Kanye West Went Off-Script? Huh?

The Wordsmith from Nantucket offers this link to Kanye West's live comments from NBC's Concert for Hurricane Relief .

NBC also has the uncut video under, "Kanye West off the script."

NBC Statement: Kanye West's Hurricane Telethon Appearance

"Tonight's telecast was a live television event wrought with emotion. Kanye West departed from the scripted comments that were prepared for him, and his opinions in no way represent the views of the networks. It would be most unfortunate if the efforts of the artists who participated tonight and the generosity of millions of Americans who are helping those in need are overshadowed by one person's opinion."

In an Associated Press account of West's outburst, NBC spokeswoman Rebecca Marks explains why the "George Bush doesn't care about black people" comment was aired in spite of the live broadcast's several second delay.

Marks says that the person in charge "was instructed to listen for a curse word, and didn't realize (West) had gone off-script."

In other words, an NBC employee thought "George Bush doesn't care about black people" was intended to be part of the broadcasst.

So if West had said, "F---ing George Bush doesn't care about black people," then the curse word would have been prevented from airing live, but the rest would be good to go.

I think NBC is being very sleazy to rationalize the incident by shifting responsibility to the person in charge of keeping profanity out of the program.

As soon as it became clear that West was not going to follow the script, the director or a producer should have had the good sense to cut away immediately. Instead, NBC let West rant.

Editing out the "George Bush doesn't care about black people" comment for the western time zones wasn't enough. NBC had ample time to decide how much of Kanye West's remarks to keep in the program. The network chose to air West's script departure that America is set up "to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off as slow as possible."

That did not belong on a program meant to raise dollars for the Red Cross hurricane relief fund. NBC showed incredibly poor judgment.

Funny how NBC has spent the past week holding President Bush accountable for actually causing Hurricane Katrina to develop because of the administration's environmental policies. It's funny that NBC has blamed him personally for the failure of the levees, as well as for not getting federal relief to victims fast enough.

The buck stops with the President.

When it comes to their live concert, however, NBC executives won't take responsibility for the content of the program. The "George Bush doesn't care about black people" line aired because of the person on curse word watch.

Right.

At NBC, the buck doesn't stop at the top.