Kathy Griffin’s acerbic comedy turns vicious

Severed heads are never funny.

And, on this one, we agree with President Donald Trump without reservation: “Kathy Griffin should be ashamed of herself.”

Griffin, the comedian, leaped over a line of fair play and good taste Wednesday by holding up a fake head, splattered with fake blood, to feign the decapitation of Trump in video and photos posted online. If social media is any indication, most people were as offended as we were, and more than a few wondered if Griffin has ever seen the horrifying photos of decapitations by ISIS.

Unsurprisingly, CNN announced Wednesday it was firing Griffin from its New Year’s Eve broadcast from Times Square. For the last decade, she and anchor Anderson Cooper teamed for holiday coverage, but he distanced himself quickly after photos and video of Griffin’s stunt went viral. The video and photos also drew condemnation on Twitter from Chelsea Clinton, whose mother has been frequently attacked on the social media site by the president. “It is never funny to joke about killing a president,” Clinton wrote.

The president lashed out at Griffin on Twitter: “My children, especially my 11 year old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick!”

We need a good dose of humor at a time when anger and hostility, often fueled by the president himself, grips our politics and fuels culture wars. That’s why spoofs of Trump on “Saturday Night Live” were must-see TV over the last several months. But Griffin went too far.

It didn’t take long for her to apologize. “I move the line, then I cross the line,” she said in a video post. “I went too far.”

By leaps and bounds.

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