Howard Kurtz: 'Stunning' MSNBC Hasn't Disciplined Bashir

On Wednesday, Fox News media critic Howard Kurtz said it was “stunning” that MSNBC has not disciplined host Martin Bashir for a “substantial” period of time for suggesting that someone urinate and defecate in former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s mouth.

On The O’Reilly Factor, Kurtz said NBC and MSNBC executives have “not said a single syllable” to “denounce this kind of vitriol.” He said that leaves the impression that such violent and “despicable” rhetoric against women was “acceptable” to the networks.

Kurtz asked where the “outrage” was in the mainstream media and noted their reactions would have been different had someone said something similar about Hillary Clinton or President Barack Obama. 

O’Reilly quoted from a letter from Palin’s PAC, SarahPAC, that Breitbart News exclusively obtained, in which her advisers asked whether MSNBC would discipline Bashir and noted that the network suspended Alec Baldwin for two weeks for anti-gay comments he made off the air while Bashir made his comments on the air. 

Kurtz said the “network has to make a statement” by disciplining  Bashir for comments Bashir conceded were “offensive” and “wholly inappropriate” when he apologized for them. Kurtz said that if he were in charge he would be “firing his butt.”

O’Reilly said nobody has taken more abuse in America than Palin, and it was because of her conservatism. Kurtz commented that a lot of people at MSNBC probably think Palin is an idiot and a dunce and suggested that may be a reason for the network’s silence. SarahPAC also pointed out that MSNBC was punishing people based on the target of their words and not the words themselves. 

“You fired Don Imus for offensive language in describing the Rutgers University Women’s Basketball team, you suspended Alec Baldwin, and yet nothing has happened to Mr. Bashir,” the letter reads. “Are we to assume then, that disciplinary procedures at your network take place based on the target of the remarks rather than the remarks themselves?”

The letter concludes by saying, “Americans deserve to know that your network doesn’t condone violent and hateful rhetoric directed at anyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, or political persuasion.”