Al Sharpton Lands 6pm Slot at MSNBC

What ever happened to journalistic integrity:

When MSNBC shuffled Ed Schultz up to the 10 p.m. slot they placed left-wing blogger and radio host Cenk Uygur (pronounced jenk you-gur) in the 6 p.m. Eastern time slot that Ed vacated as an interim host.

But Uygur has been curiously absent from his dinnertime perch since early July, with the Rev. Al Sharpton filling in but not explaining why Uygur was out. Yesterday MSNBC announced that Uygur had officially left the network and today the New York Times is reporting that Sharpton's hiring as a full-time host is "imminent."

The past is prologue, so a look back at Sharpton's wacky pronouncements to date should be instructive. We at NewsBusters have a full archive on Al Sharpton that you can find here, but I thought we'd highlight a few items that stand out.

Who can forget the time, for example, when Sharpton insisted on March 21, 2010 that "we have to say the American public overwhelmingly voted for socialism when they elected President Obama"? Sharpton was defending passage of ObamaCare and dismissing Republicans who claimed that the bill's passage was against the wishes of the American public.

It was a fine moment of raw honesty from the good Reverend, but as we've seen in the past two weeks, Sharpton has been remarkably good at adapting his message to toe MSDNC's party line.

Sharpton, you may recall, has been portraying Obama as more Reaganesque than the Tea Party, and saying that as a way to compliment Obama and bash conservatives over the debt ceiling fight.

One might even argue Sharpton is ahead of MSNBC's bias curve. In April 2010, Sharpton agreed with a guest on his radio program who suggested that Rush Limbaugh's political commentary may set off unbalanced, violent people. MSNBC really picked up that drumbeat in early 2011 after the Gabby Giffords shooting.

Please bookmark!