Posted on 06/15/2009 7:08:52 PM PDT by kristinn
David Letterman apologized tonight for a slanderous sexually degrading joke he told last week about Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's 14-year-old daughter getting "knocked up" by New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez during the seventh inning of a game attended by the governor and her daughter, yet he failed to apologize for a joke the following night in which he insinuated the 14-year-old girl was a prostitute--indicting himself in the process.
The relevant portion of Letterman's apology:
But there was a joke that I told, and I thought I was telling it about the older daughter being at Yankee Stadium. And it was kind of a coarse joke. Theres no getting around it, but I never thought it was anybody other than the older daughter, and before the show, I checked to make sure in fact that she is of legal age, 18. Yeah. But the joke really, in and of itself, cant be defended. The next day, people are outraged. Theyre angry at me because they said, How could you make a lousy joke like that about the 14-year-old girl who was at the ball game? And I had, honestly, no idea that the 14-year-old girl, I had no idea that anybody was at the ball game except the governor and I was told at the time she was there with Rudy Giuliani...
So, taking him at his word, the very next day Letterman learns the 14-year-old daughter was in town with her mother, not the 18-year-old. So what does Letterman do that night? He makes a joke calling the in town daughter a prostitute:
....The toughest part of her visit was keeping Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter.
Literally right before that 'joke', Letterman made a joke about Palin and Rudy Guiliani attending the Yankees game and being seated in the 'far, far right field.
Letterman makes the focus of his apology his failure to get across his intent that he was joking about the 18-year-old daughter getting 'knocked up' not the 14-year-old:
...Mark Shields, was talking about how I had made this indefensible joke about the 14-year-old girl, and I thought, Oh, boy, now Im beginning to understand what the problem is here. Its the perception rather than the intent. It doesnt make any difference what my intent was, its the perception....
Letterman only apologizes for the one joke about Willow getting "knocked up", yet ignores the Willow-as-prostitute joke that by his own admissions he would have known explicitly was about her.
Link to blog with YouTube videos of Letterman 'jokes'.
Letterman is sorry that people are contacting his advertisers.
He isn’t sorry about the harm he has done to the Palin family at all.
Dear Dave,
Your comment about Sarah’s “slutty stewardess look” was tasteless.
Your comment about her daughter getting “knocked up” was perverted and cruel.
Your “explanation” was pathetic.
That’s you; tasteless, perverted, cruel, pathetic.
“Funny” is not in the list.
Not Yet.
We have a couple of Top Ten list still to compile...
Letterman's top ten apologies to Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin's top ten ass whooping actions against Dumbass Letterman.
Oh, and maybe the top ten list of companies that have canceled advertising with Letterman....LOL
Mark Shields is a pretty partisan Democrat and was often vitriolic towards Republicans, at least during the Bush years. Did he simply denounce Letterman for the indefensible joke, or was that just a lead-in to the Democrat talking point that Sarah Palin has no right to complain because she “paraded” her family at events during the campaign? (As if other politicians don’t.)
Very nicely put!
EXCELLENT!
I also have to say how disappointed I was at the audience reacting when he first made those ‘statements’.
Didn’t anyone boo?
I realize that his audience might not pull in many right-wing-thinkers, but there are limits where the fun stops being fun. Didn’t anyone in that audience see that?
A-Rod is a media trainwreck. Anything he does causes controversy and none of it’s good for A-Rod.
This is probably best handled quietly by the Yankees. “Fix this or you’ll never see another player on your show.”
I’m wondering where Rudy is, Sarah and her daughter were his guests.
BINGO!
He’s not getting off easily because of these numerous lame and insincere “apologies.”
Good luck to all the protesters who will be in front of the Ed Sullivan Theater tomorrow!
Several FReepers are going—I hope they post a report with pics here tomorow.
An eyewitness report by a FReeper is woth 1,000 biased media reports.
You have to have tickets to get into his show and sometimes it is year’s before you can get a ticket. I am not kidding. (At least that was when I checked year’s ago)
You have to have tickets to get into his show and sometimes it is year’s before you can get a ticket. I am not kidding. (At least that was when I checked year’s ago)
I guess every generation has to learn anew.
to the audience’s credit, when he called her a slut during his top 10 list, no one laughed. the entire studio was completely silent.
He aplogized, this should be the end of it.
If you can’t convince them, you confuse them.
What good is checking to see if Bristol is 18 but not checking to see if it was actually Bristol at the game. Letterman knew this joke would get him in trouble if Bristol wasn’t 18. That’s why he checked. If he wanted to go forward with his crude joke he should have also made sure it was Bristol that was there and not Willow.
YOU move on.
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