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A Semi-defense Of David Shuster, Cont'd

Again, not really. But I was gobsmacked by this bit from a Slate article by Guy Branum about Chelsea and the press:

Back in 1997, as a surly student journalist at U.C. Berkeley, I made a couple of comments about the use of Chelsea as a prop for controversy-free photo ops when her parents dropped her off for her first semester of college at Stanford. Scraping for something to say about the upcoming football game between Cal and Stanford, I criticized my school's rival for pouring resources into the circus surrounding Chelsea's arrival, suggesting that they were more concerned with maintaining a pristine, photogenic student body than educating as large and diverse a population as possible. I then encouraged Berkeley students to share our less refined ways by trashing the campus, including Ms. Clinton. Sure, my line "show your spirit on Chelsea's bloodied carcass" was over the top and poorly chosen. And then the AP wire snipped my column's line, "Chelsea Clinton represents the Stanford ethos of establishment worship which must be subverted and destroyed," into "Chelsea Clinton … must be destroyed." (The column is no longer available online.)

The comments made their way to Mrs. Clinton, who asked the Secret Service to search my apartment and quiet me down, according to Chris Von Holt, one of the nice agents who visited. The Clintons later denied any involvement, but I did manage to get the agent's claim otherwise on a tape recorder I had with me. The message to 21-year-old me and the rest of the press was clear: Stay off Chelsea. [Emphasis added.]

As several people argued in comments on my last post on this topic, Hillary's just being an appropriately overprotective mother. But how many Scorpio Moms have the Secret Service at their disposal?

--Jason Zengerle