Caught in the Middle of David Shuster's Screwup
Meet the man in the middle. MSNBC's David Shuster was suspended for a question about Chelsea Clinton he asked -- me!
Appearing as a guest on Tucker last Thursday, with Shuster sitting in as guest host, I was puzzled when he brought up Chelsea's increasingly prominent role in the campaign and suggested that this was somehow "unseemly." Not at all, I responded. She was campaigning for her mom. Just like the Bush twins stumped for their dad. What's unseemly about that? (I should have, but didn't, think of mentioning the five Romney sons).
But Shuster persisted. Chelsea was even calling super delegates. Wasn't she being "pimped" into a more active role? Even though I winced at the word "pimped," I stuck to my point that Chelsea's campaigning for her mother is what family members always do. Like Michelle Obama, campaigning for her husband. No big deal. "Give Chelsea a break," I told Shuster.
Did his question merit suspension? Absolutely. Shuster's a damned good reporter, who's always been religiously fair. But even the best of us can sometimes go over the line. Chris Matthews did, earlier. This time, it was Shuster. Except he, unlike Matthews, has to pay the price.
But, of course, this isn't the first sign of media bias, intended or unintended. What's most disturbing about Shuster's pimp remark is that it reinforces the impression of media bias in this campaign.
It began with the networks' deciding which candidates were serious and which were not -- and therefore ignoring qualified contenders like Joe Biden or Ron Paul. It continued with the media's admitted infatuation with John McCain and Barack Obama. It culminated with the media's declaring open season on the Clintons. In contrast to fawning reports about Obama crowds, every story about the Clinton campaign is sprinkled with snide, critical, even crude, comments about Hillary or Bill. Now not even Chelsea is spared.
Enough's enough. The media's role is to report on the primaries, not decide the primaries. No candidate deserves favorable treatment. The media should treat all of them equally badly. That's their job. And there's a big difference between their job and ours. To bend a phrase: "They report. We decide."
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Right on Bill. It seems these days the media is very much set upon itself. This has been continuing ever since their taste for power in terms of influencing events has risen. It was great to watch them scramble after New Hampshire. Yes they need to remember to report the facts and not slant their opinions our way. The "lesser candidates" like Biden et al. never stood a chance because of the lack of attention they were getting. Well on with the show and the next "story." They won't change that's for sure.
Right on tandrmcdonald! What Schuster said was completely out of line. But heck Matthews (the over important jerk) thinks he is god all mighty because he worked for Tip O’Neil! Matthews is anti Clinton and should have been suspended because of his anti Clinton remarks. As to Tucker Carlson he is a jerk plain an simple!
Come on Bill, you're much more sophisticated than that. There is no such thing as a free press (pun intended). Journalists know who write their checks and the positions those people hold on issues; they know exactly what to do to please their bosses.
Unfortunately for Shuster, his eagerness to please got him thrown overboard when push came to shove.
The blogs are the only media that are minimally censored.
David Shuster was wrong...period. There is no justification for the pimped out reference. Chelsea Clinton is an extremely well educated, highly thought of young woman. Why the hell wouldn't she help her mother in any way possible? Shuster's comments were incredibly stupid and horribly sexist. His initial refusal to apologize points to spitefulness and bad judgment.
BTW I think that when Chelsea was a little girl, she was subjected to some of the most hateful, ignorant comments from male commentators and public figures that I've ever had the displeasure to read or hear.
Again, the Schuster bashers are guilty of illogic. Once again, it's the context of Schuster's poor choice of words that make all the difference. He was not referring to Chelsea (the 300K a year "hedge fund analyst")as a whore; far from it. The transcripts of emails between Schuster and the Clinton campaign official make it clear that Schuster's beef with Clinton is that Chelsea is making pitches to donors, voters, porential delegates, etc., but will not herself answer questions from the media. Good grief, Chelsea is a woman, and should not need her mommy or daddy to defend her.
In addition, if there ever was a media whore, it's Bill Press. His nose is so Clinton brown that it's amazing he can breathe at all.
Pimping as a slang word does not mean what the Clintons imply. Maybe 15 years ago... but ask any high school kid what pimping means, and you'll discover in their jargon, that is exactly what Chelsea was doing.
I will never vote for HRC, and I'm a life long Democrat. She represents, no, epitomizes the 90s greed and divisiveness; the sleeze and immorality of her husband's administration.
Were there in the 90s no tech boom, no emerging Internet, WJC would not be remembered as a great politician, who by the way, left office in disgrace, and left the country with a Republican congress, fewer Democrat governors, and fewer Democrat state legislators.
Four, or God forbid eight more years of Clinton will forever tarnish the presidency.
