In fairness, this isn’t anything you wouldn’t hear from Shep on a day when he’s feeling extra pissy. Count on Shuster to miss the point, though: The reason this story is hot isn’t because the public hangs on the every word of “superficial” pageant contestants, it’s because the left’s campaign to humiliate Prejean for an exceedingly gentle statement of opposition to gay marriage is a flashpoint in the conflict between political correctness and Christian belief. What makes her an almost uniquely sympathetic figure in the public debate is that she’s not a polished pol or pundit advancing an agenda. She was asked a simple question about her opinion, gave a simple answer, and has been vilified in the nastiest ways for it ever since — including by people appearing in this clip. Which is to say, it’s because she’s nothing more than a pageant contestant that makes it easy to root for her and makes the story compelling. Even if, like me, you disagree with her on the issue.

Watch ’til the very end or else you’ll miss intellectual giant David Shuster suggesting that people who participate in pageants have nothing useful to say to anyone, ever. There’s a whiff of ostentatious feminism about that — i.e. no one who’d participate in something so superficial and retrograde deserves to be taken seriously — but insofar as it conclusively presumes something about the intelligence of an individual woman based on one aspect of her life, it’s anything but. Click the image to watch.