FAIRNESS WATCH : That’s No Joke

Throughout the current epidemic of Japan-bashing by American politicians, no one had shown the bad taste to bring up the atomic bombing of that country at the end of World War II to score any demagogic points. But then South Carolina’s Democratic Sen. Ernest F. Hollings tried to make a joke about it. Nobody’s laughing.

Hollings was touring the Roller Bearing Co. of America in the northeastern part of his state when he told workers, “You should draw a mushroom cloud and put underneath it, ‘Made in America by lazy and illiterate Americans and tested in Japan.’ ” It was an obvious reference to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The 70-year-old politician, who is up for reelection, said he wanted to make the point that Yoshio Sakurauchi, Speaker of the lower house of Japan’s Parliament, was wrong when he called American workers lazy and stupid. There’s no excuse for Sakurauchi’s misstatements but Hollings’ so-called joke could escalate the transpacific war of words.

Hollings’ outrageous comment is deplorable for its lack of sensitivity and utter ignorance of the horror, death and devastation caused by the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan. Americans would rightly be up in arms if any Japanese official were to make some “joke” about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt, a critic of Japan, denounced Hollings, saying “Everyone must say today that these kinds of statements must stop, on both sides.”

Hollings should apologize.