This is insanity. Not as weird as Andrew Sullivan's Trig Conspiracy Theories, but Letterman still has a serious case of Palin Derangement Syndrome. With a vicious, soul-killing quality. He doubles down here.What did little Willow ever do to Letterman? Why does he want her to carry the burden of his jokes around with her in middle school and for the rest of her life? It will probably be a long time before I am able to look at that signature smirk on Letterman's face again without thinking about his bullying cruelty.
We can learn a lot about our current culture from this kerfuffle. For example, many prominent feminists have absolutely no claim to moral authority in these matters anymore. For many, feminism is now about political power, rather than principle. Happily, some on the feminist left have been principled enough to protest Palin's treatment since she came onto the national scene. (Plus, did you know that Microsoft has developed software that can let you preview pornography right from your Google search? So classy.)
p.s. The New York Times apparently covered for Letterman. "Printing all the news that fits the narrative". No wonder this newspaper is in serious financial trouble.
Update: VDH suggests that some of Letterman's creepy behavior may be related to his age. But Imus looks a lot older than Letterman, and the feminists really tore into him. Letterman apparently just signed a new 3-year contract and married his babymama. Age may be a partial explanation, but it is not an excuse for Letterman unless he's getting senile, which doesn't seem to be the case. And it's certainly not an excuse for the feminists' double standard.
Compare the continued vicious treatment of Sarah Palin and her family by members of the mainstream media with the careful packaging of Michelle Obama.
Update 2: In a non-apology, Letterman says he was talking about Palin's 18-year-old daughter Bristol getting knocked up in public, at Yankee Stadium. (If they really thought is was Bristol at the game, they could have made the joke even funnier by revealing who held Bristol's new baby while she was getting knocked up during the 7th inning. All the young single mothers out there in TV land would find that hilarious, I'm sure). But Willow was the one at the game. Facts are stubborn things. Letterman and his writers may have changed their story when they learned how young Willow was.
After his non-apoligy, Letterman invited Sarah Palin on his show. "Sarah Palin should send her husband Todd on the show instead. I'd watch that."
James Lileks on how Letterman hardened from being "brilliant" into "an SOB who shows up at the end of the night to reassure that nothing matters . . . ":
What’s amusing is how unamusing he is in the clip. How sour he seems. Compare him to his predecessors. . .
. . . Really, it’s just a rote slam: If your mother is a loathed politician, and your older sister gets pregnant, famous old men can make jokes about you being knocked up by rich baseball players, and there’s nothing you can do. That’s the culture: a flat, dead-eyed, square-headed old man who’ll go back to the writers and ask for more Palin-daughter knocked-up jokes, because that one went over well. Other children he won’t touch, but not because he’s decent. It’s because he’s a coward.
Oh, one more thing: it’s okay for David to say that because someone said something else about someone, and since I didn’t write about that, I’m a hypocrite. Just so we’re clear.
Well, one more thing. Some say Dave - I’m sorry, the staff members who wrote the joke and had it printed on cards for him to read - thought the daughter in attendance was the older one who had the pregnancy controversy last year. This is possible; it also means that we accept as an excuse the fact that the writers confused the daughters they wished to humiliate.
Jewish proverb: "When you're kind to the cruel, you become cruel to the kind".
Why does this man get so much money for treating people this way? Because "it's the culture" - which Letterman, his writers and his audiences helped shape.
Palin responds to questions about Letterman here. Live, so they can't edit her statements to change her meaning. Good move. She calls on Letterman to apologize to all young women.
A healthy suggestion.
Update 3: People are still trying to get their minds around what Letterman said:
Why the Left ridicules women
Don Surber: "His later apology only underscored his perversion. . . Then the jerk had the nerve to invite Palin on his show, as if nothing was wrong." VDH analyzes Letterman's statement. He calls the apology "as bad as the initial slur".
From Surber's comments: "As liberals see it, they are 100% responsible for every advance or progress made by either women or Blacks. Therefore these two groups “owe” liberals, and if a woman or Black person dares to be a conservative, they are savaged as somehow ungrateful and treasonous. As they see it, every woman in this article owes their career to Gloria Steinem, and therefore they have a moral obligation to agree with her on any point Steinem wishes."
Sarah Palin is a threat to the Left because she blows their stereotypes out of the water.
Update 4: NOW has finally been embarrassed into commenting on Letterman's "jokes". But even as they do, they make his jokes appear to be an anomaly for the Left but typical of the Right. As if Letterman had not been savaging and humiliating Palin and her family regularly since last fall. As if there had not been even more disturbing sexually violent and humiliating jokes about Palin on TV and in print before these latest attacks on her and her daughters.
NOW's statement also suggested that conservatives are not concerned about similar statements directed at people who differ from them politically. What a libel. For example, the Right was all over the savaging of Hillary Clinton (not their favorite person) by the mainstream media once someone more liberal won some states in the primaries. Including Keith Olberman's assassination fantasies, directed at Hillary Clinton before Sarah Palin. The Right was also upset about the photo of Obama's speechwriter (still his main speechwriter, I believe - he was not fired) groping a life-sized cut-out figure of Hillary after she was named Secretary of State. Try to imagine a speech writer for a Republican president who would not be fired for something like that. Can't do it, can you?
NOW said about Letterman: "Someone of Letterman's stature, who appears on what used to be known as 'the Tiffany Network' (CBS), should be above wallowing in the juvenile, sexist mud that other comedians and broadcasters seem to prefer."
They then immediately cited as an example of a broadcaster who prefers to wallow in juvenile, sexist mud a 16-year-old statement by Rush Limbaugh about Chelsea Clinton's appearance. I think I remember something about this. Can't remember the context, but Limbaugh squirmed some when explaining what he had meant. They just had to figure out a way to further the Obama Administration's efforts to demonize Limbaugh in a piece about someone else. On the same "media hall of shame" page, they criticized other media figures, whom they identify as "right-wing", for sexist statements. They did not identify Letterman's political persuasion. Their double standard shows again. None of the "right-winger's" statements which NOW cited involved sexual assaults or promiscuity.
Update 5: Is this an opportunity to use the Left's playbook to "go Alinsky" on a prominent liberal media figure? Rules 1, 3 and 12 from "Rules for Radicals"? Personally, I don't think that the Rules for Radicals will ever be as successful for the Right as they are for the Left. Because the Center Right is expected to be reasonable and principled. and because it wishes to differentiate itself from the Far Right. People of the center-right are so often protrayed as dangerously angry and lumped in with far-right nuts in order to make them "look like bad people" in the words of one target of a CNN interview.
But maybe in the case of Letterman, the Rules for Radicals had an effect: Letterman's second apology is enough for some, not for others. I don't think getting Letterman fired is the best strategy, though. Leave him in place as an example of what liberalism has become for many.
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