The comments were picked up by conservative blogs. 

Politico founders John Harris and Jim VandeHei later sent a memo to staff, according to Politico, flagging "an unacceptable number of Joe Williams's public statements on cable and Twitter." 

"His comment about Governor Romney earlier today on MSNBC fell short of our standards for fairness and judgment in an especially unfortunate way," they wrote. 

They reportedly said "Joe has acknowledged that his appearance reflected a poor choice of words."