'She Looks Like She Has Sausage Casing Wrapping Around Her Upper Body'

Granted, Tony Kornheiser probably shouldn't have said this on the air, but at the same time, what is Hannah Storm thinking with this outfit? Megyn Kelly could get away with this and set pulses racing nationwide, but Hannah? Please, don't do this again, OK? You're Hannah Storm, not Hannah Giles. Good concept, bad execution.

Pardon the interruption: Tony Kornheiser has been benched from "Pardon the Interruption."

ESPN has banned the print, radio and TV personality from its popular "PTI" show for biting on-air comments he made last week about SportsCenter host Hannah Storm's wardrobe.

Kornheiser, who has built a persona on caustic shots at a wide swath of sports figures, couldn't get away with turning his sights into ESPN's house – saying Storm dressed "like she has sausage casing wrapped around her body" and calling the 47-year-old anchor "a Holden Caulfield fantasy," referring to the protagonist in J.D. Salinger's book "The Catcher in the Rye."

Kornheiser opened his ESPN Radio show by briefly addressing the suspension, saying he "had made intemperate remarks, and stupid remarks, about Hannah Storm … and as a result of this I have been sent to the sidelines from PTI for a while." The suspension is expected to be a few days.

"I've said about a thousand times while doing radio in my life the following sentence: If you put a live microphone in front of somebody, eventually that person will say something wrong. This was one of the times I said something wrong," Kornheiser said. "It seems to me without any question that I broke the rules, and this is the punishment that's come."

The firestorm - just the latest sexual harassment flare-up to hit ESPN - occurred the evening after Storm had hosted the morning SportsCenter wearing a slim-fitting red sweater, a red-plaid skirt and red boots ending just below the knee.

"Hannah Storm in a horrifying, horrifying outfit today," Kornheiser said on PTI. "She's got on red go-go boots and a Catholic-school plaid skirt. … Way too short for somebody in her 40s or maybe early 50s by now. She's got on her typically very, very tight shirt. She looks like she has sausage casing wrapping around her upper body.

"I know she's very good, and I'm not supposed to be critical of ESPN people, so I won't. But Hannah Storm, Come on now! Stop! What are you doing? She's what I would call a Holden Caulfield fantasy at this point."