On the February 16 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, Eric Bolling responded to Rep. Maxine Waters' (D-CA) recent comment that House Republican leaders are “demons” by saying in part that Waters should “step away from the crack pipe”:

BOLLING: What is going on in California? How's this? Congresswoman, you saw what happened to Whitney Houston. Step away from the crack pipe. Step away from the Xanax. Step away from the Lorazepam. Because it's going to get you in trouble. How else do you explain those kinds of comments?

Bolling's comment drew some shock from co-hosts Steve Doocy and Juliet Huddy, and after a commercial break, Bolling said that he was “kidding about the crack pipe, but obviously the rhetoric, you know.”

Watch:

This is not the first time Bolling has used racially charged rhetoric on Fox. Last June, on his Fox Business show, Bolling teased a segment about the White House hosting the president of Gabon by saying, “Guess who's coming to dinner? A dictator. Mr. Obama shares a laugh with one of Africa's kleptocrats. It's not the first time he's had a hoodlum in the hizzouse.” He began the segment itself by saying, in part, “So what's with all the hoods in the hizzy?” He later issued a brief -- and dishonest -- apology for the segment.

In May 2011, Bolling claimed Obama was “chugging a few 40s” instead of responding to devastating tornadoes in Joplin, Missouri. Bolling later tried to walk back his “chugging 40s” comment by pretending that he hadn't engaged in racially charged rhetoric and asserting that he “took some heat for saying Obama should have delayed his European bar crawl.”

UPDATE: Two days before Bolling's controversial comments, Los Angeles radio hosts John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou made similar comments and referred to Whitney Houston as a “crack ho.” KFI-AM radio suspended the hosts until February 27.