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MSNBC'S Chelsea Confessions
CNS News ^ | February 13, 2008 | L. Brent Bozell III

Posted on 02/14/2008 12:52:42 PM PST by Caleb1411

Hillary Clinton should be nobody’s idea of a paragon of civil discourse in the political arena. Her personal style of political warfare is ruthless, a bare-knuckles fight to the death. Ask Ken Starr. Her idea of employee relations is also rough. Paul Fray, an Arkansas campaign worker said she cursed him out with F-bombs and ethnic slurs after Bill Clinton lost his one race for Congress in 1974. A co-worker told NBC News in 1999 that he heard cussing from Hillary that night like he’d never heard before.

So it’s a little strange to see Hillary appearing so upset over MSNBC reporter David Shuster suggesting that Chelsea Clinton was being “pimped out” by Hillary’s campaign. Shuster was substituting as host of Tucker Carlson’s show and used the P-word as he suggested to liberal radio host Bill Press that it was wrong for the Clinton campaign to have Chelsea call supporters, but not grant reporters any access to her.

But once Hillary registered her displeasure, like an obedient liberal lapdog, MSNBC quickly began an apology tour. Shuster apologized the next morning on “Morning Joe.” He apologized again later that day on “Tucker.” Shuster was forced to not only apologize to Chelsea, but to her parents. “I am particularly sorry that my language diminished the regard and respect she has earned from all of us and the respect her parents have earned in how they raised her."

After all the slavish apologies, MSNBC still suspended Shuster indefinitely for the remark. Buzz from insiders suggested some wanted Shuster fired for not being more abject in his apologies from the first minute Team Clinton learned of the Shuster gaffe on the Internet. (In a flash, Mark Finkelstein of the NewsBusters blog posted the stupid remark, just ten minutes after the show ended.)

Hillary sent a hectoring public letter to MSNBC complaining that Shuster had not been fired yet: “Nothing justifies the kind of debasing language that David Shuster used and no temporary suspension or half-hearted apology is sufficient...Surely, you can do your jobs as journalists and commentators and still keep the discourse civil and appropriate.”

The remark was idiotic and offensive. But enough to merit suspension? Our culture is so awash in prostitution lingo from hip-hop lyrics that this remark doesn’t have the shock value that it should. When a song called “Big Pimping” is a radio smash and “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” wins an Oscar for Best Song, and is performed on national television without a shred or regret to an audience of millions, the P-word has gained mainstream acceptance.

Clearly, the brass at MSNBC disagrees and feels this language is wholly inappropriate, proving there is a definitive double standard at play on this network. Those same executives mustered no outrage last September when, in one of his typically hysterical tirades against “dictatorial” George W. Bush, Keith Olbermann accused him of “pimping General David Petraeus” as he sold the surge on Capitol Hill.

Oh, but Petraeus is a grown man with a grown-up job, you say? Somehow we forget that Chelsea Clinton also fits that mold, since she’s 27 and works for big bucks in Manhattan for Avenue Capital Group, a hedge fund founded by two major Democratic Party donors.

But Chelsea is the Daughter Of Bill, and presidential offspring should be off-limits. Okay, Olbermann crossed that line, too.

On November 28, 2006, after President Bush’s twin daughters Barbara and Jenna traveled to Argentina to celebrate their 25th birthday, Olbermann used the flimsiest of office cooler whispers to suggest the girls were engaged in lewd public behavior: “After reports of lack security, a media frenzy and at least one lurid tale in the Argentine papers about the girls running naked down a hallway of their hotel, denied fervently by that hotel, by the way, ABC News reported the situation was so bad that the U.S. embassy asked the girls to leave, which the embassy fervently denies, by the way.”

Olbermann then extended the outrage by interviewing comedian Mo Rocca, having more fun demeaning the Bush twins as comparable to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears: “Let‘s start with the First Twins and this rampage through Argentina. You have met the Bush daughters and you know your White Houses. Are these the kind of women who would do things like run around in a hotel naked?” Rocca joked that the reports were exaggerated, that the Bush twins had only run around topless.

And the folks at MSNBC laughed, because that Keith Olbermann is such a cutup.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008electionbias; brentbozell; chelsea; clinton; hillary; macacamoment; pimp; stalinsttactics
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1 posted on 02/14/2008 12:52:43 PM PST by Caleb1411
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To: Caleb1411

“Hillary sent a hectoring public letter to MSNBC complaining that Shuster had not been fired yet”

Coming from a sitting senator seeking the presidency, this is censorship.


2 posted on 02/14/2008 12:55:48 PM PST by weegee (Those who surrender personal liberty to lower global temperatures will receive neither.)
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To: Caleb1411

Keither Olberman loves Keith Olberman and he is not afraid to let anyone who tunes into his show know it.


3 posted on 02/14/2008 12:58:04 PM PST by FlipWilson
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To: weegee

On the other hand, it sure is fun to think of that toady, David Shuster, suffering, LOL.


4 posted on 02/14/2008 1:00:33 PM PST by donna (Separated at birth: Hugo Rafael Chavez and Barack Hussein Obama.)
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To: Caleb1411

MSNBC...Hillary...both so classy.


