Fox News contributor slams conservatives for downplaying Ted Nugent's behavior

Fox News contributor Bernard Goldberg accused both conservatives and liberals on Friday of harboring double standards when it came to downplaying vulgar comments by their political favorites, while repudiating rocker Ted Nugent's history during an interview with colleague Megyn Kelly.

"This a story, Megyn, about monumental and despicable hypocrisy by liberal media and -- and-- conservative media," Goldberg told Kelly. "If a conservative like, let's say Sarah Palin, is slimed by, let's say, Bill Maher, what happens? Liberals, they play down the story. They don't care about it. Conservatives are rightly outraged, but liberals aren't. But when a liberal like the President of the United States is called a 'subhuman mongrel,' what happens then? Conservatives in the media -- virtually, if not literally, until this show, anyway -- ignore that story, too."

Both Goldberg and Kelly expressed skepticism regarding Nugent's non-apology on Friday, which the conservative rock star said was "not necessarily to the president, but on behalf of much better men than myself." Nugent had become a point of criticism for Texas gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott, who accepted Nugent as a surrogate but then refused to take questions about his behavior.

"The story is about the politicians who choose to campaign with him," Kelly told Goldberg, adding that she has contacted Abbott's campaign multiple times for an interview. In response, Goldberg agreed with Kelly that that line of questioning was fair game.

"This fake moral outrage you have on either side -- that's all it is, it's fake," Goldberg told Kelly. "They only care when they slime somebody on your team. They don't care when you slime somebody on the other team."

While conservatives pilloried Maher for calling Palin a "c*nt" in 2011, progressive outlets like Alternetalso criticized the Real Time host. In a subsequent interview with Rolling Stone, Maher -- who also defended Paula Deen's use of racial slurs on his show last year -- accused Fox News of manufacturing the controversy regarding his anti-Palin insults.

"I don't just walk out there and say, "Sarah Palin's a c*nt! Good night!'" Maher said in the interview. "It's a carefully crafted routine that has been in my act for over a year. This is not a word that we can get along without, because it's a word that talks about a specific type of person -- and it can be a man or a woman."

Watch Kelly's interview with Goldberg, as posted online on Friday, below.