Citizen Jake

MSNBC’s David Shuster got suspended last Friday for saying something stupid about Chelsea Clinton. Specifically he said “doesn’t it seem like Chelsea’s sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?”. This, obviously, was a pretty dumbass thing to say and his suspension is justified. I actually like Shuster, he’s one of the better talking heads since he mostly does straight reporting. Having said that, I would like to second what Atrios says:

While the “pimped out” comment was bad, in and of itself it’s the kind of thing I could give a pass on based on the fact that sometimes stupid shit comes out of your mouth on live TV. It wasn’t something he should have said, obviously, but there probably wasn’t real animosity behind it. Just dumb.

But what I find worse is that it’s part of a general pattern of taking perfectly normal political activities - in this case a family member helping out with a campaign - and talking about them as if they’re unseemly, or corrupt, or inappropriate, or seedy, or sleazy, etc… The press has a long history of doing this with the Clintons, holding them to a weird standard that no one else is held to.

As Ezra Klein points out, John McCain’s daughter has a campaign blog, Mitt Romney’s sons campaign for him, the Bush twins were on the trail in 2004. There’s nothing unusual about family members campaigning for candidates, its standard fare.

Let me also endorse Josh Marshall’s take:

Unlike pretty much everyone else on the chat shows he’s a reporter who consistently does pretty solid investigative pieces. But regardless of that, who can name me the last political chat show host or reporter who was suspended over anything? To say that he’s being held to a different standard than TV chatters normally are is probably a farcical statement in itself since I’m not clear that there are any standards.

Does anyone watch Fox News?

On the other hand, many have rightly criticized Chris Matthews for his repeatedly degrading, often sexist and consistently clownish comments about Hillary Clinton. The most logical way for me to understand this development is that MSNBC is under a lot of fire for Matthews — but Matthews is untouchable — and Shuster’s easier to can or suspend.

Yup, pretty much. Shuster certainly seems like the fall guy for Matthews’ sins (not to say Shuster shouldn’t have been suspended, he should have). Sen. Clinton wants Shuster’s suspension to be a little longer then “temporary”. From a letter the Senator sent to NBC News chief Steve Capus:

Nothing justifies the kind of debasing language that David Shuster used and no temporary suspension or half-hearted apology is sufficient.

I would urge you to look at the pattern of behavior on your network that seems to repeatedly lead to this sort of degrading language.

Translation: Fire Shuster and start getting your shit together MSNBC. If I ruled the world, or MSNBC for that matter, it would be Matthews that got the boot before Shuster but, as noted above, it seems much more likely that Shuster is going to take the fall, and hard, for MSNBC’s crap.

Some more tidbits:

This email exchange between Shuster and the Clinton campaign in which he tries to defend his remarks doesn’t make Shuster look any better.

Jason Zengerle provides interesting insight into the language Shuster used and the Clinton’s reaction to the media’s treatment of their daughter.

Bill Press was the guy David Shuster was talking to when he made his comment and Press writes about it here.

Keith Olbermann apologies for Shuster (via HuffPost).

After the jump, some video.

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