David Letterman is still dealing with the controversy over those Willow Palin jokes — KiddieGate? — with Gov. Palin appearing on the Today Show this morning to talk about it:
“I would like to see him apologize to young women across the country” for contributing to a culture “that says it’s OK to talk about statutory rape,” Palin told Matt Lauer on TODAY. “It’s not cool; it’s not funny.”
Neither was Cabin Boy, but Letterman still hasn’t apologized for that. So good luck.
Helpful Deceiver commenter Minnow points out another interesting angle on the news coverage of this. About 18 months ago, back when everybody was only tired of the presidential campaign and not yet completely fed up with it, MSNBC’s David Shuster referred to Chelsea Clinton as being “pimped out” by her mom’s campaign. Shuster was publicly scolded by his boss and Keith Olbermann (if that’s not being redundant):
Shuster apologized, was suspended, and ultimately got to keep his job. Which, considering that he works at MSNBC, might be considered punishment enough.
Do you think anything like that will happen to Letterman? After all, Chelsea is in her late 20s, Shuster used a fairly common term that has its origins in the sex trade but now has a wider meaning, and he said he was sorry. Whereas Letterman talked about an underage girl going to a Yankees game and getting knocked up, and a lot of people don’t seem to be buying his apology, or “apology.”
Oh yeah, and don’t forget Imus. He got into a bit of hot water for insulting women too, didn’t he? And I don’t recall any children being involved.
There might be some other variable at play in all this, but I can’t quite place it…
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You might want to correct the spelling error in the first quoted section.
Feel free to delete this comment.
It’s ironic that it would be that particular transposition of letters, considered what S.P. has been called on t-shirts.
Feel free to delete this comment.
A typo is a typo. We all make em.
It seems to me that the liberal media have no scruples targeting the conservative side of America with the worst slander yet had horrendous issues when it’s their sacred cows who are the blunt of the jokes. Saw it before, will see it again.
Whoops. I couldn’t seem to cut and paste that MSNBC quote, so I typed it in. Should’ve checked more closely before I hit send. Thanks for the head’s up, Dave!
As I said before, targeting kids on either side is just plain wrong. The difference between Chelsea and the Palin daughters is Chelsea is an adult who CHOSE to go and help her mom campaign and was active. The Palin girls did not choose to go out and campaign on behalf of their mother.
I don’t watch any TV so I’m not sure if people did lampoon Letterman for what he said… if they haven’t yet they better step to it!
With the entertainment industry so full of misogynistic perverts and pedophiles, who is there to criticize him? Not even NOW has the balls to really come out and criticize him. Bill Clinton made it OK to harass women in the work place for a quick BJ, now Dave is making it OK to sexually harass young girls. Great work guys.
As usual, one standard for the left, another for conservatives. Conservatives and their families are sub-human and deserve filthy treatment at every turn. The Left must be treated like precious items made of the most fragile glass.
I mean, the left are acting like the Palins have no right to defend their daughter and that they are just “playing politics” by doing so. But then the left always does seem to have a problem with self-defense when practiced by non-leftists.
I’m glad I have a son. I couldn’t handle having a daughter who had to deal with this crap in the media. And, for all those liberals out there who think Letterman did nothing wrong, just remember how mad you got when the right picked on Chelsea when she was a child. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like this now. Everybody grow up and leave the kids alone. They have enough to deal with.
The producers of this show, and for the matter the network censors, should be fired. This was a scripted comment, and was therefore, reviewed prior to taping.
Anything less is unacceptable. (Anything more than what has been currently done would be typical of the liberally biased media.)
Essentially, he called both mother and daughter sluts this week. What an old fart jerk.
Does anyone else think that he and his people planned this kind of outragious attack because he was afraid that TV viewers would be checking out Conan’s new show all this week? It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they purposely picked the most obvious person the that Lefties love to hate, and then picked the most horrible comment they could imagine, about her children of course. Ergo, everyone is talking about Dave and watching him to see what will happen next instead of watching Conan’s debut in LA.
Skunky and lame (and clearly desparate!), but it worked dammitt.
