Standing by saying stupid stuff

It was really only a matter of time before this happened:

Radio station pulls show over tsunami slur

It goes without saying that it's pretty terrible that they aired this. But I think that's really the offense here: airing it. I'm sure that there have been plenty of horrible, tasteless tsunami jokes that have been thrown around or at least passed through plenty of heads. The difference is between the people who actually chose to say it–or even worse, turn it into a skit–and the people who realize that, though they may have thought of the joke, it isn't right to say it out loud.

Where I start getting riled up when reading stories like this is that they even bother apologizing. There are tons of comedians and radio shows who deliberately try to be offensive and then when they succeed in being offensive, they issue humble, embarrassed apologies. They're obviously making a concerted attempt to offend, so the subtext to their apologies is, "We were too stupid to realize that this was too much."

To be clear, I don't object to people's objections. I don't believe at all that no one should object to stuff like this simply because they should realize that the DJs are deliberately trying to offend. I believe very strongly in people's right to loudly voice what they find objectionable. But I feel just as strongly that those people who deliberately try to get a rise out of people, who are aiming for people's sensitivities, who make fun of tragedy, race, religion and handicap need to stand by what they've done and accept whatever consequences come their way and not act as though they didn't mean it in the face of exactly the reaction that they were shooting for.