The Times On Anastos Gaffe
We love how dumb, PG-13 stuff like this turns the Times into a blushing, incoherent, stammering, Midwestern housewife who spells hell with double hockey sticks:
Whatever Ernie Anastos, the longtime New York television news anchor, was trying to say, it did not come out right on Wednesday night. His inadvertent use of what could literally be called a barnyard epithet made him an unintended star on the Internet all day Thursday.In the course of one of those familiar jocular exchanges, Mr. Anastos, the co-anchor on the 10 p.m. newscast on WNYW (Channel 5), seemed to be referring to the old commercial for Perdue chicken when he suggested to the weatherman, Nick Gregory, that “it takes a tough man to make a tender forecast.”
That was not the objectionable portion of the broadcast, but it may have befuddled some viewers because Perdue has not regularly used that phrase in its advertising since 1993. But then Mr. Anastos added a suggestion for what Mr. Gregory could do with the chickens, using a term that qualifies as the sine qua no-no of live television....
Bruce Greengart, 58, a retired civil servant from Midwood, Brooklyn, said: “You’re not supposed to say those words. Kids may be listening to this thing.”
After watching the clip, Heather Scott, 38, of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, said, “Oh my God, what is he thinking?” She added: “We’ve all said things that are inappropriate. We’ve all done it, he happens to be broadcasting it.”
Not that she had heard the term that particular way. “What an odd phrase to use,” she said.
