I had thought that I was too sick to blog tonight. This is my second major cold in a month, which is strange and disappointing since I’ve been fairly healthy over the last few years. I can safely say that I have reached my high “stay home from work” threshold. My “too sick to blog” threshold must be even higher than that.

Anyway, I’m blogging tonight to acknowledge that something I asked for has kind of happened, although it will likely only be temporary and I’m not sure that I had any part in making it happen. On Thursday, January 17th, I wrote a post titled “David Shuster on Ron Paul; To Hell With the Status Quo” about MSNBC reporter David Shuster calling Ron Paul a terrorist. In this post, I called for David Shuster to be fired for these reckless and insensitive comments. Today I half got my wish by David Shuster being suspended from appearing on MSNBC for saying the Hillary Clinton campaign was pimping out Chelsea Clinton.

While I should be happy that I got my wish, sort of, I am somewhat irked. How does saying that someone was being “pimped out” compare to calling someone advocating peace a terrorist? I’ve used the phrase “pimped out” in casual conversation and heard it used before by others. I’m concerned that anyone would take this phrase literally. Not actually having seen the clip of this misstep on Shuster’s part, I can’t say if it was deliberate or not. I’ve seen enough of his reports though to know that he’s a loose cannon as far as being on-air goes. He’ll blurt out whatever is on his mind in the crudest fashion possible. If MSNBC fired him, Fox News would hire him immediately and give him a prime time show.

But I think the real takeaway from this experience is that this action could have only been accomplished by someone with some clout and star power — Hillary Clinton. Clinton said this comment would endanger her chances of appearing on MSNBC in the future. This, in effect, could severely impact MSNBC’s bottom line. This is not a good thing in my opinion, since not all of us are flying on jets, attracting thousands of people to hear our retarded rants, and being called one of the great orators of our time. No, some of us actually have to work for a living. And it also proves most poignantly that the media is being run by these persons of celebrity, or the handlers of these political celebrities. The media is definitely not being run by us, so it is easy to see why it isn’t serving the people and more people are skipping the MSM for news online from independent (and hopefully credible) sources.