MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry is the latest person who was respected in a profession, then got a cable political show, let her guard down and during a segment to morphed into yet one more ideological talker. Left, right? It makes no difference. Ideological talk show hosts now almost have the same tone. Whether it’s a former newsman named Bill O’Reilly, or a former newspaper columnist named Chris Matthews, or a former anchor Martin Bashir — and the transformatinos go on. They get a gig and then start to erase their own previous, mores serious stature by blending into the political entertainment industry culture. They are hired into the talk show culture, then become absorbed by it and their style often changes — permanently.

Harry-Perry ran into a buzzsaw of criticism when during a panel segment on her show at the end of last year members (including Perry) seemed to be mocking the fact that a group photo of Mitt Romney’s family included Romney’s African-American adopted grandchild. Yours truly addressed this issue and was highly critical of Harris-Perry in this TMV post and in this nationally syndicated Cagle Cartoons column.

But Harris-Perry today opened her show with what truly seemed to be a heartfelt apology. And if you have time, just surf the Internet and see which websites and writers are still in attack mode. Her apology is tearful and clearly not staged tears. Nor does it seem to be issued out of worry about her job. It’s the tears of someone who feels they let themself down, and hurt people in a way that she previously would never think of hurtin them. Watch it for yourself — and judge for yourself.

The bottom line is that MSNBC and its hosts must decide whether they want to provide an alternative to other cable and talk models, or morph into them. Liberals made a huge mistake when Air America seemed to try to be the anti-Rush. Now, increasingly, MSNBC is morphing into the anti-Fox News. Can a morning “MSNBC and Friends” be in the future? Does MSNBC really want to be a mirror on the left reflecting the snarky, mocking, disrespectful style of some of the talk shows on Fox News?

Several issues are at play here:
1. YES. Harris-Perry now has apologized but while many will accept it, you can expect some partisans and ideologists to stay on the attack. Because that’s what our politics is now all about: vent that rage, sublimate that anger, work out on your computer or in comments or emails those private issues. YES there is no questions that the panel was mocking the grandchild. NO, Mr. Colmes: the panel was not just mocking the GOP for a lack of diversity.

The panel was pointing to that photo and saying the child in the photo looked out of whack. Even if the mantra that it was all mistakenly taken as an affront to the Romney family is repeated for a week without a break, it will not negate the fact that the panel drew attention to the fact that a black child was sitting amid a large number of white children and adults. But Harris-Perry’s latest apology was one of several attempts to apologize. CNN’s Don Lemon, who was highly critical of the Harris-Perry segment had this to say about her previous apology:

‘“The first rule of comedy is that it should be funny,” Lemon said. “It wasn’t. There is nothing humorous about a panel of adults on national television pointing out the ‘otherness’ of a baby in relation to the members of his family, especially a little black baby.”

But Harris-Perry’s apology was in the right key, Lemon said.

“In [Alec Baldwin’s] apology, he said, “Words are important. I understand that, and will choose mine with great care going forward,’” Lemon said. “That’s good advice to Melissa Harris Perry, and her colleagues at MSNBC and all of us. We should all choose our words very carefully, exactly the way Melissa Harris Perry did in her apology.”

“Her words— ‘I am sorry. Without reservation or qualification, I apologize to the Romney family’—She got it right. And it takes a very big person to do that…Perhaps one our resolutions should be to learn from Ms. Harris-Perry the art of the apology.”

2. If she has now apologized several times including in this latest apology that is almost like a plea to accept her apology, if some insist on still going after her tgeb is it really about the issue or really about trying to get off the air or attack someone who belongs to a different party? Is it then a free speech issue? Or is free speech only an issue when it impacts your side, as one columnist wonders here.

P.S. I’m sure that despite my previous post and the column linked above I’ll still the get the tiresome emails asking “how can you call yourself a moderate” from someone on the left saying I take money from the Koch Brothers for criticizing her and the show, and from someone on the right who says George Soros is paying me to give her a pass.

I’d simply say that those kinds of reactions are knee-jerk.

And when someone is”knee-jerk,” the operative word is the second.

BUT THERE ARE OTHER VIEWS. SOME TWEETS:

NOT ACCEPTED: Leftist Melissa Harris-Perry Fakes Tears in Forced On-Air Apology to the Romney Family http://t.co/VkGvQ1XTPX

— Netizen Kane (@NetizenKane) January 4, 2014

UPDATE: The most perceptive tweet of all on this controversy came from former MSNBCer Keith Olbermann, who said this as the controversy broke:

“Any adults in charge over there?” Olbermann tweeted.

When one of his Twitter followers argued that the “GOP only likes freedom of speech when it applies to them,” Olbermann, who became a hero to liberals and an enemy to conservatives during his time at MSNBC, stood by his criticism.

“Not the point. You can have your standards, or their standards,” he responded.

JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.

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