you planned your little Foot Stomp Head Snap Righteous Anger Walk Off.

Save it, I ain’t buying it. Especially when you say this about “The Kiss”:

“When parents do not have a choice about whether or not they want their children to see this, it is wrong...I don't call it a moment of celebration...It's being pushed in faces.”

Did parents who watch your little backyard TV show have a choice just a few months back when they saw you being carried onto the set by a pair of Chippendale dancers? I mean, what if they don’t wanna see that, or have to explain that to their children?

See, here’s how The Kiss explanation would go between a parent and child: ‘Sometimes men and women fall in love, and sometimes men and men, or women and women, fall in love, and no matter the gender, they all sometimes kiss to celebrate good news.’

And the child would probably be fine with that. Case closed. Audition over. I mean, is a kiss really so hard to explain to a child? Sure, even a kiss between two men, something a lot of folks don’t see every day, is a new thing, but it’s a kiss, and nothing more.

But then try explaining how a supposed TV journalist, and I use the term lightly when speaking about you, is carried out in the arms of two shirtless men and then proceeds to kiss not one of those strangers but both of those strangers, on the cheek and giggle and coo about stripping and if they strip at home.

That would be harder to explain than why two men, who happen to be a couple, shared a lovely moment on TV. But, no, you had to rile up your rightwing indignation and fly your ass to New York to appear on Fox News so you could breathlessly talk about your disgust at seeing a kiss.

Let’s be queer: you used that moment to audition as the next Empty-Headed, Blond Bobble Head on Fox. That was your intent the moment you saw The Kiss, and then saw it again on your TV show. You talked about having that kiss “pushed in [people’s] faces” and yet you had no problem with Chippendale dancers who are well-known for pushing much more in people’s faces, literally.

 And so off you went, to Fox News, where you took to the right almost instantly, saying ESPN used The Kiss “as an opportunity to promote their left-wing agenda, in my opinion.”

ESPN has a left-wing agenda? I thought it was a sports channel. But you say they do, and then you play it out like the entire world is against all your ‘traditional values’ of stripper kissing, and how suddenly, just because you disagree with The Kiss being shown on television, you are the victim.

You took to the airwaves to talk about death threats and rape threats, and petitions to be fired, and say it’s all because you’re speaking out for traditional values.

Whose tradition? Yours? Because yours don’t look like mine. I saw that kiss and I thought it was sweet, and the perfect way to celebrate hearing some great news. The cake in the face? Yeah, that was kinda over the top, but then I’m always annoyed when people waste a perfectly good piece of cake.

But, enough about cake, back to you, and your victimization via yet another statement:

“I feel personally that I was not able to express my opinions appropriately without bein’ interrupted. I felt like I was bein’ painted to be something that I personally was not. Everybody that knows me knows that I love everybody, and I’m a deeply lovin’ person, and I get choked up because I truly love deeply. Um. So with that bein’ said, I felt like I had no choice but to get up, push myself out of the situation because we were goin’ nowhere, as you probably saw, and we have a term around here that we say: we’re goin’ to Midland. And what that means, actually Suzie started this trend, and what that means is we’re going to excuse yourself from the conversation…politely. And that’s what I did. I just decided it was time to go to Midland. And I went to Midland, and I’m back and I’m a happy camper, and I’m ready to move on.”

First off, save the ‘I love everybody’ crap because when you storm out of your job because two men kissed, you obviously don’t like it. And why push yourself out of the situation? Why go to “Midland”? Why not stay and have an adult discussion about The Kiss?

Oh, yeah, the audition. See, that’s what was in your mind all along, running with your horror at a kiss and using that to move on up from local Texas TV to New York City. That was the goal and that was the root of the walk-off. What better way to “move on” than by flying off the handle all the way to New York to appear on FOX news?

And then rushing over to appear on Glenn Beck’s little show, too, to discuss your outrage over being forced — apparently the channels on your TV don’t change — to watch two men kiss. And where you sat and talked about how it wasn’t The Kiss, it was ESPN:

"I wasn't talking about sexual preferences...What I was referring to was the ESPN event. What was put on ESPN for shock value."

Sexual preference? You call yourself some kind of journalist, TV anchor, news personality and you’re still calling it a preference?

Guess what I prefer? I prefer Chinese food over Italian; I prefer Levis over Khakis. I prefer TV personalities who don’t use their little shows, and a little kiss, as a stepping stone, because it makes you seem fake and insincere and seriously out-of-touch.

And perfect for Fox News. So, I hope your audition went well, though I suspect the folks at Fox have more than their share of perky blonds with conservative values.

Don’t call them, they’ll call you.