APPARENTLY YOU CAN BE FIRED FOR MAKING AN ASSASSINATION JOKE ON THE AIR -- IF YOU'RE A SPORTS BROADCASTER

ESPM has fired Mark Madden, a Pittsburgh sports-talk radio host, for making a Ted Kennedy assassination joke:

Mark Madden, who made his reputation with bold, outlandish attacks on famous people, has been permanently removed from the air by ESPN.

...At the opening of his show last Wednesday, Madden said this about Sen. Kennedy, who days earlier had been diagnosed with brain cancer:

"I'm very disappointed to hear that Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts is near death because of a brain tumor. I always hoped Senator Kennedy would live long enough to be assassinated.

"I wonder if he got a card from the Kopechnes." ...

Still employed, by contrast, is right-wing radio frother Michael Savage, who played a Dead Kennedys song on the air while reporting on the senator's cancer diagnosis. Also let off with nothing more than an apology is Fox News analyst Liz Trotta, who recently said on the air,

"And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama, uh Obama. Well, both, if we could."

Madden had rubbed a lot of people the wrong way for a while:

"The sad part is he had a following," said one long-time Pittsburgh newspaper reporter. "He's wished death on people before, even said on the air he hoped their planes crashed. He's told listeners he had sex with their wives. There was some talk about him being fired last December, but they put him on a short leash and told him this stuff had to stop. But this one was pretty bad, the worst of anything he's ever said."

But, er, Michael Savage, in particular, has also tiptoed over the line of good taste a time or three, yet, last time I looked, his place in radio was not in jeopardy.

I guess if you're an infantile pottymouth who wishes death on your enemies, you'd better stick with political discourse, and stay away from talking about something serious -- like sports.