Equal time for the Democrats

Since I babbled a bit about John McCain last time, it seems only fair to give a bit of attention to the Democratic candidates. As if either of them cares what some geek on an obscure web site thinks...

The big news today in the political punditry space is the Hillary Clinton-David Schuster bruhaha. For those who haven't been paying attention, David Schuster mused on MSNBC whether or not the Clinton campaign has "pimped out" Hillary's daughter Chelsea. This apparently enraged Hillary Clinton so much that she's now demanding his resignation.

On the face of it, this seems like a rather excessive reaction from Hillary Clinton. Granted, she is a mom, and I'll give her some latitude for wanting to be protective of her daughter, but demanding his firing seems excessive, especially considering Schuster has already apologized for the remark. Overreact much?

But there's some additional information that's been missing from most press coverage of this toss-up: prior to working at MSNBC, David Schuster spent six years as the lead reporter for Fox News' coverage of the right-wing Bill Clinton attacks -- the Whitewater investigations, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Kenneth Starr Report, and Clinton's impeachment trial. On top of that, he also spent several months covering John McCain's 2000 presidential bid.

That seems to change things a bit. From Hillary's point-of-view, Schuster's "pimping out" comment wasn't just a flip remark carelessly tossed out on the air, but yet another sling from a longstanding soldier in the Republican noise machine, one of the legions that tried to take down her husband's presidency. Heck, for all she knows, he could be surreptitiously working for her political opponent, trying to weaken her election under the guise of "objective" commentary.

I'm not sure if David Schuster deserves to be fired over this, but Hillary Clinton's response may not be as unwarranted as it first appears.

Y'know, if this election thing doesn't work out for Barack Obama, I think he could have a great future in comedy.

On the radio this morning, I heard the following clip (or something close to it, anyway):

I believe we can get Republicans to vote for me. I believe this because I've seen them at the rallies, shook their hands. And they would pull me aside, and whisper to me:

(WHISPERING) Barack, I'm a Republican, but I support you!

And I would say...

Thank you.

(PAUSE)

Why are we whispering?

That, mes amis, is comedic timing worthy of Buddy Hackett.

(Yeah, he's used that joke a lot in his campaign, but it doesn't matter. Good comedy is timeless.)