Why is MSNBC's David Shuster Trashing Chelsea?

ALBANY, NY (02/08/2008)(readMedia)-- The following exchange occurred on MSNBC cable television on 2/7/08:

DAVID SHUSTER: Bill, there's just something a little bit unseemly to me that Chelsea's out there calling up celebrities, saying support my mom, and she's apparently also calling these super delegates.

BILL PRESS: Hey, she's working for her mom. What's unseemly about that? During the last campaign, the Bush twins were out working for their dad. I think it's great, I think she's grown up in a political family, she's got politics in her blood, she loves her mom, she thinks she'd make a great president...

DAVID SHUSTER: But doesn't it seem like Chelsea's sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?

What on earth is going on? The press, collectively, is already granting Barack Obama twice the coverage it gives Hillary Clinton by minimizing Clinton's victories and ballooning Obama's. But this particular snippet is far beyond the pale.

Hillary is PIMPING her daughter? Why would a daughter's support in this historic, glass-ceiling-shattering presidential race, be characterized as "PIMPING?"

This awful name-calling is nothing short of abusive. When male abusers feel they are failing to reach their spouses, they often go after their children. Every day across the country battered women and their children suffer at the hands of abusers.

Further, employers often use motherhood against women. Who is asked "how will you juggle family and work?" Thus children are used, across the board, as political footballs. The idea is that if a mother can be convinced her actions will hurt her child, perhaps she'll be persuaded to back down. Now the media itself is adopting this batterers' technique.

Does Schuster understand that he is trashing the daughter of someone who may well be our next Commander and Chief? One can only guess what would have happened had he made this same statement about Obama's daughter. Why surely we would be witness to another Imus moment.

This Schuster remark speaks volumes about the larger picture for mothers and their children. It's not just about hate speech; it's about power and control.

We of NOW-NYS, and our over forty thousand supporters, salute mothers everywhere, especially Hillary Clinton. And we thank Chelsea Clinton for her support and stand behind her one hundred percent, every step of this historic way.

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