Politico | Breitbart
Politico has suspended its White House correspondent, Joe Williams, for remarks he made on Martin Bashir’s MSNBC show Thursday. Williams’ “comment about Governor Romney earlier today on MSNBC fell short of our standards for fairness and judgment in an especially unfortunate way,” Politico editors John Harris and Jim VandeHei wrote in a memo to staff. The remarks, Politico notes (though for some reason doesn’t link), were highlighted by John Nolte on Breitbart.
Nolte also cited Williams’ tweets joking about Romney’s wealth and the infamous “Seamus incident,” among others. Williams has protected his Twitter account, so I don’t know if other candidates appealed to his sense of humor. The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple writes that in May, Politico’s leadership asked “that Williams cool it with the opinionated outbursts.”
Here’s what Williams said on Bashir’s show:
“Romney is very, very comfortable, it seems, with people who are like him. That’s one of the reasons why he seems so stiff and awkward in town hall settings, why he can’t relate to people other than that. But when he comes on ‘Fox and Friends,’ they’re like him. They’re white folks who are very much relaxed in their own company.”
Here’s the clip.
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Disclosure: I worked at TBD.com, which was owned by Politico’s parent company Allbritton Communications.
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