Priming the Pimp (sic)

David Shuster was suspended for three weeks from MSNBC by referring to Hillary’s use of Chelsea to woo Superdelegate support as “pimping her daughter out” during a roundtable discussion. But this was not the first time that MSNBC used such a boorish love broker metaphor when referring to politics.

The New York Post reported that Keith Olbermann accused President Bush of pimping out General Petraeus in a September 20, 2007 rant “Your Hypocrisy is So Vast”.


Why didn’t MSNBC suspend, fire or even force Olbermann to apologize? Where was the outrage? Oh, that’s right– it was a Republican so it was OK. Maybe a bit over the line but telling truth to power.

Olbermann could certainly claim that he was offering opinion rather than reporting. Well, so was Shuster as his questionable quip was during a reporter round table.

Maybe Olbermann’s ad hominem attack was considered alright because it was referring to purely political figures. That doesn’t work, because members of the military can not publically express political opinions while wearing the uniform.

Perhaps, it is a PC peculiarity that it is just improper to say something about a minority. So Hillary can feel free to play the Mother card. That angle might have some credence.

I think that Hillary’s campaign found it convenient to protest to garner sympathy from the public, to deflect from the storyline of desperation in her campaign, to humanize Hillary as a mother first and a public official second and to shoot for kinder coverage in the future.

A blogger who does "Olbermann Watch" made a video mix showing Shuster's verbal faux pas, Olbermann's obnoxious analogy and Olberman's obsequious apology to Hillary for Shuster's sin.


Of course, this is from the same news network that asked the highbrow question on the Morning Joe “Did Fred Thompson’s wife worked the poles?”

It is no wonder why there is such skepticism about the lamestream media.