I mostly agree with Araxiel. I don't believe that D. Shuster meant to be disrespectful to Chelsea or Hillary. It was an unfortunate thing that he said but he should not be water boarded for it.
I always enjoy his reporting and commentary, especially when he is butting heads with Joe Scarborogh on "Morning Joe", which no one else on the staff seem to have the wherewithal or guts to do.
I know exactly what pimped out means. I find Shuster's use of the words offensive in reference to Chelsea Clinton, and I also see them as part of the pattern of MSNBC's and the corporate media's misogyny.
I'm not a Clinton fan, hell I'm not even an Obama fan (see www.blackagendareport.com for opinions of Obama that are close to mine). But I will vote for the Democratic nominee in November because I don't see a non-harmful alternative.
Yes.
Let's take everybody who disagrees with hillary and set them on fire along with the books that hillary doesn't like.
O.K.
Ok, I know the whole world (bahhh bahhh bahhh) has jumped on the Obama bandwagon. Cum bay yah. I have to ask though, is anyone but me paranoid enough to think that the corporate/republicans who control the MSM know that Obama cannot possibly win in the general election, but Hillary has a decent shot at it? They already sabatoged the one Democratic candidate who was the most likely to win in November. Now they are after Hillary, leaving us with an African American who appeals to young folks and other African Americans. Which is wonderful, but just look at the demographics. How many of the white men voting for Obama are cross overs trying to knock out Hillary?
Welcome to the next Republican administration, led by Mr. McC and Condi. Once again, just like always, the Democrats manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
LOL>>>>"Welcome to the next Republican administration, led by Mr. McC and Condi. Once again, just like always, the Democrats manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory".....uh, Condi ? Uh, thought she had set sights on the commisioner job in one of sport venues as to what she aspired to once done with her public servicing in this Bushlerized reign...LOL, CONDI ? THe great NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR ? THE SEC OF STATE ? The oil cartel broker ? yeah, right on and whatever !!! Think Huckabee has a better option on the VP spot than Condi for sure !!!!
And as for the get ready, well, would suggest do something about the slim majority in Congress woul likely serve all far better than having the Clintons back in the WH...Get a REAL majority and preferably, one with some real backbones to WOULD put the squeeze and tether those reins a bit !!! THe Dems constant WHIMPERING about how ineffective they ARE FORCED TO BE ....IS PATHETIC and tiresome and if so, then get them the TRUER CONTROLLING MAJORITY so as able to STOP or promote veto proofed , majority wise !!!!
I loved it, Condi's public servicing. How accurate can you be?!? She, Clarence and now Obama, are people who benefitted the most from the equal opportunity programs so hated by the right neo evangelicals are now fighting to pull the ladder up behind them. If blacks think Obama or his family (as well as Condi and Clarence, hair-on-coke) believe themselves to be black in the traditional sence you are way crazy.
Well, Bozwellian, if the rich and corporate interests had not spent the past decade BUYING the media and stacking all the odds against real democracy, maybe we could DO SOMETHING, as you suggest. As long as the Rush Limbaughs and the Sean Hannities and the Murdochs and all the rest of the neo-CONS continue to fool the average guy with fantasies of wealth (just over the next ridge, fellas, you can be rich too!) - we'll have idiots voting against their own interests, distracted by irrelevant "values" issues. The past decade shows us that the majority of voters are absolute suckers. Maybe they pout out this election since they didn't get their way on the nomination. We can but hope.
cartecay --you are so emphatically correct. I backed (read donated to) John Edwards (a real, not a pie-in- the-sky Democrat)for many months until he was killed by the media and the very fearful right wing.) Now it is Hillary who is most feared by the neocons BECAUSE SHE HAS A CHANCE and KNOWS WHAT TO DO to counter the most shameful, bigoted 8 years in American history. Are any of you stupid enough to think Obama can turn the mountains of bigotry and bias that lay before him in the South and Midwest. These people voted for the sociopathic satan and his phycopathic, consciousless mouthpiece just four short years ago.
Okay Bill, would it be fair to say you're pimping for Hillary? Should I be suspended for asking you the question? Actually it's a stupid question, but all of you adherents of one or another of the candidates keep going over the line and then screaming like Caesar's if your motives are besmirched.
In truth, I prefer Hillary's background and experience to Obama's but can't stand the likely outcome of an election where we (and she) lose because she is so despised, polarizing and divisive. I don't want McCain to win just because I voted for the losing Democrat.
Thank you Bill Press. Many rely on you and Pat Buchanan for intelligent, insightful analysis. Neither of you have been co-opted by the "news team" of MSNBC. You remain independent, the only position from which to report on these races. Thank you again.
