On November 15, NewsBusters posted a video of MSNBC host Martin Bashir’s disgusting remarks that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin should be the victim of a particularly vile slave-era punishment – specifically that she should be forced to consume excrement. The video went viral, and today a disgraced Bashir announced his resignation from the Comcast-owned cable "news" network.
This afternoon, Media Research Center President Brent Bozell issued the following statement in reaction:
Nineteen days after suggesting that someone should defecate in Sarah Palin's mouth, MSNBC's Martin Bashir resigned from the network, according to Mediaite. In a statement reprinted on the website, Wednesday, the liberal host announced, "Upon further reflection, and after meeting with the President of MSNBC, I have tendered my resignation. It is my sincere hope that all of my colleagues, at this special network, will be allowed to focus on the issues that matter without the distraction of myself or my ill-judged comments."
He added, "I deeply regret what was said, will endeavor to work hard at making constructive contributions in the future and will always have a deep appreciation for our viewers." Bashir's despicable comments were first reported by NewsBusters. When Rush Limbaugh made a joke about Sandra Fluke, ABC, CBS and NBC slammed the radio host. These same networks have, thus far, ignored Bashir's reprehensible remarks, according to a study by the Media Research Center. [See video of the anchor's sneering attack below.]
UPDATE: Bashir Resigns
When Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a “slut” the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks went ballistic, making the conservative talk show host a centerpiece in their campaign to tarnish Mitt Romney and the GOP as engaging in a “war on women.” However when MSNBC’s Martin Bashir launched his own war on women against Sarah Palin, not a single anchor or reporter from the Big Three said a word about his vile attack.
In the two weeks (February 29, 2012 - March 14, 2012) after Limbaugh made his crude Fluke joke, that he apologized for, the Big Three networks aired a total of 32 stories or interview segments that were full of calls for Limbaugh to apologize to the liberal activist Fluke, to get advertisers to abandon the show and demand that Republicans condemn the talk show host. NBC, who employs Bashir, aired the most Limbaugh stories with 14. ABC and CBS each aired 9 stories a piece. The number of Big Three network stories in the two weeks (November 15, 2013 - November 29, 2013) after Bashir suggested that Palin would be an “outstanding candidate” for excretory punishments? Zero. The hypocrisy from the supposed civility cops in the liberal media is stunning.
When I noticed about 90 minutes ago that Joy Reid was once again filling in for MSNBC's Martin Bashir after having done so last week, I started wondering if this wasn't a vacation at all, and if the man who last month suggested someone should defecate and urinate in former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's mouth was actually being punished for it.
Almost on cue, Politico's Dylan Byers wrote moments ago:
Alec Baldwin can't make up his mind.
After complaining Tuesday about MSNBC's Martin Bashir still being on the air despite his vile comments about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, Baldwin said Sunday he's glad Bashir still has a show:
There haven’t been a lot of members of the media that have come out in support of MSNBC’s Martin Bashir's suggestion a few weeks ago that someone should defecate and urinate in former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s mouth.
Seemingly bucking that trend Sunday was the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank who appearing on Fox News's MediaBuzz actually compared those remarks to Bill O’Reilly joking three years ago about beheading him (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Of all the things Americans have to be grateful for this Thanksgiving, here's another one: Martin Bashir is not on MSNBC today. That's due to the holiday, of course, rather than any MSNBC executive's sense of honor.
Bashir's reprehensible attack on Sarah Palin leads off the current edition of MRC's Notable Quotables, our bi-weekly compilation of the most outrageous quotes in the liberal media. Also this week: instead of President Obama apologizing for misleading millions of Americans that they could keep their insurance plans, some journalists say the "real apology" should be delivered to Obama from conservatives who all along warned of the folly of ObamaCare; while the increasingly-absurd Ed Schultz insists that the thrill-up-their-leg Obama-loving media "want ObamaCare to fail."
Selected quotes and video after the jump; the full issue is posted at www.MRC.org.
Calls for MSNBC’s Martin Bashir to be fired as a result of vile comments he made about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin continue to come in from a variety of sources.
On Fox & Friends Wednesday, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee said the fact Bashir still has a job suggests he “must have some really incriminating photos of executives at MSNBC,” and that if he’s not fired, “they got some splainin’ to do as to what their standards are” (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Like most MSNBC hosts, Martin Bashir has been hypersensitive to slights aimed at President Obama, real or imagined. He was shocked at a picture in January 2012 that showed Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer pointing a finger at Obama on the tarmac in Phoenix. He somehow imagined the disrespect was "unprecedented!"
When then-Rep. Joe Walsh decided to skip an Obama jobs speech before Congress in the fall of 2011, Bashir was shocked. "Are you able to be as disrespectful to the office of President by simply walking away from something that every member of the Congress is going to attend? Is that also" -- here it comes -- "because he's black?"
The New York Post reported Tuesday that MSNBC's Up Late with Alec Baldwin has been cancelled in the wake of the host's most recent gay slur. Yet eleven days after Martin Bashir said someone should defecate and urinate in former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's mouth, the vile host with some of the lowest ratings on cable television still hasn't been punished in any way.
Baldwin apparently sees the same hypocrisy, and told Gothamist Tuesday, "Martin Bashir's on the air, and he made his comment on the air!"
Much has been said in recent days about the obvious double-standard employed by the left-wing MSNBC cable news channel after host Martin Bashir said that Sarah Palin deserved to be defecated and urinated upon. While he was forced to apologize on the air for his remarks, Bashir has been neither suspended nor fired, unlike actor Alec Baldwin who was suspended for two weeks for allegedly using anti-gay language in a confrontation with a paparazzo.
Perhaps the reason for that disparity is that in terms of media coverage, Bashir’s disgusting comment has received very little attention in the broader journalistic world. While media industry websites and conservative-leaning outlets have been talking about the controversy quite a bit, the self-described “mainstream” media has actually shown little interest in the story, far less attention than they gave to much tamer comments made by conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh about a previously obscure Georgetown University law school student named Sandra Fluke in 2012.
In an article for MediaBistro's TVNewser blog on Monday, Gail Shister ripped into NBC News for the lack of punishment of MSNBC host Martin Bashir after his vicious and disgusting attack on Sarah Palin: "It's no surprise that NBC tries to distance itself publicly from its corporate sibling. In this case, however, its silence has been deafening. How low does the bar have to go before Tom Brokaw speaks up, as he has in the past? More to the point, why haven't any NBC women taken a stand?"
Earlier in the piece, Shister looked at "MSNBC's long history of Foot in Mouth disease" involving its hosts making offensive remarks about public figures and observed: "In every case, the commentator was either suspended or fired. In every case, the perps have been men, and in every case but one, the broadcast slurs have been aimed at women."