Topic: NewsBusters
(Updated)
The folks at NewsBusters are speaking out on David Shuster's statement on MSNBC about Chelsea Clinton -- that it "seem[s] like Chelsea's sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way" for her mother's presidential campaign -- and his subsequent apology and suspension. And they seems to sorta like the idea that Chelsea was smeared in this way.
Noel Sheppard couldn't be bothered to actually criticize the remark beyond calling it "over-the-top," as opposed to his claim that "MSNBC representatives make disgracefully offensive comments about President George W. Bush on a daily basis." Not that he offered evidence that this actually happens, mind you. (By the way, Noel, we're still waiting for you to put up or shut up about your smears of Al Gore.)
Tim Graham, meanwhile, seems to believe that Shuster's insult, though "rude," is something of a corrective measure that's entirely justified because "[t]he media spent the 1990s using Chelsea and Gore kids to improve the public image of the Clintons and the Gores." Graham fails to mention, of course, that Chelsea Clinton and Al Gore III were under 18 during the Clinton administration. Does this mean that Graham endorsed (if not heartily guffawed at) Rush Limbuagh's slam of the 13-year-old Chelsea as the White House dog?
This is just another example of how much the Media Research Center enjoys seeing liberals insulted, even as they howl when conservatives face similar treatment. After all, not only did the MRC defend Ann Coulter's right to call John Edwards a "faggot" last year, it invited her shortly thereafter to be a main attraction at its annual "Dishonors Awards" banquet.
MRC chief Brent Bozell, meanwhile, keeps up the double standard in his Feb. 7 column, taking purported offense that Barack Obama was "endorsed by MoveOn.org, the screechy hard-left group that distinguished itself last year by taking out newspaper ads denouncing our commander in Iraq as 'General Betray Us,'" and won a poll at thye "radical" Daily Kos, where among the tens of thousands of blog posts exists one that calls private security contractors in Iraq "mercenaries."
But Bozell's not bothered by Coulter's smears. Not one bit. He's probably chortling as we speak over Coulter's latest insult-ridden CPAC appearance. As is, we can presume, the rest of the MRC crew.
UPDATE: Indeed, a Feb. 9 post credited to "NB Staff" (though it reads like a Noel Sheppard work) calls Coulter's CPAC speech "marvelous." So I think we've confirmed that last statement.
UPDATE 2: John Stephenson merely found Schuster's remark "politically incorrect, and possibly derogatory"; is Stephenson waiting for details about about Chelsea's sex life to determine conclusively that it actually is derogatory? Noel Sheppard, meanwhile, plays the equivocation card, digging up a Keith Olbermann quote saying that President Bush "pimped out" Gen. David Petraeus for political purposes. Of course, Sheppard never addresses the substance of Olbermann's charge.
