Fox News Boots Potty-Mouthed Pundits, Will Only Use Family Friendly Hate Speech

Damn. There goes the Fox Brain Trust.

Nervous Fox News viewers can now rest easy. After Barack Obama's terrorism speech drove two regular commentators to use uncouth gutter language on air, the House Of Murdoch has suspended the malefactors for two weeks. Thank heavens! Fox is supposed to be a family-friendly place for race-baiting, xenophobia, paranoia, class resentment, and outright lies unsullied by any unpleasant words.

As you'll recall, Obama's utter weakness in the face of Radical Islamic Terrorism drove Fox News Strategic Analyst Lt. Col. Ralph Peters to call the president "such a total pussy"on Fox Business Network, prompting a harsh rebuke from host Stuart"I hate poor people" Varney. And then, mere hours later, on Fox News'sOutnumbered, actress and geopolitics expert Stacey Dash exclaimed she "felt like [Obama] could give a shit ... er, like he could care less" about terrorism, because obviously the president of the United States was really only interested in getting through the speech so he could run off to an event at the Kennedy Center:

Even though the two were both completely justified in their passionate denunciations of the man who clearly loves ISIS more than America, Fox News announced it was suspending the contributors for using dirty words on the air, according to a statement by Fox Senior Executive Vice President of Programming Bill Shine:

Earlier today, FOX contributors Lt. Col. Ralph Peters and Stacey Dash made comments on different programs that were completely inappropriate and unacceptable for our air. FOX Business Network and FOX News Channel do not condone the use of such language, and have suspended both Peters and Dash for two weeks.

The suspension had nothing to do with Peters's insistence that "this is a president who has done more harm to American police departments than he has done to Islamic State," or with Dash's belief that Obama clearly didn't care about 14 people being killed in a terrorist attack, especially since he gave the speech the night before "the anniversary of Pearl Harbor." Those are merely Expert Opinions, and not a matter for the senior executive vice president of programming to worry about. But heavens, what if some child somewhere heard Peters say "pussy" right in the middle of his tirade about how the president has betrayed the country he supposedly leads? In the TV news business, one must have some standards, for fuck's sake.

We do at least give Stacey Dash points for creative grasping at excuses for outrage. We never would have thought to invoke Pearl Freaking Harbor as a flaw in Obama's speech about the contemporary threat of terrorism. Sadly, she didn't finish the thought with a call for swift action against Admiral Yamamoto and the Radical Shinto Terrorists of Imperial Japan. Stacey, don't you even give a shit about the Nanking Massacre?

[ TPM ]