It's enough to make you miss Ed Schultz's elegant, elevated tone. OK, I jest, but Cenk Uygur, usurper of Schultz's 6 PM ET slot, hit a vulgar new low on MSNBC this evening. The self-styled 'Young Turk' used a variation of the f-word in fulminating about Paul Ryan's response to the SOTU.
Watch the video after the jump and note that Ugyur's crassness came during prepared remarks, not in an off-the-cuff comment. This was profanity with malice aforethought. Some poor under-assistant producer had to upload it into Cenk's teleprompter.
For good measure, a Dem congresswoman thereupon called Ryan's remarks "vicious." Welcome to the new age of civility!
Watch Cenk drag MSNBC even further down--if that's possible. The segment began with a clip of Rep. Ryan describing the future if we continue down the liberal path, without reforming entitlements.
PAUL RYAN: This is a future in which we will transform the social safety net into a hammock which lulls able-bodied people into lives of complacency and dependency.
. . .
CENK UGYUR: Is unemployment insurance a hammock that lulls able-bodied people into lives of complacency and dependency? Does Representative Ryan think those people don't want to work? They just got laid off! They weren't looking for a fr---in' hammock!
Joining me now is Illinois congresswoman Jan Schakowsky. She served with Congressman Ryan on the Committee for Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Congresswoman, are you disturbed by some of Representative Ryan's proposals and his idea for what the social safety-net represents?
JAN SCHAKOWSKY: Well I actually find it absolutely frightening. Not only vicious and insulting, but really scary.
