Geez, and I thought they were too hard on Bill when in office. Let go already. She is ridiculous. My daughter would tell me to back off, she can take care of herself, which she can. I would never act like this, is this what we will be subjected to when in office, whining over Bill and Chelsea's treatment, just shoot me.

Of course, that doesn't really make sense. Even though she's quite right that there can be said to be a "pattern" of inappropriate comments and hostility to her at MSNBC, I don't believe anyone, including HRC, has suggested that he, Shuster, has made offensive comments before the Chelsea remark. Most have come, instead, from Chris Matthews.

So, why do you fire Shuster because of the "pattern?"

Because Matthews is untouchable?

I think someone on here said that the real beef was with Matthews, but since he's untouchable, Shuster proved an adequate scape goat. That seems about right. I'm not a big Hillary fan, but I think she's got a right to be pissed at Matthews and boy would it be nice to see him get fired.

The bad thing in all this is that it's Shuster. He is unusually even-handed in his reporting. If it was Matthews, I'd be glad to see him go. Most of the talking heads think they can say anything. Sometimes there should be a moment of reflection, such as this.

But, what if Clinton hadn't raised a stink?

The problem with Clinton is "damned if she do, damned if she don't".

Whatever the case may be the comments were not newsworthy but were worth some entertainment points! And hey at least this way Clinton stays in the news by complaining about coverage while the real news is how the states voted in the caucuses! I mean seriously if this is an issue why is not behind closed doors/ in private, is there something about airing dirty laundry in public which is good for the news?

On another note I find it completely hypocritical for her to be complaining about patterns of abuse when the FOX network has consistently had patterns of abuse towards Gays, Liberals, Democrats, progressives, etc. Where is the outrage there?

This is so silly. The clintons playing the victim card again. I don't want victims as the president, I want leaders.

On another note and again off topic. There was an interview with scalia on bbc world this morning that I heard on NPR, while sipping my chardonay, and it was truly frightening. I am trying to find a link. The guy is unhinged. This interview should be cut and pasted into ads this november and dems will win 70 percent of the vote regardless of the nominee. Dems need to retake the white house, get 60 seats in the senate and freaking impeach this guy. He is truly dangerous. I'm sick of him wiping his a** with the constitution, when he can find a copy. Maybe tpm could do a post on the muckraker site on this. Unbelievable.

Pimping out something to someone? I pimp out a car ride to a friend of mine all the time.

The dictionary and the language opens up many definitions to the same words or phrases and I'm sure Shuster didn't mean anything sexual.

I called my mom a hag once when I was about ten and an old guy about burnt me at the stake. Hag = old/older person. Their probable definition: 1. an ugly old woman, esp. a vicious or malicious one.
2. a witch or sorceress.
But for all they know, I could have meant as a metaphor: 1. bog; quagmire.
2. a firm spot or island of firm ground in a bog or marsh.

Three things:
1. Shuster's comment was stupid; C is a grown woman and not being used by anybody.
2. Shuster is actually one of the good ones; on balance, he's been an actual journalist; that is, someone who seeks the truth instead of someone who, like John King, passes along Republican talking points (Democrats say down is down, Republicans say up is down).
3. Going after Shuster and not Matthews, and going after MSNBC and not Fox, makes no sense and so you have to ask deeper questions about the strategy here.

She is vindictive and petty. That's about all she is. What a leader.

She wants MSNBC to clean up their act: how they do it is up to them -- but a slap on the wrist and half-hearted apologies won't do it.

That doesn't settle anything, does it? Sounds like what she really wants is for someone else to be fired (hint: better watch your back, Chris Matthews). Or maybe the whole network could just blow her. I think that's what she's really saying. Poor Hillary. She's just trying to claim her crown and they're being so mean to her.

Hillary Clinton's concession speech: "I HATE ALL OF YOU AND I HOPE YOU DIE!!!!" (Runs off the stage screaming.)

