Though it sends a good message for MSNBC to suspend David Shuster for saying that Hillary Clinton was "pimping out" her daughter, I'm always a little frustrated to see gaffes punished while systemic biases go unnoticed. The casual lens of cynicism that the media affixes before analyzing Hillary Clinton's every moment and movement is much more offensive than Shuster's indelicate language. The Romney Brothers toured the country for their father, John McCain's daughter has an official campaign blog. Those are signs, of course, of a tight-knit family. Change the last name to Clinton, however, and it's no longer a daughter loyally campaigning for her mother, but a manipulative, controlling politician cynically deploying a child to further her own political ambitions. That underlying framework is where the media's most pernicious sexism and misogyny take residence -- Shuster's point was a perfectly mundane expression of that sentiment, save for his use of the word "pimp." His language, as we're seeing, will be punished. But so far as I can tell, there'll be no reevaluation of the worldview that led to the comment.
