The Eight Words You Can't say on TV

Perhaps Comedian George Carlin's most notorious routine was, "The Seven Words You Can't Say on TV," from 1978. Considering his list (which no, I am not going to reproduce here), I would say that now there are only five of those words you still can't say on TV, and I mean broadcast TV, not cable, where I think the list would be down to two (or maybe none?)

Today, though, an eighth word was discovered that you can't say on TV, and the MSNBC commentator who uttered it promptly got sacked. Hugh Hewitt : Suspended? Really?

Mark Halperin is a star of the Beltway-Manhattan media elite, a lefty and transparently so.

But he is also a terrific though deeply biased political reporter and his slip into street-talk on air today needed and got an apology, but a suspension? I have been in broadcast studios, both television and radio, for two decades and the pejorative Halperin used is as common as it is low on the scale of insults towards political figures. So what is MSNBC saying with this absurd display of "standards?" That none of its hosts talk this way, or that they don't talk this way on air? If it is the later [sic - I think Hewitt means the former - DS], it is a mistake in delivery, not a moral offense, and no suspension is necessary. If the later [sic], there will be a whole lot more suspensions coming down the pike at MSNBC.

Carlin's words could not be uttered on TV (in 1978, anyway) just because they were obscene. But really, today Halperin was not bounced for the particular word that he said. He could have called the president a blockhead or dimwit or lesser term of derision and he still would have been thrown out the door.

Halperin crossed a line, but it wasn't lingual, it was political. He of all people should have known it. Sorry, Mark. No sympathy here.