So when she came to NBC, she said she was leaving politics behind, and tried to become a daytime sort of personality - the "friend" we can watch while having the second cup of coffee and emptying the lint filter in the dryer.
She has been a disappointment in that area; to me, she seems as likable as a persistent itch, and it seems that NBC is only keeping her around because firing her or moving her to hosting a weekend latenight film review show at 1:30 AM would be like admitting that hiring her was a huge error in the first place.
But after what she did this week, it might be time to see if Regis Philbin or Keith Olbermann would like to try their hand at hosting the 9 AM hour.
Megyn and three other white people were talking about whether it's racist to dress up in blackface for Halloween.
Really!
On television.
In 2018.
No surprise, Megyn is all for dressing up in minstrel clothing. “When I was a kid, that was OK, so long as you were dressing up as a character.”
She elaborated, saying it was OK when she was growing up for white people to dress up as black people.
She said it was wrong last year when some reality star dressed up like Diana Ross in a wig the size of Montana.
"But what is racist?" Kelly asked. "Because you do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface on Halloween, or a black person who puts on whiteface for Halloween. Back when I was a kid that was OK, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character."
She kept talking about "when she was a kid." This woman was born in 1970, so let's say she started going out begging for Snickers in 1974. I was 23 then and I can tell you with certainty that a) I never saw a kid show up dressed like that and b) if I had, they would not have gotten anything except some advice from a 23-year-old.
I don't know if Kelly is so tone-deaf as to think that people of color would not be insulted by people of non-color darkening their faces and doing a minstrel act on Halloween, or if she is deliberately poking people with the sharp stick of racism to gain attention or publicity.
Well, she got attention, all right, and once again, she proved herself to be an embarrassment to the network that overpays her ($15 million a year), to the people she works with, and to the few people to whom she broadcasts her show.
And predictably, after the idiocy of Tuesday, Wednesday brought an apology.
“I want to begin with two words: I’m sorry,” Kelly said to open her show on Wednesday. “You may have heard yesterday that we had a discussion here. ... I defended the idea that as long as it was respectable and part of the Halloween costume, it seemed OK. Well, I was wrong and I am sorry.”
This followed remarks by NBC colleagues Al Roker, who said, "she owes a bigger apology to folks of color across the country," and Craig Melvin, who said her comments were "stupid" and "indefensible," pointing out that this can be an opportunity to teach people - even though most people already knew how offensive blackface is.
Stunning as it is to think there are people like this living among us, it's even worse to think that there are people like this on television among us. For Megyn's information, blackface was used to humiliate people.
Please act like you know that, because we are going to assume you are ok with discomfiting millions of people if you keep talking like this.
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