Posted on 06/11/2009 9:00:15 AM PDT by Tolik
"We were, as we often do, making jokes about people in the news and we made some jokes about Sarah Palin and her daughter, the 18-year-old girl, who is — her name is Bristol, that's right, and so, then, now they're upset with me . . ."
"These are not jokes made about her 14-year-old daughter. I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl. I mean, look at my record. It has never happened. I don't think it's funny. I would never think it was funny. I wouldn't put it in a joke..."
Examine the logic. First, Letterman makes a gutter joke about Palin and her unnamed 14-year-old daughter attending a NY Yankees game. Then when a bit of outrage follows, he apparently claims he really meant to slur the other 18-year-old daughter who, back in Alaska, of course did not attend the game but was not named by Letterman. That would be okay, you see.
Second, then he evokes the now common straw man "they" who are apparently "upset" with him, hoping to play the victim card. Then he dribbles out something about his "last show" as if we are to weep that some mob is out to silence him. (But the reason he picked the Palins, and not the Obamas, Gores, Bidens, or Kerrys, was precisely because he knew it would not equate to his "last show").
Third, he strangely amplifies his joke by confessing it really was about "raping" and "having sex of any description," but just not with a "14-year-old girl," suggesting it would have been okay had he just been more explicit and named Bristol, the 18-year-old. In Letterman's world, because Bristol is 18, she is a year past most statuary rape clauses and thus the joke would have only been about "raping or having sex of any description with a [18-year-old] girl."
Nothing offered about his slurs against airline attendants and Governor Palin herself, when he sneered that she had a "slutty flight-attendant look," or his remark that Palin "was keeping Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter."
The self-serving, creepy apology was as bad as the initial slur. Letterman is emblematic of an aging, baby-boomer culture, that dresses up street vulgarity with a tie and coat. The only thing that saves him is his care to do this with the Palins from Alaska that don't figure into the usual no-go race/class/gender paradigm.
Letterman in His Dotage [Victor Davis Hanson]
Letterman attacked in crass sexual terms both Palin and her daughter: Two of the rhetorical cornerstones of the feminist movement used to be zero-tolerance for sexual slurs by men alleging promiscuity ("slutty flight-attendant look"), and jokes about something as serious as rape (e.g., Palin's 14-year-old daughter "knocked up by Alex Rodriguez"). David Letterman, who has become ever more creepy in his dotage, on both counts proved a boor — and receives only silence? (Personally, I admire flight attendants a great deal: They put up with a great deal from jet lag to obnoxious passengers, and somehow remain polite and hard-working — and with a modest and professional look.)
Not at all. That is the truth.
” I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl.”
I’d like to see Todd slap him around.
That’s huge.
You must make that announcement its own thread. It would be very encouraging to all of us.
I can think of a few choice words for David that can’t be repeated on a family website.
“...he was still cracking angry jokes about Bush and Cheney, and they weren’t even close to funny...”
Stewart and Colbert are no moderates neither and are crude and obnoxious, but at least they are funny, at least half of the time. On a very few occasions I stumbled on Letterman by clicking the remote control, he was not funny. Jay Leno is funnier, the soup guy Joel McHale is funnier, Conan is funnier, Jimmy Kimmel is funnier. Letterman is a loser.
IMHO, if someone wants to try on a shoe, then announce loudly that it fits, then they should wear it.
Source? I ask because there was a FReeper yesterday who said specifically that he was going to call and cancel stays there over this.
'Twould be nice to know that a boycott had some affects.
Never mind, I just needed to keep readin’. :-)
i.e. It is not an apology to say it is OK to rape my 18 year old daughter! and am I to understand that you still find it OK to call may wife slutty? Would you care to say it to my face?
By the way, I think Letterman is happy about the Jew-hating Socialist killing the Holocaust Museum guard. Takes the heat of the headlines off of him.
I just wrote this to SeeBS:
Statutory rape is not funny. Ever. David Letterman hasn’t been funny in years; now, apparently, he’s a bitter old man who enjoys making sexist jokes at the expense of teenagers.
I’m watching Conan from now on.
If true, I may have to start staying at Embassy Suites for a change.
It might be wise to keep Willow away from David Letterman, for his sake as well. I’m betting she could probably beat the crap out of that creep.
Great news! Thanks for posting their response.
Ouch...that last line is going to leave a mark.
If he said something about my niece like that. I would have beaten him til my arms got tired.
Letterman has all the confidence of a WWII German comic making jokes about the rape of a Jewish child.
Take away the "tie and coat" and he's a dirty old man - leching after a 14 year old.
Come to think of it - even the "coat and tie" don't clean up his filth.
I'd love to meet with Letterman for just 10 minutes to teach him the manners that his Mom neglected...
Wow. Nice job.
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