The David Shuster Lesson: The Latest in Tasteless Anti-Clinton Remarks in the Media

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Mary Lyon

After years of drought, this is an historic election year. If ever there was a time to want to get into the game, 2008 is it. And David Shuster has to be kicking himself in his own head. Loose lips sure do sink ships, and sometimes at the most inconvenient moments.

This particular week's voting, the so-called "Potomac Primaries," is extremely significant. Obama's sweep of Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, may have been the unofficial clincher on the Democratic side. There are still many states remaining on the primary schedule, most notably Texas, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, but Obama's momentum at this point may be unbeatable. He hasn't just won, he's won with significant margins of votes. He may have reached the state of unstoppability.

There's every likelihood from here on that he'll run the table, as demographic group after demographic group - unions, white men, blacks, many women, incomes 50-plus, incomes 50-minus, disgruntled Republicans and independents - scrambles onto Barack's bandwagon. It's not over for Hillary Clinton, but the path ahead for her is steep and bumpy at best. Same thing for the hapless John McCain who is wooing his own people with so-so results. He carried all three states, also, even if many Republicans held their noses as they voted for him. Besides, that annoying latter-day Gomer, Mike Huckabee, is digging his heels into his beloved Flat Earth and refusing to be a good little boy and give up and go home.

For any political junkie, THIS is The Year of Years. Just a really awful time to get benched. And so it is for David Shuster.

What strikes me as a sad irony is that David Shuster seems to be taking the fall for Chris Matthews at MSNBC - and maybe a whole lot of others, too.

David Shuster was yanked off the air after making a careless and tasteless remark about Chelsea Clinton - wondering aloud on camera whether her parents "pimping" her for her mom's campaign. OUCH. Make no mistake, he didn't mean the kind of Cinderella makeover pimping that rapper-host Xzibit showcases on "Pimp My Ride." Shuster was not referring to giving Chelsea a makeover. It was that OTHER "pimping" reference he was using. It was MOST unwelcome and uncalled for. Hillary Clinton reacted as an angry mom, firing off an irate letter to the NBC brass demanding that Shuster be punished, and that all such sordid verbal slaps be stopped. I'm solidly with her on this.