Grow Up
MSNBC reporter David Shuster has been suspended for saying, in reference to Chelsea Clinton’s new prominence on the campaign trail, “Doesn’t it seem like Chelsea’s sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?”
Chelsea Clinton is the daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton. (You may have heard of them.) Daughter, but no longer child. Chelsea was born in 1980. She is 26 years old, will soon be 27. Chelsea Clinton is a grown-up. She’s a big girl. She’s no longer the little girl Rush Limbaugh famously and inexcusably ridiculed. She’s no different than any other public figure, no more entitled to kid glove treatment. No one held a gun to her head and forced her onto the political stage, she walked out there of her own accord, and she can hardly pretend she didn’t know the lights on that stage were harsh.
There’s not a man, woman or child who believes that Shuster was actually suggesting the Clintons were treating Chelsea like a prostitute. He was using a fairly common phrase. I use it all the time. So why the outrage? It’s faux victimhood. Asinine accusations based on ridiculous gotcha! moments. The outrage is 100% manufactured. 100% false.
It is intimidation from the Clintons. Intimidation. Bullying. Thuggery. They saw a tiny crevice of an opening and are using it to beat up MSNBC in hopes of getting better treatment from the network. The Clintons aren’t upset; they’re laughing.
I’m not a fan of Mr. Shuster. He’s a good reporter, but lately he’s been falling victim to Paul Krugman disease. He’s spending as much time seething as reporting. But in this case, in this context, he’s done nothing wrong. Slightly off-color? Eh . . . okay. Reason to suspend him? No.
Personally I’d prefer a little more judicious use of language from the people whose business it is to use words to report facts.
“Doesn’t it seem like Michelle’s sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?”
So now Michael Reynolds I suggest to you that had a reporter said the above about Michelle that the inuendo would be racist. You know the suggestion that 99 percent of all Pimps are black and ladiladila. The obama supporters would be screaming and frothing about more racism from the Clinton’s camp, even though it was a reporter who said it and not a Clinton aid.
I find it actually comical that you are trying to defend Shuster whose job is to report the news. He is not a commentator. He is not a talk show host. He is not an analyst. He is a reporter. The MSM is already facing the backlash that they are partial, unfair and have an agenda and this man is lucky its only a suspension and not a firing.
Just like the immigration deal where the people defending open borders live in Kansas or Minnesota or Alaska. You know they dont wake up in the middle of the night with a dozen Illegals huddled on their front yard. While you might use that word everyday, Im not sure where you live but there are places all over this country that you use that word in the wrong place at the wrong time and it just might ruin your whole day.
Abri:
Shuster wasn’t just a reporter, not anymore. MSNBC the last couple of months has been using him as an occasional fill-in anchor on opinion shows. He did panel on opinion shows. It looked to me as if they were testing him as more of an Olbermann type, giving him a shot at some future show of his own. (Probably Tucker’s show.)
I don’t think Shuster handled the transition very well. As mentioned above, I think he went a litt;e too spittle-flecked, at least for my tastes.
But let’s not pretend we’re all shocked by the use of the word "pimp."
Will the author of this article utter ‘Grow Up’ if someone had said the same thing on his sister / wife / mother? This guy should be removed off this site! Yucks!
I hear the phrase "pimped out" pretty regularly. Generally it means someone is being used in a distasteful way — the sexual implication is there but the use of the phrase is not sexual. It’s metaphor.
I don’t think it takes a shocking amount of intelligence to see Shuster was using a coloquialism and not actually implying Chelsea was being sold for sex. But it’s not the kind of phrase a reporter/pundit should be throwing around. Trying to sound "cool" generally makes those guys sound like asses. I imagine Shuster has now figured that out.
My first reaction on this one was to miraculously side with the Clintons, Michael, but then I looked more closely at the context, thought about it some more, and came around to your way of thinking. We have TV shows out now called "pimp my ride" and "pimp my truck." Within the blog-world, we commonly say that we’re "pimping our post" to Glenn Reynolds or other major bloggers in hopes of getting some traffic. The word itself just isn’t taboo anymore.
In the context in which he used the word, it is a bit rude, and I do wish that TV journalists would hold themselves to a higher, not a lower, standard. But the Clintons’ actions have a context too, and that is a context of using every lever of power they have to try to manipulate the press coverage they receive.
They did a good job of protecting Chelsea from the press when she was growing up in the White House, but she’s an adult now, and she’s chosen to go out on the campaign trail, and that means she is part of the story. One of the risks of being part of the story is that commentators may say unkind things about you from time to time, either on purpose or just on accident.
