MSNBC host apologizes for Romney jokes

MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry apologized Tuesday after coming under fire for mocking a picture of Mitt Romney’s adopted grandson. 

“As black child born into a large white Mormon family I feel familiarity w/ Romney family pic & never meant to suggest otherwise,” she said over Twitter. “I apologize to all families built on loving transracial adoptions who feel I degraded their lives or choices.”

{mosads}Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) had already called on the host to apologize for the segment that aired on Sunday. 

During the segment, Harris-Perry and her guests mocked a photo of Romney and his more than 20 grandchildren. One of his grandchildren, Kieran Romney, is African-American.

Harris-Perry joked that a big story in the future would be the marriage of Kieran Romney and the daughter of Kanye West. Another guest joked that the picture summed up the diversity of the Republican Party.  

“I am sorry. Without reservation or qualification,” she added. “I apologize to the Romney family. 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. Therefore, while I meant no offense, I want to immediately apologize to the Romney family for hurting them.”

Priebus had called the segment disgusting Monday night, and a number of conservatives had branded the segment racist earlier in the day. 

Sarah Palin on Tuesday called it “despicable” in a Facebook post Tuesday morning. 

“Leftist media hounds are not expressing an opinion with this attack; they are expressing a prejudice that would never be accepted if it came from anyone else but the lib media,” she wrote in the post. 

Palin went on to say that Romney suffered defeat in 2012 because of less than stellar campaign tactics but described him as a candidate with a “servant’s heart.”

“That does not make him a bad person nor does it open his children or grandchildren to attacks over a year after the fact,” she wrote. “This latest attack from the left is despicable.”

Palin has had dustups with the network before. Earlier this month, Host Martin Bashir resigned after making vulgar remarks about the former Alaska governor.