Jimmy Kimmel: Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan should ask God to forgive them because the Vegas massacre is their fault or something

Boy. Self-importance is an awfully addicting drug. It appears to have made a complete junkie out of Jimmy Kimmel, and in short order too. It seems like it was only weeks ago - because it was - that he was waxing emotional about health care policy without the slightest idea what he was talking about. With a little coaching from Chuck Schumer (so it all makes sense now, right?), Kimmel managed to provide enough cover to help John McCain and his army of Republican ObamaCare saviors do their thing - all while turning himself into a hero to the political press. I guess it was inevitable that he would do the same after Vegas, and boy, did he. Not only is gun control obviously the answer, but Kimmel now apparently feels safe enough in his partisanship to go ahead and blame Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan by name for the largest mass shooting in American history:

---

Good Lord. We covered the argument against gun control as the solution to this yesterday, but that was only for the consumption of people who intend to think seriously about policy ideas and how they might work in practice in the real world. If you're merely a virtue-signaler who considers "just do something for goodness sakes" sufficient thought into policy matters, you're qualified to host a late-night talk show and accuse people who disagree with you of mass murder for the sin of disagreeing with you. Two questions: 1. What the hell has happened to late-night TV? Every day in my newsfeed I see headlines from USA Today covering the previous night's slams on Trump by Kimmel, Seth Meyers, Samantha Bee and whoever else these people are who managed to get themselves shows. Is this what people who stay up late are craving? Ignorant raving disguised as serious political commentary? I guess it's a good thing the people who work for a living get to bed early and get up early. Someone has to produce something. Might as well not be the dumb. But really, does anyone remember when Johnny Carson did Carnac and David Letterman did elevator races and stupid pet tricks? It might do some of these people good to go to bed smiling and laughing rather than seething about things they don't even understand. 2. What the hell happened to Jimmy Kimmel? He is a likable, engaging guy who can make you enjoy a conversation about almost anything, no matter how abstract or trivial. He has all the talent you'd need to host a really fun, enjoyable talk show. All you need to do is hit your cues, be yourself . . . and don't alienate half the country in a quest to validate your own exploding sense of self-importance.

---

---

Oops. Too late. I don't want to take away anyone's right to self-expression. If that's what you want to do, by all means, get a political show, or write a column like this one. It doesn't matter which side you're on. There's plenty of room for different opinions and we can all get along fine. Or we could, if you weren't accusing people who don't agree with you of being complict in murder. That's kind of a no-no in political commentary, or it was when the country still had some semblance of sanity and decorum in our discourse. Then again, as far as I know, Jimmy Kimmel wasn't a political commentator until recently when he decided to claim moral authority over all these things and the rest of the media decided to treat him like he had any. To this day he doesn't appear to know the slightest thing about the issues he rants and cries about, but it doesn't matter because he's on the side of the angels as far as the rest of the media are concerned so he can rant all he wants and they'll share his videos. And most of his viewers probably don't know any more about the issues than he does, so who's going to call him out? Sure. Why not? Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan may as well have fired the rounds themselves because they don't agree with Jimmy Kimmel's political solution to a decidedly non-political problem.

---