I, for one, am delighted to see Hillary beating the shit out of MSNBC. Al Gore and John Kerry allowed themselves to be used as piñatas by the media and never fought back. There was a reason that the media gave Bush a free pass and ganged up on Gore: they were afraid of the pushback from the Bush organization. Most of the media are ignorant, cowardly jackals; they attack the helpless and flee from the strong.

Here's a link to that Scalia interview mentioned a while back.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/law_in_action/7238665.stm

As for Shustergate, she is starting to look Nero fiddling while Rome burns.

Thanks for the link cswartout. The guy is a loon and he is sitting on the Supreme Court. WTF.

Just one point on the reasoning for going after MSNBC rather than FOX.

Only an idiot would compare the two networks. Only republicans watch FOX, democrats know that they slant everything in defense of republican views. It makes perfect sense to go after MSNBC because they speak to the base of the voters in the democratic primary.

Just what we need: Passive aggressive leadership.

I think we are all losing track of the bigger picture here. A lot of the media coverage of the election has been pompous, self-serving bullshit. Hillary is a big, fat target for them and they know it. The MSNBC crowd has been pounding Hillary for Nielson points for the last 6 months. Cable news has lowered the level of journalistic standards to National Enquirer standards. If everyone is cool with that, then fine... just be ready when they turn on your candidate next. If/when Hillary drops out, then the media jackals will need to find a new target. Will it be the upstart Obama or their old friend and "maverick", St. John McCain?

Personally, I feel as a democrat who suffered through the media's lame response (non-response) to the swiftboaters, that we are better off demanding a higher standard from the so-called journalists and not just accepting their racing to get the "news" on the air. Lazy reporting and potty mouth commentary serves the Republican candidate, not the Democrat.

Finally, demanding a higher standard from Fox News is an exercise in futility, so why bother? It's better to starve that beast by ignoring them (in this regard, I think Hillary is wrong to accept their invitation to debate.)

Still have not seen where Hillary says Schuster must be fired.

TPMs bogus headline: "Hillary: Schuster Must Be Fired" was just plain bad journalism.

And now you've succeeded in turning this story into hate-fodder for the Obamacans.

Congratulations!

TPM is better than this. I HOPE you examine this dark hour in the history of TPM and CHANGE things for the better in the future.

Josh - seriously? You think this "proves" that she wants Shuster fired.

I have no idea what you're smoking (or reading), but you're not in touch with reality. She has a valid point and she's articulating it. MSNBC has been egregiously unfair, and it's up to them what they want to do about it. There is a pattern; she's called them on it, and the ball is in their court.

That's all she's saying, Josh. She's not calling for anyone's head. If you read anything else into it, that's your bias showing.

I think she addressed it perfectly.

Shuster's comments are borderline fire-worthy. Not HER call to make. There IS a pattern to MSNBC's editorializing what should be straight political reporting.

I commend her on this statement.

And for those who say 'ugh again with this Hillary' or 'vindictive, etc'... She was asked this in an interview. If she didn't respond everyone here would be complaining that she ducked the question.

Let's have just a little more intellectual honesty on this board please. This isn't Red State or some bogus right wing crap.

I have to admit that even though I think Clinton is going seriously overboard on this one, Bill from PA makes a great point. People are really getting tired of the flagrant amateurism of the mainstream media and their sliming of public figures. Clinton is striking back here while she has an opportunity to "change the pattern" of MSNBC as she claims. If she can get Fox News on the ropes too, then all the better. We don't need a sacrificial lamb with Shuster, but we do need to start holding these people a little more accountable seeing as they are delivering so much information to the general population. While I'm voting Obama for his agenda and his message, I certainly would not get my feathers ruffled if Clinton won in a fair contest and went out to kick some repug behind (vindictive or otherwise).

I'm glad she's laying down the law as to what is or isn't out of bounds. The media has been after the Clintons, no holds barred, for years. She is giving notice that should she be in the White House come January that she will not put up with such crap. I'm glad she is.

