Ed Schultz has been suspended from MSNBC for calling conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham a "right wing slut" on his syndicated radio show.
Schultz opened his primetime MSNBC show on Wednesday apologizing to Ingraham, MSNBC, his family and viewers.
"It doesn't matter that I was on radio ad-libbing," Schultz said of his comments the day before. "What I said was terribly vile."
Schultz met with MSNBC management earlier in the day on Wednesday, and said he offered to take himself off the air indefinitely and without pay. The network said the suspension would be one week.
"I have embarrassed my family," he added, before turning the show over to substitute host Thomas Roberts. "I have embarrassed this company. The only way I can prove my sincerity in all of this is if I never use those words again. You have my word I won't."
Schultz said that he tried--unsuccessfully--to reach Ingraham to apologize personally.
Network brass released this statement before Schultz went on the air: "MSNBC management met with Ed Schultz this afternoon and accepted his offer to take one week of unpaid leave for the remarks he made yesterday on his radio program. Ed will address these remarks on his show tonight, and immediately following begin his leave. Remarks of this nature are unacceptable and will not be tolerated."
The "Ed Show" host joined MSNBC in 2009, taking over Keith Olbermann's 10 p.m. slot after Olbermann -- no stranger to network suspensions -- left the cable channel earlier this year.
In this case, Olbermann sided with MSNBC. "There is no excuse for any political commentator calling any woman a 'slut,'" he wrote on Twitter, "least of all Laura [Ingraham]."
Later, Olbermann challenged a tweeted defense of Schultz's remark with this: "Bullsh*t -- would you be OK with Beck saying that about Maddow?"
Watch Schultz's full, on-air apology here:
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