I assume that Obamas supporters are doing this to divert peoples attention from the fact Obama’s mother was 17 and unmarried when she had sex with a married man.
Being the result of statutory rape must be quite upsetting. Especially when your supporters try and proclaim you God.
Bruce,
Actually, the age of consent in Hawaii is 16. It even allows for 14 and 15 years old so long as the partner is less than 5 years older. Also, his parents were allegedly married before his birth though not his conception. Apparently legitimacy works that if the child is conceived before the parents are married, he’s still legitimate if the marriage occurs before birth, but conversely is also still legitimate if conceived before a divorce, but born afterward. However, since Barack Obama senior was already married at the time, the whole situation should still point to illegitimacy, but since nobody noticed that the marriage should have always been considered null until after a divorce had already happened how that all might legally affect his bastard status or lack thereof.
You know what? I don’t care whether O’s folks were married, ever, or not. He’s a bastard, no matter what.
Here’s my point.
Whether you’re exploited or not is not always the free choice of the child, and even if it were, the child is not of legal standing to sign contracts, etc, so the child should always be protected.
Interesting that a MSM that thought John Edwards was not a public figure in Aug 2008 thinks Willow Palin is a public figure in June 2009.
For 10 years, the old bitter late night TV host had been taking his brief vacations at this country inn. The last time he’d finally managed an affair with the innkeeper’s 18 yr old daughter. A year later looking forward to an exciting few days, he dragged his suitcase up the stairs of the inn, and then stopped short. There sat his victim with an infant on her lap!
“Helen, why didn’t you write when you learnt you were pregnant?” he cried. “I would have rushed up here, we could have gotten married, and the baby would have my name!”
“Well,” she said, “when my folks found out about my condition, we sat up all night talkin’ and talkin’ and decided it would be better to have a bastard in the family than a old bitter late night TV host.”
“I assume that Obamas supporters are doing this to divert peoples attention from the fact Obama’s mother was 17 and unmarried when she had sex with a married man. ”
Erm, no. Obama’s never really minded the attention about that, he’s never tried to really hide it. He certainly wouldn’t use the Palin girls as distractions, either. The negativity around the Palin kids aggravated him as well. He wanted all kids off limits, not just his.
When did this happen?
Awwww, darnitall Simon!
Now you’ve got me defending the devil…
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/01/obama.palin/index.html#cnnSTCText
Okay, I guess he did say that.
Once.
True, one time. Where is he or his wife now. Matter of fact, where is Hillary condeming this? He called Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska a slut and her daughter one too. Willow was with her at the game, not Bristol. He knew that and his apology of the fact that he meant Bristol was total BS. Imus was fired for calling adult college students a nasty word. Where is the outrage about a 14yo a 18yo and their Mom, a Governor?
Just like when the Army guys were shot and killed outside of the recruiting station, Obama will take his time with this one. Beige, I agree. He is one big nasty Bastard. And who said he was conceived in Hawaii?
Regarding Dave’s comment, what do expect from a 13-year-old ?
Les, that’s one fugly, overpaid 13-year-old. And does his mom know he’s out fathering children and not wearing his headgear?
I wonder what rules Letterman has for his babay mama? She probably isn’t allowed to go out without his permission and then only incognito. For someone in a glass mansion he is the last person to be tossing stones around.
Now that I think about it, I’m upgrading Dave L to a 16-yr-old, maybe 17, because he can be wittingly funny and original. However, this time he was originally rude and obnoxious.
I’ll leave the 13-yr-old moniker for Perez Hilton (and even that may be an insult to the smarter 13-yr-olds).
I know, throw rotten tomatoes at me for watching this stupid show even for 1 second, but today Joy Behar on the View still keeps harping that Palin should stop dragging her kids out into the public if she wants them to not be talked about. Sooooo, Palin (read:Non-Dem politician) doesn’t even have the right to take any of her kids to a Yankee game for some mommy-daughter funtime? Geezlooweez.
