MSNBC reporter David Shuster, while guest hosting for Tucker Carlson on Thursday, made an unfortunate comment about Chelsea Clinton. In discussing the former first daughter’s phone calls to three of the women on ABC’s “The View,” Shuster said, “Doesn’t it seem like Chelsea’s sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?” The network was quick to act and announced that Shuster had been suspended.

But Shuster’s comments seem mild when compared to something said by his “Morning Joe” colleague Joe Scarborough last June. As you may remember, The Palmetto Scoop broke the clip of Scarborough implying that Sen. Fred Thompson’s wife was a stripper — or worse — when he asked CQ’s Craig Crawford if he thought she “works the pole.”

For that little comment MSNBC took absolutely no disciplinary action, despite the barrage of outrage from numerous bloggers across the country. Scarborough did make a few half-hearted quasi-apologies, but remained on the air and would later permanently lock down the morning spot. Which is a hypocritical load of garbage.

By their actions, it’s acceptable to call Thompson’s wife a stripper, but if someone dares to say that the Clinton’s daughter is “being pimped” then MSNBC instantly hands out punishments. What the hell?

I’m not going to make the obvious suggestion that MSNBC allows their hosts to say nasty things about Republicans while chastising anyone who bashes a Democrat — although I guess I just did — but it certainly looks that way. Of course, in their defense, they did let their flagship political host Chris Matthews say that Hillary’s core constituency consists of “militant women” who are unlike all the other women in America that “stay home and don’t go out and work.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 9th, 2008 at 11:34 pm and is filed under Primary Season, Scarborough. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.