Sarah Palin and Fox News are still polishing up her Martin Bashir/MSNBC martyr’s halo. Today, on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace called Palin’s remark comparing the federal debt to human slavery “fairly unobjectionable” while prodding Palin to attack Bashir for his over-the-top response suggesting she undergo one of slavery’s punishments – eating feces. Palin pretended to accept Bashir’s apology, but she unapologetically repeated her “slavery” analogy. There was no challenge from Wallace.

From the Fox News transcript (with some punctuation changes):

WALLACE: Martin Bashir, the MSNBC anchor, has had some ugly things to say about you. A couple of weeks ago, you made, frankly, I think fairly unobjectionable remarks, saying that—comparing our debt to slavery and saying that eventually we’re going to beholden to our foreign masters.

Mr. Bashir took great exception to that. He called you a, quote, “world-class idiot,” his words. And then he talked about a slave owner named Thistlewood, who used to punish his slaves by having someone defecate—it’s unbelievable—defecate in their mouths.

Instead of taking any responsibility for her comments, Palin doubled down on them:

That’s funny, because Bashir has invoked the analogy of slavery also. The definition of slavery is to be beholden to a master. And we will be beholden when that note is due, when we have taken from our children and our grandchildren and borrowed from China and other foreign countries in order to pay for our wants today. So we will be beholden to another master at some point here when that note’s due.

Then she started the martyrdom while, at the same time, pretending to shrug off Bashir’s comments.

(T)here’s been no punishment of the fella who said these words. That’s hypocrisy. That’s you know a given, though, when a conservative woman says something that they’re—they take offense, they usually just kind of pooh-pooh it, laugh it off; it’s no big deal.

But as for personally taking shots like that, Chris, everybody in life takes shots. You have a decision to make when you take a shot. Are you going to become bitter or better?

In a case like this, you know, I don’t have to accept his words, his vile, evil comments, so they don’t have to affect me. I move on. And I charge forth.

Palin rambled on in a bizarre hypothetical about what if Bashir had attacked a vulnerable child who has not been blessed by God with a public platform like she has. Why, in that case, “Well, if you want to see a mama grizzly get riled up and slap that person down, then you come after a vulnerable child.”

Of course, it was precisely because Palin has such a public platform that Bashir took offense at her remarks. Not surprisingly, it was a point Wallace seemed to miss. Or ignore.

Instead, Wallace went on to play Bashir’s apology. Then, Wallace prodded Palin to attack MSNBC for not firing Bashir. “They have taken no public action to what Bashir said about you,” Wallace accused. Never mind that Fox has never apologized – much less taken public action - for horrible remarks by Glenn Beck, Andrea Tantaros, or Ann Coulter, to name a few. And one can only assume that Palin’s accusation that President Obama “pal(s) around with terrorists” was one of the selling points that got her a gig at Fox in the first place.

But Palin said, “Well, that’s the executive hypocrisy that is so prevalent in that media elite bubble, where it depends on the target of the vile rants that it doesn’t depend on what their rant itself actually is. And conservative women are a target of them. As for the apologies, well, obviously, you know, who am I to not accept an apology? Everyone must humble themselves and accept that offer to, you know, of apology."

With all that humble acceptance, she forgot to explain why she nevertheless canceled her appearance on NBC’s Today show.

Maybe she was too busy thinking of how her family must have suffered. Palin said:

But as for the apologies, too, next time that they want to say such a thing and then get the attention that they were seeking after they’ve said it, and then they want to call and apologize to me in private, I’d like them to go through, say, Todd first or one of my children first. Leave the message with them. Hear what they have to say about it and then they can come to me.

I'll be the first to admit that Bashir's remarks were inappropriate and unacceptable. But nothing beats Fox News' record for 24/7 hate mongering where almost nothing you can say is too awful. Just so long as it's a Democrat and/or (perceived) liberal being attacked.