As for Schuster, he either is one of the stupidest guys around or he allowed himself to be used big time. Quite obviously MSNBC has given free reign to their anchors to indulge their anti-Clinton bias. Perhaps the management felt once they had semi-shut up Chris Matthews they could allow or compel others to take up his mantle. Shuster's a grown up. He should have known better.

If a sitting United States Senator is pushing for a journalist to be fired for something the journalist said, that Senator should not only NOT be elected president, but should be censured by the Senate for violating their oath of office in which they claim to support and defend the United States Constitution.

Obviously the continued pushing of this story by the Clinton campaign says a lot about the judgment of Hillary Clinton and the type of President she would be. After 7 years of this type of tactics with the Bush administration, you think the American people would be ready for something else. Sheesh.

To Recap what I am NOT saying:
1) David Shuster's comments were okay. NOT saying that.
2) Misogynism doesn't exist. NOT Saying that.

What I am saying:
1) Elected officials shouldn't demand firings of reporters for opinion/analysis statements. We have libel laws. They work, and shockingly those who put themselves in the public sphere don't get as much protection as those who don't put themselves out there.
2)Clinton is thin skinned and if this is an attempt to stay relevant during her string of losses right now it looks terrible, and is a terrible political strategy.
3) the terribleness of the strategy raises legitimate judgment questions about Clinton.
4) Clinton is acting like the Bush administration on this point and therefore reveals that she is not true change in washington.

cdalygo, Thank-you. Bob Miller, too. The rest of you seem to have a problem with reading comprehension.

Look, I voted for Obama on Super Tuesday, but every time I read one of these benighted comment threads in which venom for the Clintons seems to overcome the ability to think straight, I begin to wonder if I made the right choice.

Let me first point out that Hillary was answering a question - not releasing a statement from her campaign. If anyone was propagating the issue of David Shuster it was John Harris, though I don't fault him for asking. Let me also point out that Hillary's note, which formed the basis for previous comment threads, was also a response - to a communication from MSNBC.

In both, what she was making clear is that suspending Shuster was beside the point; what concerned her and her campaign was a pattern of demeaning comments, and she might have added, in the service of wildly biased and inaccurate reporting. And I include David Shuster in this, although I have personal interest in having him fired, like Hillary.

This is not about protecting Chelsea; Mrs. Clinton's note took the issue beyond that, although the notion that describing a grown daughter's desire to work in her mother's campaign for a Presidential candidacy as being "pimped out" by her mother is essentially not any kind of insult to both mother and daughter, even though no one thinks that it was meant literally, strikes me as absurd on its face. It doesn't matter that "pimped out" is used metaphorically; the metaphor was insulting enough.

Can anyone here even begin to imagine anyone at MSNBC using that language to describe Michelle Obama's role in her husband's campaign? Of course you can't. And the reason is this; aside from the racial implications of such a remark, the only political figures about which you can say anything, literally anything, and no matter how demeaning, how cruel, and most of all how untrue as to factuality,and know that you will never be called to any kind of real account, are Bill and Hillary Clinton. And for those of you who may express concern for David Shuster's career, contretemps as only upped his status in the boy's club which masquerades as our free press.

I find it hard to believe that many of the comments I've read in this thread or others here at TPM are being written by any actual Democrats, so tinged are they with right-wing tropes. To the extant that any of you really intend to vote for Obama in November, believe me when I tell you that you are undercutting him by your attitudes to the Clintons.

To win in November, the Democratic Party is going to need to be united. I want Obama to be the candidate, but a comment like Mrs. Obama, that she wasn't sure if she could vote for Hillary were she to be the candidate, almost changed my vote within hours of going to the polls. Comment threads like these, so filled with wrong facts, and with no understanding of what the politics of the nineties was all about, fill me with despair, not hope. Get it through your heads, the Clintons are not the enemy. I don't like to refer to any American presidential candidate as "the enemy," but John McCain will be carrying on the policies of George W. Bush, and those policies are the enemies of what most of us think this country is supposed to stand for.