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Date Posted: Tue, February 26, 2008 6:00:47
In reply to:
No one can joke about her
's message, "Chelsea Clinton- the one person in the world who must never, ever be made fun of!" on Tue, February 26, 2008 5:59:36
Warning received. Warning obeyed.
The Post's then-TV writer John Carmody noted: "The exchange may have flustered Letterman."
Letterman flustered? Letterman flustered? A rare event. Actually, a cataclysmic event. Rattling David Letterman is a sure sign of the apocalypse.
Now, 15 years later, MSNBC's David Shuster makes the "pimped out" remark. He's sent to the penalty box for two weeks. (Disclosure: I worked two years as a Washington producer for MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews alongside Shuster, whom I consider a friend.)
The events behind Shuster's suspension were well documented by many political and TV writers. Politico's Ben Smith, for instance, reported this odd turn:
Now on MSNBC: A full hour of its biographical program, "Headliners & Legends."
The subject: Hillary Clinton.
(This pre-empts the regularly scheduled programming, a show called Deadly Encounter. Not joking.)
"THE GROVEL CONTINUES," was the headline at Instapundit.
And it begged many serious questions, not the least of which: Couldn't they have instead shown canned footage of Barack Obama? Even John McCain?
Probably not when you have Hillary Clinton saying this (from her later appearance on Politico/Channel 7 on the eve of the Potomac Primary): "This is like the third time they've had to apologize. And there are a lot of things that they haven't had to apologize for that might have merited one. So I wish they would take a look at, you know, some of the pattern of demeaning comments that are made on their networks."
Ironically, the demeaning word pimp had already been used on air. In September MSNBC anchor Keith
Olbermann said President Bush was "pimping General David Petraeus."
Not a peep about pimp after that one.
No, it can't be the pimp factor. It must be the Chelsea factor. Maybe the Clinton camp wants NBC to stand for Never Badmouth Chelsea.
Howard Mortman is the public affairs practice director for New Media Strategies in Arlington, Va., where he writes the Extreme Mortman blog.
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