Suspended NBC correspondent David Shuster is just the latest in a long line of people to regret ever bringing up Chelsea Clinton, who has long been something of a third rail in American politics and media. The press was sufficiently skittish about her under Bill Clinton's presidency that they by and large observed requests from the First Family to leave Chelsea alone during her time as a student at Stanford University. Even though contemporary Chelsea has stepped up her involvement in her Mom's presidential campaign, she apparently must be treated delicately in the political scrum, if the Shuster incident is any guide. After the jump, a surely incomplete list of people who wish they had never mentioned Chelsea Clinton. Learn from it and avoid their fate.

  • John McCain apologized for telling the following joke, which will surely come back to haunt him as the Republican nominee for president: "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno."
  • Movie star Mike Myers sent an apology to the White House after a skit on Saturday Night Live mentioned Chelsea. The skit was an episode of the fictional show Wayne's World in which Wayne, played by Myers, and his sidekick Garth, played by Dana Carvey, said of the Gore daughters, "If they were a president, they'd be Babe-raham Lincoln." Then: "Chelsea... well, she's a babe in development." The tame joke prompted not only an apology from Myers but from Carvey and show executive producer Lorne Michaels.
  • When New York Magazine writer (and Gawker alum) Jesse Oxfeld was a Stanford student, he was fired from the Stanford Daily for violating a ban on writing about fellow student Chelsea. He parlayed the experience into a gig as a Chelsea pundit on TV and radio.
  • Another college journalist at the time, some chump running the UC Berkeley student paper, wussed out and apologized for a satirical column about Chelsea just because it said "Show your spirit on Chelsea's bloodied carcass" and printed her address. God only knows what became of that guy, but it probably involves some dead-end job working nights.

[Slate]