MSNBC host apologizes to Mitt Romney

MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry has taken to Twitter to apologize to Mitt Romney's family for offensive comments made during a segment on her cable talk show on Sunday.

If you haven't seen the segment, during Sunday's show Harris-Perry and her panel were providing captions for some of the most "talked about pictures of the year." They rifle through a few photos – President Obama standing under an umbrella held by a Marine, the selfie seen around the world – before getting to one of Romney and his grandchildren. And that's where the hilarity ensued.

You see, sitting on Romney's right knee is his adopted grandson, Kieran, who is black. Harris-Perry's panel took that as their cue to have a little fun.

"One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just isn't the same," actress Pia Glenn sung. Glenn then explained, "And that little baby, front and center, would be the one"

Moments later, Dean Obeidallah of the Daily Beast chimed in, saying, "It really sums up the diversity of the Republican Party and the RNC, where they have the whole convention and they find the one black person."

Sarah Palin, herself the target of an inflammatory comment made by Martin Bashir that led to his ousting at MSNBC, responded on Facebook by slamming the network for its pursuit of "shock ratings."

"Leftist media hounds are not expressing an opinion with this attack," she wrote. "They are expressing a prejudice that would never be accepted if it came from anyone else but the lib media."

She continued, "You really need a conscience, yellow journalists. May your 2014 New Year's Resolution be to find one."

Harris-Perry tweeted Tuesday morning that "I work by guiding principle that those who offend do not have the right to tell those they hurt that they r wrong for hurting," and, "Therefore, while I meant no offense, I want to immediately apologize to the Romney family for hurting them."

Obeidallah took to a blog post to apologize to the Romney family, "but not to the wingnuts." He then equated what he said to the Duck Dynasty controversy involving Phil Robertson.

"As the attacks on my joke were building, I kept waiting for Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal to defend me like they recently stood up for Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson," he wrote. "I thought at least Jindal would call out the 'politically correct crowd' as he did for good ol' Phil. But still not a peep from them about my freedom of expression."

Palin wasn't the only critic. CNN host Don Lemon slammed MSNBC as "a bunch of people on the left who all agree with each other, and there's no diversity of opinion. And they're saying mean, smug things about people who may disagree with them."