I don’t think that Chelsea should be protected against rough criticisms now that she’s an adult and is choosing to become involved in the campaign. I can’t agree though with those here who feel that phrases like ‘pimped out’ are becoming more acceptable, or that they should be acceptable because they’re in common use. I think you have to draw some lines of decorum and propriety in the MSM, so that things that we hear every day in conversation are still NOT necessarily acceptable there (even if, as Michael R. pointed out, the speaker isn’t acting as a pure journalist.)
Mark:
If someone said it about my 8 year old daughter I’d probably grimace. But if someone said of my wie, to pick an obvious example from real life, "She’s pimping your book," I’d say, "Yep. And I pimp hers."
What matters is how, when and where words are used, and with what intention. Words aren’t inherently good or evil.
Generally, I suspect that writers — people who make their living putting words on paper — take what will seem to be a paradoxically cavalier attitude toward words. For us they’re tools, not much different than a carpenter’s hammer or a chef’s knife. I note that Alan, who is a writer, is somewhat less than horrified.
Words have a dictionary definition, and a contextual meaning. People who see nothing but the dictionary definition, or imagine that there are "good" words and "bad" words, are missing the fun of language.
Words are not evil. The thoughts behind them may be, but the words themselves are just tools. I don’t know that Hitler ever cursed. I suspect he used common, everyday, off-the-rack words. The problem was what he meant by them.
PatHMV as the exactly right point. "Pimp" has become common currency, so that one can use the word without it having any more than a tangential connection to prostitution. And one can use it without it being harsh or rude.
C Stanley, I think you’re wrong on this. The English language has become the dominant language of the human race precisely because it is so wonderfully flexible, adapts effortlessly to new situations, and borrows freely from every other language and dialect. English doesn’t follow rules, English just gets the job done.
One cannot divorce intention from the word used. Did Shuster mean to imply that the Clintons were using their daughter for political purposes? Of course. The offending sentence was inartful, because it doesn’t precisely convey what context tells me he meant to convey. But his crime, if there was one, was in choosing a phrase that inapt. His crime was bad writing, not sexism, lese majeste, crudeness or cruelty.
Gee lets be honest folks. Lets be honest with ourselves. What would you be saying right now had Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity on Fox had said.
“Doesn’t it seem like Michelle’s sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?”
Im guessing you would all be calling for their heads no matter what the context.
abrisham: not sure you can make that judgement. I remember Michael having a not too different take on the Imus controversy which involved race and gender.
But, sure, some people would be screaming if the word was used in regard to Mrs. Obama. Some people are screaming now. Doesn’t prove the word is any more or less appropriate, just that we as a society have become annoyingly adept at getting offended everytime someone uses a less than poetic word or two.
I think Shuster could have found a much better way to express his opinion but to claim his choice of the word "pimped" is de facto sexist is a little much. Maybe it was. But it seems the Clintons and their allies are stretching the context of the statement for the purpose of appearing like victims and thus scoring some sympathy points.
If we want, we could discuss if the term "pimped" is ever appropriate but it seems absurd to say it’s appropriate in most every other contemporaty, non-sexual context but suddenly unforgivably sexist in this one.
Michael, you wrote that you think I’m wrong and your reasoning is in regard to the evolution of language. Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough; I have no argument against the kind of flexibility and change in language use that you describe. What I’m referring to though is a desire to keep some standards for quality; and in that, it seems you agree with me in your last paragraph of comment #10. It’s that debasing of language according to cultural norms that I find unacceptable. It may be fine to use ‘inartful’ or inapt or crass commentary in conversation, but there should be a different standard for professionals who earn their living by writing and speaking.
True that, Well it is true for politics in general. But the Clintons certainly are masters of Politics and playing the cards wherever beneficial.
The remark is current pop culture, and it is also tasteless. But the point is well taken that many of us tend to be very selective about outrage. This is coupled to identity politics. The people in the Clinton camp who are screaming sexism about the no-class pop culture reference to Chelsea didn’t seem too upset by Bill Clinton and others making remarks that seemed to play the race card against Obama. My advice to all - this is politics, and all the participants, including Chelsea Clinton, are adults. Politics is, and always has been a rough business. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. I agree with C Stanley, that the media cheerfully push the envelope, and we should push back. But, unlike the people demanding this poor chump be disciplined or fired for sexism, I think it is up tome the consumer to tell the MSNBC crowd I don’t watch them because their anchormen are such low class boors.
Pat’s on target about common usage. Also about Chelsea putting herself out there. When she stayed out of the fray I avoided criticizing her. But she’s put herself in the fray, and now she’s fair game. In politics you need a tough hide. Hillary’s doing her best to paly the vicitim game. And now more crying!