(most of us would have called it an on-screen caption before this mini-tempest) was unprofessional.  Was it racist or was it meant to be racist?  More likely it was someone attempting to be funny or someone who got caught up in all the "a"s and "m"s - writers sometimes can't see their own stupidity for the love of their own supposed cuteness.  Quite a few liberal noses became disjointed but I have to ask, why is this ignorant caption by FOX more repugnant than the "pimped out" comment made by an MSNBC reporter about the campaigning Chelsea Clinton did for her mama?  Of course, I may not be the best person to understand the brouhaha since I myself am a baby mama -

although when I chose to have my son in 1981 the term was unwed mother and the choice was - in middle class Tennessee - still stigmatizing enough that my mother bought me a ring to wear on my wedding finger when I returned to my parents' home to live.  I left the ring in the ring box that set on the cherry wood dresser in my bedroom but out of respect for my mother I skittered around questions about my son's father or my marital status.  According to my mother, my sainted father was told by his evangelist preacher half-brother that I should not be allowed in the house.  He made no reply to his half-brother nor ever mentioned the comments to me but his actions - as always - spoke for him.

Now I'm not very hip - I may have mentioned before that my son says I bring down the hipness quotient of a room just by entering it - but I think "baby mama" is meant to be pejorative - to refer to women who are serial unwed mothers and don't have much money or depend on welfare and whose "baby daddies" are more into fathering children than being fathers to children.  However, since the movie Baby Mama the term may have come to encompass all women who have children outside the bounds of marriage.  I have never understood why having a child without the benefit of marriage is that much different from getting married in a maternity gown or getting married several times and having children from each marriage.  It also seems a little short sighted to me to think that young women (many of them girls, not even women) will see the difference between themselves and the rich, privileged stars for whom we say it is perfectly okay to have children without the benefit of marriage.  Nor am I going to judge a woman who goes on welfare to take care of her children (as differentiated from women who have children in order to get additional welfare).  I was lucky enough to be white and educated and to have a supportive family (although for my mother that support was definitely begrudging and after the fact).  In addition, I don't know how you can discourage a woman from having an abortion and yet condemn her decision to have a child.  (A few provisos here:  I am pro-choice but  encourage abstinence as the form of birth control for young women - and men - while they are in school and/or not able to support a child.  And despite the fact that I was blessed with the best son in the world and would not for any reason change having had him, I do believe that a child is best brought up in a home with two parents (same sex, different sexes, the operative word is two) - but all of these are topics for several different posts, today my subject is why the uproar over the FOX chyron and the widespread support for the comments made by David Shuster?

First, the caption ocurred on FOX - now I certainly don't buy the "fair and balanced" tagline but more and more FOX is at least as "f&b" as MSNBC, particulary when it comes to the increasingly unbalanced rants of the network's star sportscaster turned political jack...of all trades.

Second, a lot of newscasters don't like the Clintons and felt that Senator Clinton pressured MSNBC to reprimand Mr. Shuster - maybe she did, in her position I would have, too. 

Third, sexism and ageism are easier to get away with than racism - which is not to say that racism should ever be allowed but only that all "isms" should be equally egregious and subject to being reviled.

Fourth, this is yet another example of the breakdown of the wall between entertainment and true journalism.  The 24 hour a day battle for eyeballs and the need to skew to a younger demographic have led to a more casual approach to journalism of all types.  "Baby mama" and "pimped out" are words that we hear every day and most journalists and so-called journalists see no need to look for other ways to express themselves - in fact many times using words that might challenge your audience is looked down upon.

As for the term itself - well, for a campaign that encourages its with-it rep, suddenly being aghast at someone's obtuse, clumsy, misguided attempt at using street vernacular is a little disingenous.  Mrs. Obama herself referred to Senator Obama as her "babies' daddy" and after wrapping up the nomination they indulged in a loving bump of fists (and no that is not subversive, even I - in the losing camp of that wrap up - found it kind of endearing).  Senator and Mrs. Obama are obviously loving parents who are doing a good job of raising their two daughters - if I were either of them I would be proud to called the parents of those babies.