It’s scary that the woman who would be President of the United States feels free to pressure a media outlet to suspend and/or fire an employee who says something on air that she doesn’t like. Howard Kurtz writes:
In case there was any doubt, using a prostitution metaphor for the daughter of a presidential candidate is not a good career move.
MSNBC suspended correspondent David Shuster yesterday for an undetermined period for making a disparaging on-air remark about Chelsea Clinton. Meanwhile, officials in her mother’s campaign raised the possibility of punishing the news channel by boycotting future debates.
While filling in as a host Thursday, Shuster was discussing the 27-year-old’s role in Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign with two guests when he asked: “Doesn’t it seem as if Chelsea is sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?”
In my opinion, the comment was pretty innocuous. The reference wasn’t to prostitution even with the use of the word “pimp”. Isn’t there a TV show called “Pimp My Ride”? From the urban dictionary:
pimping
More commonly used nowadays as making something cool or better.
Yeah, I was totally pimping up my profile today!
Sure MSNBC has the right to suspend or even fire an employee for something he says on air. The first amendment refers to government retaliation for speech, but this woman would be President of the United States. What happens when someone says something not so innocuous that’s against her or her administration? When she is the face of the government?
In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya (to Vizzini):
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Chris Lynch has some more musings over at A Large Regular.