Beeper 'Joke' Gets CNN Commentator Banned

A conservative commentator won't be commentating on CNN anymore after an appearance Monday got him banned from the network. As the Washington Post reports, Ryan Girdusky was appearing on a Newsnight roundtable hosted by Abby Phillip when he got into it with former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan. The exchange went thusly:

• Hasan: "Nobody wants to be called Nazis, it's very inflammatory. But if you don't want to be called a Nazis, stop doing ..." Gidursky cut Hasan off, and there was debate about whether Hasan, who supports Palestinians, was an anti-Semite. Gidursky says he never called Hasan an anti-Semite, and Hasan says he's quite used to being called one.
• Gidursky: "I hope your beeper doesn't go off." (That's a reference to this.)
• Hasan (to Phillip): "Did your guest just say I should be killed on live TV?"
• Chaos ensues at the table and Gidursky apologizes. He says he misunderstood Hasan to be expressing support for Hamas. The panel, including Phillip, finds the apology insufficient.

• Phillip returned after a commercial break without either Girdusky or Hasan, and with this to say, per CNN: "There was a line that was crossed there and it's not acceptable to me. It's not acceptable to us at this network. We want discussion. We want people who disagree with each other to talk to each other. But when you cross the line of a complete lack of civility, that is not going to happen here on this show."
• Girdusky later tweeted: "You can stay on CNN if you falsely call every Republican a Nazi and have taken money from Qatar-funded media. Apparently you can't go on CNN if you make a joke. I'm glad America gets to see what CNN stands for."

(More CNN stories.)