5 posted on 02/14/2008 1:01:11 PM PST by SE Mom (Proud mom of an Iraq war combat vet)
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To: Caleb1411
“I am particularly sorry that my language diminished the regard and respect she has earned from all of us and the respect her parents have earned in how they raised her."

What?

6 posted on 02/14/2008 1:03:32 PM PST by HIDEK6
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To: Caleb1411
This is a preview of what Hillary Clinton to do for freedom of speech if she is elected President. There will be no FR and no talk radio. No one will be allowed to criticize her. For some on our side who want her to win the nomination they have to think about this. Both her and Obama are communists and defeatists but on the top of that Hillary Clinton is EVIL. If some on our side can help Obama finishes her once and for all in the primaries then it is best that they do so.
7 posted on 02/14/2008 1:06:02 PM PST by jveritas (God bless our brave troops and President Bush)
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To: Caleb1411

Hillary is upset because the term used is appropriate. If they were not pimping out Chelsea, she would have no reason to be upset.

The Clintons are using Chelsea’s “special” status to great advantage. They cannot afford to be called on that. Schuster was right on the money.

Of course, since they are Clintons, with that need to be always right and always loved, they are insisting on apology after apology, and drawing attention to the fact that they are pimping out Chelsea, over and over again. Stupid, stupid, stupid.


8 posted on 02/14/2008 1:07:30 PM PST by gridlock (Strategery + Shardenfreude = Stratenshardenfreudery.. (from spokeshave))
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To: HIDEK6

I hate to say it but I think Shuster got what he deserved. He has always been a smartassed jerk, and this one bit him where it hurts. As far as Chelsea goes, she will need a pimp as she looks more like her mother every day.


9 posted on 02/14/2008 1:09:10 PM PST by geezerwheezer (get up boys, we're burnin' daylight!!!)
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To: SE Mom
MSNBC...Hillary...both so classy.

FOOD FIGHT!!!

10 posted on 02/14/2008 1:10:36 PM PST by gridlock (Strategery + Shardenfreude = Stratenshardenfreudery.. (from spokeshave))
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To: Caleb1411
Chelsea pimped out? Never!




11 posted on 02/14/2008 1:11:25 PM PST by Arkancide (www.arkancide.com)
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To: geezerwheezer
Right. Shuster "The Self-Hating Jew" is Imus'd by his own lefty PC crowd.

"The only way to ensure the repeal of a bad law is to insist on its enforcement." -- WFB

12 posted on 02/14/2008 1:13:51 PM PST by quark
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To: jveritas

I predict that once Hillary loses the nomination or if she fanagles to win it by some back room maneuver, she will lose some of her staff and the truth will come out from them about exactly what kind of person she is. No doubt, that she has had each of them signing some kind of document that prohibits them from talking to the media about her...But I am certain there is much out there very similar to the tirades seen in 1974. You heard it first here.


13 posted on 02/14/2008 1:16:28 PM PST by nikos1121 (Thank you again Jimmy Carter)
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To: Caleb1411

14 posted on 02/14/2008 1:17:39 PM PST by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)
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To: Caleb1411

Now its Hillary’s turn to apologize to blacks and jews for her references to them.


15 posted on 02/14/2008 1:18:59 PM PST by Sig Sauer P220
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To: weegee

Not that Schuster is anywhere in the same league with Rush, but this smacks of the same tactics that Harry Reid tried to use against Rush with the “phony soldier” flap.

Whether we like what Schuster or anyone like him has to say, it is still freedom of the press, and a sitting senator running for the highest office in the land trying to silence and dictate the actions of a person saying something off the cuff is a violation of his civil rights, IMO. If they had tried that with me, I would be fighting this in Federal court and suing the pants suit off her.


16 posted on 02/14/2008 1:20:07 PM PST by murron (Proud Marine Mom)
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To: Caleb1411

No public figure should be off-limits to criticism.

To quote Truman, “if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.”


17 posted on 02/14/2008 1:20:47 PM PST by oblomov (Molok Obama is so inspirational. He inspires me to offshore assets & buy as many guns as I can.)
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To: geezerwheezer

I don’t like Schuster either. He has said many things that I don’t like, particularly when Fred Thompson was running. But if the Clintons can do this to one, they’ll do it with others. MSNBC should have stood up to her and said “Too bad, so sad.” And then I wouldn’t say one thing about her or her campaign after that.


18 posted on 02/14/2008 1:22:32 PM PST by murron (Proud Marine Mom)
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To: Caleb1411

Unknown and unreported is the action of the General Electric board. An obdient lap dog probably got the crap beat out of it by someone at GE and may never extract it’s tail from between its legs.

Princess Chelsea the liar is now forevermore out of bounds.


19 posted on 02/14/2008 1:26:47 PM PST by bert (K.E. N.P. +12 . Chelsea is a liar)
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To: nikos1121

Did you ever see Men in Black?

Hillary has one of those bright lights. Before they leave, staffers are zapped and have no memory of the political events


20 posted on 02/14/2008 1:29:18 PM PST by bert (K.E. N.P. +12 . Chelsea is a liar)
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