The only thing I found surprising was that the remark that caused all the furor was pretty tame for a shock jock. I never heard of him before this, but was pretty sure he had said worse things many times before (and Yaddo seems to verify this). Shock jocks work by pressing buttons. Sooner or later they do it wrong and get reined in, fired, or screamed about.
It was the straw that broke the camel's back.