Bill,
The thing about it that is smothered in the PC-Oh-my-God consternation is the perception that "Billary" are political whores. The logical extension to that with Chelsea calling SUPER-DELEGATES and NOT exclusively, Mr & Mrs Main ST America, reinforces the perception that B & H would use any political extortion to bring pressure on people to bend to their liking-even pimping out their daughter.
David Shuster may as well have been Socrates being given the cup of Hemlock for asking too many questions, that as back then and as today-people don't want to engage the truth.
Bucco
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/polemicistmailbox
Or maybe just phrase the questions differently and with decency?
Shuster is not a "damn good reporter"!!! He is not a journalist! A good journalist would not have made the comments he did! Most so called journalist or reporter today are nothing more than talking heads. Nattering vacuous demigods that are there to entertain! Not report!
You were ok and no one is finding fault with you, yet.
However the public needs to know that most reporting today by the media is nothing more than entertainment with a "news" title!!!!!
Actually, I think Shuster did a great job reporting on the Libby trial. That's why it's disappointing and aggravating that he went off the rails with the pimp out comment -- it's bad enough to let his bias against Clinton show, but even worse to use such a smarmy, sexist term.
If he wanted to ask whether it's fair that Chelsea not answer questions even though she's an active member of the campaign -- fine. I think he's wrong on that point, but there's nothing wrong with the question.
But to says she's being "pimped out"? that's just nasty. Maybe he was trying to be hip and cool and trendy, but he's supposed to be a political reporter, not an MTV commentator.
Amen.
I watched Tucker that night and did not turn to the news since I saw you were being on...I heard you try to say the obvious about family members helping and not only did I notice how fair you were, but how Schuster kept trying to add more...it was as if the whole gang had been talking around the water fountain about the "pimping" going on and, most probably, in those terms. It was clearly intentional on Shuster's part and I was stunned to hear that term It was to your credit that you did not respond in a similar manner regarding Michelle Obama's "they keep changing the bar" speech or McCain bringing his 95 year old mother onthe campaign trail. There is a lot of fomenting going on that has totally been ignored by MSM by comparison, but one Saturday on CSPAN I watched one candidate's relative in a speech not getting better publicity and felt there was certainly no squeaky clean record on the Obama's side after all. What I saw totally changed my original preference. Bait and switch rather than race baiting.
Yes it does re-enforce the view of the media bias and rightly so. I believe it is so blatantly against Hillary that it is hard not to see.
The media is slanting questions and stating opinions. Katie Couric asked on 60 Minutes if Hillary is prepared to lose. Did she ask this of Obama? Or the poll question asked on one of NBC's affilaites "Are woman obliged to vote for Hillary". I could go on and on. As far as I am concerned, they put the major networks on par to Fox News for promoting an agenda.
I am certainly no Katie Couric fan but I think she asked that question because for months the MSM were telling us that Hillary's nomination was inevitable and Hillary herself has stated that she expected to win. IMO she didn't ask Obama the same question because he was not expected to do as well as he's done.
It's a stupid question, period. What kind of answer was she expecting. It's not a thougtful question at all. It's just as bad as Chris matthew's asking republican candidates what they thought about Hillary running for president. What a waste of time during the debate (besides being an ignorant question) and it was just so Chris could get his daily fix of Clinton bashing. I can no longer even stand the MSM. They are also a waste of time anymore.
The media is the pimp and the whore here. They are pimping this controversy, making it look a lot more than it is, in order to get attention and sell their ad spots.
What is worse is the ignorant, angry mob that is so easily manipulated into stringing up the wrong guy.
The Clintons are the crooks. Don't let them claim victim status and avoid punishment.
What specific crime do you believe they are liable for?
NAFTA
Imagine, using the word 'pimp' when describing the prevalent 'whoredom' of politicians!
I'd rather associate with a street whore then be sullied by a politicians candy coated lies!
Uncle Sam is the real pimp!
You go Bill Press. I miss Crossfire...I miss Buchanan and Press.
All we have left is the nonsense of Chris Mattews and the bias of Olberman.
Crossfire was just a lot of noise, as is all Fox programming.
You are absolutely right, Bill Press. The American press, not anywhere else. Has been snide, critical, even crude to the Clintons, before the campaign even started. Now dear, Chelsea even....Why should they stop, they have been giving Bush a free ride since he's been in office. Except for the past few years, they have finally woke up about him. But this is disgusting, what they are doing to the Clintons, all of them. The American press has taken the place of the "Vast Right Winged" conspirators that investigated the Clintons for about 16 years and are still at it! Even though they FIND nothing, they make it up! I hope Senator Clinton can win and stuff this down their throats. They don't even have the respect to call her Senator, and she has been one for about 7 years. They call all the "men" Senators, "Senator", why? This country that I love so dearly, is run by some foul, foul, people. They have a lot to learn. I am hoping that with you coming on CNN that will help.......
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
