Brewer Spars With Ziegler About Palin, Shuts Off His Mike

UPDATE at end of post: Ziegler discusses incident with John Gibson, Brewer discusses it with tweeters!

MSNBC's Contessa Brewer invited documentarian John Ziegler on her program Wednesday, and got into quite a battle with him over why Sarah Palin should have been at all insulted by David Letterman saying she dresses like a "slutty flight attendant" and her daughter was recently "knocked-up by Alex Rodriguez" during a Yankee game.

Brewer actually didn't think there was anything wrong with Letterman making such comments.

Even better, as the scrum continued, and Ziegler claimed Palin had more class than most people on MSNBC, Brewer got insulted, and called to her producer, "Cut the mike, please" (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t NBers blonde and bigtimer):

CONTESSA BREWER, MSNBC HOST: And, John Ziegler joins me now. He's a radio host with KGIL, 1260 AM news radio in Los Angeles, and has previously interviewed Palin and others for his film "Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected." John, good to see you. 

JOHN ZIEGLER: Thanks for having me, always interesting to go out with the people with Barack Obama's official network.

BREWER: Now, I know, you're very critical of the way that journalists in general have dealt with Gov. Palin. I want to ask you today about your interview with Sarah Palin...

ZIEGLER: Gee, I wonder why.

BREWER: So let me begin with, do you want to do the interview? Do you want to talk about this?

ZIEGLER: Yeah, I'd be thrilled to.

BREWER: Let me ask you what Sarah Palin's problem with Letterman was. What was it about the "Top Ten" list that hurt her feelings?

ZIEGLER: Well, I don't know if her feelings were hurt, you'd have to ask her. She called David Letterman "pathetic" which I think was an understatement because not only did he call her "slutty," you left out the part where he also joked about her teenaged daughter being knocked-up by Alex Rodriguez in the middle of Yankee Stadium while she was at the game. By the way, I also happened to ask her about Keith Olbermann blatantly lying about her allegedly plagiarizing a speech which she didn't do. I doubt that that'll come up on this particular network.

BREWER: It was certainly not going to come up other than your mention in this particular interview because I want to ask you about David Letterman and Sarah Palin. But, again, if you'd like to talk about that I'm willing to go forward with the conversation. Yes?

ZIEGLER: I'll talk about whatever you want. Hit me with your best shot.

BREWER: Good. In this case, it's comedy. To talk about her real itinerary in New York, kind of serious. Not really funny. Why did she take such offense? She called him "pathetic," so she obviously took offense. Why was she so offended by David Letterman?

ZIEGLER: Well, Contessa, since you're a female, you might be better expert on whether or not it's appropriate to call a public figure "slutty" with, for no apparent reason, AND joke about her daughter being knocked-up in the middle of Yankee Stadium while she's at the game...

BREWER:  Yeah, you know, it's actually happened...

ZIEGLER: How would you feel about that, Contessa?

BREWER: John, it's actually happened to me, and I'm fine, I'm still here, I'm...

ZIEGLER: Really? David Letterman joked about you being slutty...

BREWER: No, not David Letterman...

ZIEGLER: ...and joked about your daughter being knocked-up?

BREWER: ...but it's happened to me publicly.

Makes one wonder if Brewer was referring to her 2005 battle with radio host Don Imus wherein she called him “a cantankerous old fool” who doesn’t know how to relate to “beautiful women.”

Imus responded: “With that fat ass she’s got, she wouldn’t be one of ‘em.” “That skank has to spend three hours with makeup in the morning … Who’s she kidding? . . . Plus, she’s dumber than dirt … Oh, my God, what a pig. But I was willing to cut her some slack and not say anything, you know, until - in fact, I didn’t say anything . . . That’s why they have those big double-doors there at MSNBC, you know, so they can get her fat ass in makeup.”

If this is what Brewer was referring to, it's hardly a fair comparison as she and Imus had history together -- she used to be a newsreader on his show -- and she potentially started the battle.

But I digress, for later in Wednesday's interview with Ziegler, sparks really began to fly:

BREWER: In your interview with Sarah Palin, did you ask her any tough questions, or are you acting now as her spokesman?

ZIEGLER: Yes I did...One of the questions I asked her was whether or not she felt dissed by John McCain when he went on Jay Leno, also on NBC back when he was the host of the "Tonight" show, and basically dissed her. And surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise, she gave an incredibly classy answer, showing far more class than clearly most people on this network have.

BREWER: I don't really know what to do with that. You know, I was, honestly, I'm here to give you an opportunity. I consider myself a common-sense thinker, I haven't attacked you. And for you to come on and use those sort of insults insults me. Thank you so much for your time, I do appreciate that.

ZIEGLER: Okay, well, you folks are certainly deserving of...

BREWER: Much more news ahead, cut the mike, please.

Wow. So Palin shouldn't feel at all insulted by being called "slutty" by David Letterman as well as him claiming her daughter was knocked-up by a baseball player during a game she was attending.

BUT, Brewer was insulted by Ziegler claiming that Palin has more class than most people on MSNBC. Is being told you have less class than a sitting governor more insulting than being called "slutty" or being presented with the visual of your daughter being raped in front of thousands of baseball fans while you're in attendance?

And what of Brewer's prior claim that she had been so verbally attacked and now she's fine and still here?

I guess being called a "fat-ass" and a "skank" isn't as bad as being accused of possessing less class than a prominent conservative woman.

Go figure.

Any questions about the double-standard involving what's acceptable to say about a conservative versus a liberal?

*****Update: Ziegler discussed the incident Wednesday on John Gibson's radio show (audio available here courtesy Johnny Dollar).

Also, Ken Shepherd discovered Brewer's tweets concerning the matter:

# @JTlol Actually, I only asked them to cut the mic after I'd properly thanked the guest. I'd moved on. He was still talking. about 2 hours ago from web in reply to JTlol