Flutterby™! : Lose-lose

Lyn's del.icio.us/uncorked feed had TPM: Hillary Campaign Goes To War With MSNBC Over Chelsea "Pimp" Comment and Taylor Marsh: MSNBC's David Shuster: Chelsea 'Pimped Out' by Hillary:

In what world do we allow political pundits to attack a young woman proudly campaigning for her mother, a woman who is running for president, then let them get away with calling her mother a pimp and the daughter a hooker?

When I clicked through the first article I thought "oh, look, there's a political campaign going on", but when I read that second quote, I got pissed off. It's television and campaigning, so I certainly believe that an MSNBC employee could use inappropriate metaphors, and I think it's reasonable to call "mainstream journalism" on such idiocies.

However, that quote pissed me off for another reason: What are we saying when we allow "hooker" to be an insult? Or even "pimp"? A "hooker" is, presumably, a woman who exchanges sexual services for pay, as the line goes, "prostitution is a combination of sex and free enterprise, which of those are you opposed to?". And a pimp is someone who sells those services and provides some protection to the exchange.

Unlike, say, being a senator or a television pundit, neither of those require you to debase your morals and common decency for cash. Neither of those necessarily require lying as a function of the job. Sure, there are bad pimps, but are there any good television pundits? Precious few good senators, that's for sure.

As the old song goes, "...and the pig got up and slowly walked away". I'd really hope to see an outpouring from various sex workers outraged that their professions would be compared to a senator and a hedge fund manager.

So, yeah, David Shuster, shame on you for pandering to an audience that doesn't know any better, but what the hell, they're Republicans, we expect a certain level of knee-jerk ideology and lack of critical thinking, but shame on you too, Taylor Marsh, for your automatic misogyny.