MSNBC's Martin Bashir Likens Boehner to Baby Who Should 'Go the F*** to Sleep

Well, MSNBC is proving once again that the term "journalistic integrity" might not apply to its network, or  hosts. And the offenses keep getting more egregious.

This time, MSNBC's Martin Bashir rather conspicuously suggested on his Wednesday program that House Speaker John Boehner is a "baby" who should "go the f*** to sleep," and that the Speaker should let Democrats (presumably, the responsible "grown-ups" in the equation) deal with the debt crisis. Yes. He really did insinuate that.

To serve as the mouthpiece for the explicit words he himself is not allowed to utter, Bashir played a clip of the "Go the F*** to Sleep," book narrated by actor Samuel L. Jackson.  The book, obviously written for adults, is a parody of  Eric Metaxas' children's book "It's Time to Sleep, my Love."

The excerpt, read by Jackson, goes something like this: "The whales huddled down in the deep, I'll read you one very last book if you swear you'll go the f**k to sleep."

What follows is the transcript (and video) of Bashir's rant where he applies the book's premise to Boehner:

BASHIR: For some parents, Adam Mansbach's book is not before time, a chance to tell it like it is. Children are hard work, sleep is disturbed, and even loving parents can sometimes crack under the pressure and swear at their kids. And isn't that exactly how all of us feel about this ridiculously prolonged, tortuous, and confused attempt to raise the debt ceiling? One minute, Speaker Boehner says he has a bipartisan plan that will fly through the House. The next, his counting skills are exposed as entirely wrong by the Budget Office, and he can't even rely on members of his own caucus, despite his bogus claims of bipartisanship. And this has been going on for six months, six months.

And the trouble is, just as parents see the clock ticking as they wait desperately for their child to go off to sleep, so now we have less than seven days to reach an agreement or trigger the first default in American history. It's desperate and judging by the thousands of phone calls to Congress yesterday, Americans are becoming increasingly angry. And yet what do we hear today from Mr. Boehner? Another ludicrous lullaby that won't pass through the Senate. And even if it got to the president, he's already said he'll veto it. But still, Mr. Boehner goes on, singing his nursery rhyme of more cuts, no taxes, of Cut, Cap, and Balance, of cut this, cut that, and don't you dare raise revenues. I've been thinking, maybe it's time for Mr. Boehner to hand over responsibility to Harry Reid and the president and for himself to go off to sleep.

And after Bashir wrapped up his "Clear the Air" segment, the follow-up show's host Dylan Ratigan egged Bashir on to "just come out and say it!" To which Bashir replied "I can't use expletives on air, as you know."

Watch the jaw dropping clip below:

(H/T: NewsBusters)