Schuster is being punished for the sexist comment he made — as he should. That folks would try to imply a sliding scale for such comments; in that they feel this comment or that comment isn’t as bad as comments uttered by Matthews or someone else, shows just how fucked up this all is and just how much crap we accept as women. None of it is OK or less hurtful; it’s all bullshit and it needs to stop.

It’s like a teen-age boy hanging out with a bunch of boys who make gay jokes. Eventually he’s going to call someone “queer” and think it is a joke. It’s what all the other cool kids are doing.

It’s not necessarily fair, but I don’t have a problem with Shuster being fired — maybe that will stop others from going too far.

The bigger problem is Matthews and Tucker who need to feel more consequences for being as blatantly idiotic as they are.

There is no way the word was intended to mean anything like “pimp my ride.” In its context, Shuster was trying to criticize the Clintons for their daughter’s participation in the campaign, and he, like a lot of other nerdy-types, went too far trying to establish some sort of dumb-ass, tough-guy street cred.

If he was upset that she made herself unavailable for interviews, the simple, and better, thing would have been to report the truth — she’s made herself unavailable for interviews, why? The stupider route — bash her with the next thing to foul language.

Will he or the other talking heads learn anything from this? doubtful

In another era, no one would have blinked if Bill “Big Dog” Clinton had beaten Schuster to death in the street with a cane for the insult. My old law partner used to argue that proper conduct between prominent people could only be sustained in a society that permitted dueling. The notion being that in a society where the ruling and elite classes have disproportionate power they must hold each others conduct in check by disproportionate responses; people have to know that being a complete and utter shit might be literally fatal, and those who cannot face that risk suffer a social fatality through being Cast Out of the charmed circles.

It’s an interesting argument. I don’t buy it: first because it means that good killers can be as rude as they want; second because there are people so powerful that they can’t, in reality, be challenged; third, what defining what constitutes ungentlemanly behaviour - and proper response - can be every bit as screwed up and unacceptable as the purported wrong. One only has to look at the thuggish, criminal attack of Rep. Brooks on Senator Sumner as a superb example of this problem: an armed attack by young man on a startled, unarmed older man with all of the sophistication of a gang beating in an alley was written up by the Southern papers as the epitome of gentlemanly conduct.

It’s an interesting argument, though. Maybe we should buy Bubba some dueling pistols.

He called Chelsea a whore being sold by her mother. A suspension seems mild really. Just because Matthews should be fired doesn’t make what Schuster did no big deal. In another era, no one would have blinked if Bill “Big Dog” Clinton had beaten Schuster to death in the street with a cane for the insult. There are all kinds of reasons why it is a good thing that is no longer an acceptable response, but the insult itself hasn’t changed.

And for all those arguing that ‘pimp’ has lost it’s old meaning, I have a question - is there some other word we are using now to refer to those men who make their living selling sex with women?

Pimp can only ‘loose’ that meaning when we have some other word that means ‘man who rents out women’s bodies to other men.’

Until we do, no matter how much hippster’s embrace an ironic version of the verb form, the core meaning of ‘pimp’ the noun won’t change, and the verb form will continue to be shaded with that.

Which is, of course, what gives the ironic usage it’s illicit thrill.

I think it is disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

Sorry, but the way he uses the word “inappropriate” makes only one thing clear: that he’s a scummy little weasel who isn’t really apologizing at all.

“Inappropriate”?? He called a young woman a whore and her mother her pimp. That’s not inappropriate at all. It is many things: wrong, disgusting, ungentlemanly, unmanly, loathsome, repellent, near-unforgivable … but “inappropriate”?

In this case, it wasn’t an apology, it was a slimy attempt to get people off his back. We can talk about whether or not his sorry ass should be fired after he really apologizes.

I rather liked Clinton’s statement on Shuster, to the effect that MSNBC needs to take a good long look at the environment it’s been fostering. It’s a great teachable moment about the pervasiveness and casualness of sexism at MSNBC. Matthews was step 1, Shuster was step 2. I don’t want to let it slide in the hope that a worse remark will come along later, for which we can really unload with both barrels. It’s like my thesis advisor said: don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Flip, it’s just suspicious to me that we get a scalp over something that is arguable. Why not get our scalp over a clear-cut example that no reasonable people could disqualify as sexism?

What Imus said was just as arguable (if not much more so) and nobody had any problem scalping him.

You logic here seems be to be a pretty transparent “it didn’t offend me personally” rather than anything more principled. Giving people the benefit of a doubt is something you don’t do consistently, and a number of commenters have called you out on that from time to time.

I’m all for being charitable and assuming the best but it seems a bit disingenuous to do it so selectively.

I can’t see any principle that differentiates what Schuster said from what Imus said, and Imus is an entertainer/comedian.