I for one am sick of seeing the new First Family on 50% percent of the magazines on the rack, no matter what the magazine’s genre is, so can they cease and desist dragging them out into the public as well? Thank you very much. :-p
Jannah – Here Here! And quite showing MO as a trendy fashion starter. Just because Sarah Palin decided to run for office does not mean that her family is fair game. I guess they are fair game only if you are a Republican.
I will keep my bible, my guns and my Patriotism. You can keep the change.
Pfffft. My gun IS my bible.
** Chugs bottle of Tequila **
My Bible is my gun, like that awesome gadget Nash had in From Russia With Love. Only, you know, with extra righteous holiness added.
@Jannah: So right. And I know I’ve brought THIS up before, but the phrase “lipsticked manatee” keeps popping into my mind whenever Joy Behar is mentioned, and that’s unfortunate, because manatees are actually quite sweet. And much better-looking.
Palin is an idiot and is pushing her agenda too far. I am not a Letterman fan but I know that he was not talking about her 14 year old daughter! No one even knew her name was Willow until her mom started to pimp her out for her “hurt” feelings. No one made Palin parade her unwed, pregnant daughter with her “shotgun” marriage boyfriend on stage during the campaign. Palin brought her into this & has kept Bristol in the public eye spouting her Republican agenda. The problem is, we know that Bristol doesn’t even agree with what her parents are forcing her to say. She would truly be doing the world a service if she continued her campaign of “abstinence doesn’t work” and worked on a real agenda, like PREVENTING pregnancy rather that pretending that sex never happens unless you are a “bad” person.
“I for one am sick of seeing the new First Family on 50% percent of the magazines on the rack, no matter what the magazine’s genre is, so can they cease and desist dragging them out into the public as well?” They are not dragging these kids out on stage & making them say things they don’t believe. Pictures of the parents going somewhere with their children are not the same as dragging them along on the campaign trail as great “examples” of our youth.
So, BB, when Sarah Palin took her daughter to a Yankees game, she was “dragging her along on the campaign trail” and thus fair game for ridicule about statutory rape? Tell me how that works, I beg you.
BB,
As many have mentioned on here before, between Letterman, the censors, the producers and so forth, at least somebody should have noticed that the daughter attending the game was Willow. And as for nobody knowing her name was Willow until talking about her “hurt feelings,” just because you’re apparently so politically ignorant as to not have known who she what her name was already doesn’t mean that more educated sorts don’t.
“No one made Palin parade her unwed, pregnant daughter with her “shotgun” marriage boyfriend on stage during the campaign”
Since when was she paraded? It’s entirely possible that she did so on her own. After all, somebody somewhere was going to find out that Bristol was pregnant. If she was left out of all events, especially while the other candidates where big on showing their families, somebody would have thought something was wrong and that Sarah was trying to hide her daughter out of embarrassment. It doesn’t take a genius to see that. As such, I’m sure Bristol saw it too and, unless she just didn’t care whether her own mother looked good during the election, it could very well have been her own will to attend events with her mother. From there, it’s the media who can do whatever they want. Very rarely if ever did Sarah talk about her children unless prompted. She wasn’t the one who made a huge deal about the children, the media was. And especially after comments by Obama to leave family out of everything, she should have felt even more secure going to regular events with her family, but it didn’t work that way, apparently. As for the “shotgun” marriage, I suppose you have some sort of proof that it was forced as the term shotgun marriage implies or is it at all conceivable that they decided to get married on their own and then just called it off before the wedding date. Because I suppose that never happens outside of political figure families, so why should it within them?
