As you know if you’ve seen the hilarious video, Keith Olbermann has used the same “pimping” analogy that got David Shuster in so much trouble. The only difference is that Olbermann used it to describe a four-star general. Delivering a “Special Comment” on the Sept. 20th, 2007 broadcast of “Countdown,” Olbermann said:
“And in pimping General David Petraeus, Sir, in violation of everything this country has been assiduously and vigilantly against for 220 years, you [meaning George W. Bush] have tried to blur the gleaming radioactive demarcation between the military and the political, and to portray your party as the one associated with the military, and your opponents as the ones somehow antithetical to it.”
I e-mailed NBC News senior vice president of communications Allison Gollust and asked the following four questions:
Did NBC News deem Olbermann’s comments inappropriate at the time? Was any action taken to reprimand Olbermann? Does NBC News see a substantial difference between Olbermann’s comments and Shuster’s? If so, what is the difference?
Gollust’s response to all three, when I finally got her on the phone, was “No comment.” I was kind of upset, because I was really hoping she would try to explain the difference in some inadvertently comic way. But Gollust is a professional, and “No comment” is really the only dignified answer here.*
* For the record, the correct answers are 1) Obviously not. 2) Reprimand the Franchise? LOL. 3) Yes, and 4) the difference is that NBC News needs Hillary to participate in an upcoming MSNBC debate so it can crack the top ten on TVNewser’s debate ranker.