Washington, July 1 (IANS) A US cable news network has indefinitely suspended a political analyst after he insulted President Barack Obama, a media report said.
MSNBC suspended senior political analyst Mark Halperin after he called Obama ‘kind of a ****’ on the network’s ‘Morning Joe’ show.
The show’s co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski had assured him that the show had a seven-second delay in effect and that he should ‘take a chance’, washingtonpost.com reported.
‘Are we on the seven-second delay today?’ Halperin said, adding: ‘I want to characterize how I thought the president behaved.’
Halperin then went on to say: ‘I thought he was kind of a (vulgarism) yesterday.’
A stunned Scarborough said: ‘Oh, my God! Delay that! Delay that! What are you doing? I can’t believe you. I was joking! Don’t do that. Did we delay that?’
And then a man is heard saying off-camera: ‘I hit it. I hope it worked.’
MSNBC in a statement said: ‘Mark Halperin’s comments this morning were completely inappropriate and unacceptable. We apologize to the president, The White House, and all of our viewers. We strive for a high level of discourse and comments like these have no place on our air. Therefore, Mark will be suspended indefinitely from his role as an analyst.’
