Being the offspring of celebrities is never easy. Less so when a small brained pundit can’t even get his slang right.....or maybe he did.
By this time late in the news cycle every sentient being who has even the faintest interest in politicos and their fellow travelers knows that David Shuster of MSNBC has been suspended, sacked, fired, reprimanded, savaged, or muzzled. All this at the hands of Hillary or Bill, or a surrogate or all of the above.
And of course we all know the reason. In an otherwise sane, but boring dialogue with Bill Press on one of the interminable talking head shows that pass for new/entertainment, Shuster opined, “but doesn’t it seem like Chelsea’s sort of being pimped out (emphasis mine) in some sort of weird way.” Press ran for cover before the sound waves had died, but Shuster’s mouth kept moving even though all listening had ceased.
My first thought upon hearing the quote was that it was the first time I’d heard anyone north of the age of 14 use “sort of” twice in one sentence. My second thought was that he had been mentored by Imus. The next thing you know Shuster was appearing in front of every live camera he could find mumbling and stumbling over ill-conceived and poorly executed non-apology apologies. But that didn’t stop the long knives. He was gonna pay over choosing a really bad slang metaphor that many but not all heard as a coded bashing of Hillary.
According to the Urban Dictionary on-line, pimped out is a descriptive phrase which means “having excessive embellishment of the flashy kind. Like a black cane with a silver handle, a floppy fedora with a red feather, crushed velvet suits…that kind of thing.” The problem with applying this definition to what Shuster said is that it makes absolutely no sense. He used the phrase as a verb. Wow, that means he wasn’t using the urban slang version of the term, he was using a phrase derived from the root word “pimp” which as we all know when used as a noun means “a man who solicits clients for a prostitute” or when used as a transitive verb means “to work as a pimp”.
Huh? Surely not. Well, what exactly did this otherwise articulate broadcaster and candidate for an MA in International Relations at Georgetown mean? Did he really mean that Bill (or Hillary) was working as a pimp and that Chelsea was the intended prossie? Nah, I don’t think so. Surely he couldn’t have meant that Chelsea was soliciting clients for some other purveyor of sexual favors. Just doesn’t fit. Was he suggesting that Chelsea had been sent by the Hillary Campaign to solicit support from super delegates in exchange for favors to be named later? Certainly a more plausible construction, but surely this favorite of the Chris Matthews and Tucker Carlson branch of the “we hate Hillary but we’re not gonna come right out and say it” contingent could have found a more elegant and understandable way to say it than to say Chelsea was being pimped out….sort of.
Much has been made by the Rushies of Hillary putting such pressure on NBC that they “suspended” Shuster and demanded the requisite apologies be made. And in so doing Hillary rent asunder the 1st and 3rd amendments and did great violence to democracy in a free society. Another proof of her malevolence, malfeasance, and just all around evilness. Limbaugh and Hannity were sputtering indignation and venom for the next 48 hours.
Now I don’t know what Shuster meant by his convoluted statement, but it’s pretty safe to assume it wasn’t meant to be complimentary to Hillary the candidate for President, Hillary the wife and mother, Bill the ex-President, Bill the husband of Hillary, or Chelsea the loyal off-spring doing what many others in her place had already done. Regardless of his intentions, his statement was highly, highly offensive, stupid, vapid, and bereft of the milk of human kindness…..to say the least.
I don’t know if NBC was pushed to action by the Clinton mafia or acted on their own. And I certainly can’t know for sure what I would have done had I been in Clintonian shoes, but I know that I would have been sorely, sorely tempted to seek out David Shuster in a very public place, blow a whistle to draw the largest possible crowd, and then proceed to kick his ass. Then I’d call Jack Welch, or the corporate suit that replaced him and tell them that unless they took action on their commentator with the alligator mouth and the hummingbird brain, I would spend my every waking moment as President (if I should so become) in making their corporate life miserable.
PS. If you look hard enough and long enough the light of perfect knowledge will shine. According to slangsite.com, one au currant meaning of pimp is “to plug or promote’ as in I’m just pimping the new CD I just cut. Surely that’s what Shuster meant to say….Chelsea had been sent out by the campaign to promote the candidacy of her mother. Pretty benign stuff, but you gotta say what you mean. The real takeaway here is that uppity white boys from Michigan oughtta stay away from ghetto slang or be prepared to take the heat.
