This was pretty much expected since the Access Hollywood tapes were released, but now it’s official. Billy Bush has officially been shown the door by NBC and will no longer be darkening the doorway of the Today Show. That must be a relief for the powers that be over there. (Washington Post)

About 10 days after NBC’s “Today” co-anchor Billy Bush was heard on a 2005 tape laughing and joking as Donald Trump made lewd comments about kissing and groping women, he is officially gone from the morning show.

“Billy Bush will be leaving the ‘Today’ show’s 9 a.m. hour, effective today,” NBC Senior Vice President Noah Oppenheim wrote in a memo to staff on Monday evening. “While he was a new member of the ‘Today’ team, he was a valued colleague and longtime member of the broader NBC family. We wish him success as he goes forward.”

“I am deeply grateful for the conversations I’ve had with my daughters, and for all of the support from family, friends and colleagues. I look forward to what lies ahead,” Bush said in a separate statement.

What goes unmentioned in the article is the fact that much of the ten day delay in firing Bush was taken up with his contract termination negotiations which are believed to have netted him something in the range of ten million dollars. Bush’s agent was denying the figure as recently as this weekend, but that subject seems to have dropped off the radar.

Here’s another question which doesn’t seem to get asked very often. How is it that after fifteen years with the network this was the first time anyone noticed that such banter was going on? I suppose we’re to believe that this was all the doing of Donald Trump, who led the impressionable but otherwise God fearing Billy down a dark path for one short bus trip. But wouldn’t such a prim and proper person have objected while he was on the bus? Or at least fallen silent and not joined in with the guffawing responses to the lewd comments? If someone’s natural inclination is to join in, I find it rather doubtful that this was a one off event.

Let’s also remember that they had this tape. And on Access Hollywood, Bush was hanging out with all sort of other celebrities. There was a film crew and supporting players involved with that segment along with the hundreds (if not thousands) of others that he recorded. Yet it’s only now… in October of an election year, when somebody finally noticed this and action against Bush had to be taken?

Far more likely is the supposition that there was plenty of this going on both before and after the Trump interview. People knew and they didn’t care. After all, this is NBC we’re talking about here. You’re currently hearing a lot of clips from the Best of The Donald reels which come from the archives of the Howard Stern Show. That Howard is a really unacceptable, uncouth beast isn’t he? And yet he spent half a decade broadcasting from the NBC Radio flagship station in New York City before his eventual departure from terrestrial radio. When the profits were rolling in, NBC didn’t seem quite so upset about his potty mouth.

Billy Bush turned into collateral damage in NBC’s ongoing take down of Donald Trump. Unfortunately for him it would be too blatantly hypocritical of NBC to excoriate Trump over his remarks and allow Bush to remain on the payroll. But if Trump hadn’t been involved, Bush would still be employed there today and nobody would give a fig about that bus ride. You can make bank on that one.