“The problem is, we know that Bristol doesn’t even agree with what her parents are forcing her to say. She would truly be doing the world a service if she continued her campaign of “abstinence doesn’t work” and worked on a real agenda, like PREVENTING pregnancy rather that pretending that sex never happens unless you are a “bad” person”
Know, we don’t know that. Even those who push for abstinence only education know that not everybody is going to be abstinent. That doesn’t inherently mean those same people realize it’s a failed system. Unless, of course, even contraceptive based sex education is failed since last I checked, not everybody who had that sort of education uses contraceptives every time. And as for “PREVENTING pregnancy,” even abstinent only education does that. A lot of times people like to look back at the studies and say that abstinence only education doesn’t work, but in fact the conclusion was more along the lines of that it has little difference between that and contraceptive based. The difference is one does indeed result in less underage sex, but more risky sex rates among those who do. Conversely, contraceptive based results in more sex, but less risky rates. Sort of like how 10% of 10 is one pregnancy, but so is 1% of 100. Really, saying that there’s no benefit to abstinence only education is the same as saying there’s no drawback to it. They just sound like they mean different things and you only have to use one of them. But anyway, back to Bristol’s beliefs, even in the interview you’re referencing, she went on to say that abstinence is the best method, but it just doesn’t work for everybody. That’s what anybody who is in favor of abstinence would say, including her mother. She wasn’t saying anything different between when her mother was around and when she wasn’t. Just like it’s what anybody who’s in favor of only teaching about contraception should be willing to say. NOT EVERYBODY IS GOING TO FOLLOW EITHER APPROACH, but both do reduce pregnancy and STD rates overall.
“They are not dragging these kids out on stage & making them say things they don’t believe. Pictures of the parents going somewhere with their children are not the same as dragging them along on the campaign trail as great “examples” of our youth.”
Again, Sarah most likely didn’t force her children to say or do anything they wouldn’t have already. As for interviews, most of those are set up as requests by whoever is holding the interview and during interviews in which Bristol was included, she would have been included in the invitation. Again, it’s certainly not unreasonable for her to have willingly decided to go along on her own as per the invitation.
One more thing, if I recall, in Palin’s statements regarding the joke and Willow, I don’t recall Sarah ever mentioning her daughter’s hurt feelings so much as mentioning that Letterman was generally sexist in his comments both about her daughter and herself and that such sexism, most especially when involving younger women, is not something one should joke about lest people become excepting of such ideals that inspired them. If you don’t think anybody should be offended by such statements as he made, then try telling the same to somebody who gets offended by a racist joke of any sort. Both are based in prejudice and, while maybe the telling of racist jokes won’t make all listeners accept racism, there’s apparently enough outrage over them that few would consider them anything other than in poor taste and would most likely not make it past censors on television. Apparently sexism is still appropriate though.
BB demonstrates the very double standard we’ve been talking about. Thanks, BB! Let’s all give BB a big hand!
look what I found:
http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=414573
http://www.firedavidletterman.com/
yep, there are some people who still think he needs to go. Where is the apology for the Slutty Airline Attendant look? And his apology was that we “Perceived” it wrong. Notice this – we perceived the joke wrong. BS. I heard that one of his sponsors pulled the plug after getting a lot of emails in regards to the double standard of “comedy”. Since when was calling someone slutty, espeically a Governor comedy? Oh, wait, that’s right, when she is a Republican. Gotcha
LOL you guys, you crack me up! X-D
Over at Lucianne.com they had posted all of Letterman’s sponsors with their email addresses, but I’m sorry I couldn’t find that post again to link it here for you all.
It looks like enough peeps wrote in though, since someone obviously forced him to try again and give as close to a real apology as he could muster. There’s no way that I can believe that he re-apologized out of the goodness of his dried up old heart. :-p
As disgusting and indefensible as Letterman’s joke about Bristol Palin was, it was still that, a joke. Shuster, while not literally meaning that Hillary was a pimp an Chelsea was a prostitute, was being completely serious in his “pimped out” comment.
So joking about a teenage girl being a whore is better than using the word “pimp” about an adult woman in a non-sexual context. Whatever works for you, my friend.
So an offensive SERIOUS comment by a news reporter should be treated the exact same way as an offensive JOKE by a comedian? The answer to this question is “no” to me and (apparently) “yes” to you. Whatever works for you, my friend.
When did I say they should be treated the exact same way? Letterman’s was obviously worse, both for the nature of the comment and the age of the person it targeted.
“Letterman’s was obviously worse,…”
I disagree. Chelsea Clinton was more of a target in Shuster’s comment (NOT a joke, by the way) than Willow Palin was the target of Letterman’s tasteless jokes (their actual targets, if you look at the jokes again, were Alex Rodriguez and Elliot Spitzer).