Letterman Issue Might Not Go Away

What precisely Letterman says tonight won't be known for certain until later. For now, this is all we have to go on. The rule seems to be, don't make jokes about raping a Republican woman's young daughter before she's 18. And he thinks that clears this up? I shared some quick thoughts with an RNC email list today I'll share below.

“We were, as we often do, making jokes about people in the news and we made some jokes about Sarah Palin and her daughter [Bristol]… and now they’re upset with me…” Letterman says on tonight’s show. “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…. Am I guilty of poor taste? Yes. Did I suggest that it was okay for her 14-year-old daughter to be having promiscuous sex? No.” Saying he hopes he’s “cleared part of this up,” Letterman extended an invitation to Palin to come on the show as a guest.

In over five years I have never seen the Right side blogs get a blog burst going that was this unified, or sustained. And it isn't only about Palin-mania. There is a surprising amount of anger among both bloggers and commenters on this issue. And it's about double standards and being shouted down, as much as it is about Palin.

For too long, the Right has had to put up with being called homophobic, racist, misogynist, ignorant, or evil, ad infinitum - you name it, often for nothing more than trying to convey a legitimate political point.

Now we are watching one of our own being maliciously assaulted with nothing more than utter filth being spewed at her ... and we're supposed to just take it. Most of the mainstream media hasn't even acknowledged this is going on.

I'm telling you, people are pissed off - a lot of them. I don't know where it's all going and maybe it'll take something else to finally explode somehow. But the anger over this is palpable, widespread and about more than just Sarah Palin. It's about years of being told we are intolerant and intolerable when we are not and having to eat anything and everything an elitist liberal media culture throws our way.

Such anger does not go away. Eventually it's going somewhere. When and how it gets to wherever it's going, I'm not sure. But it's going.

Comments

[J 2 The B]

"maybe the right gets called all those names for supporting segregation, creationism, and opposition to equal rights?"

Supporting segregation: Southern Democrats were the main supporters of segregation and Jim Crow.

Creationism: Many people, Democrat and Republican, believe in creationism as part of a religious platform. It is not at all any part of the GOP platform.

Opposition to Equal Rights: I guess you are trying to make a point about gay marriage? If so, then just realize the GOP holds the EXACT SAME POSITION as President Obama, Sec of State Clinton, former President Clinton, failed Presidential Candidate John F Kerry, Buffon-in-Chief Joe Biden and almost every other mainstream Democrat out there.

So, now that those points have been squashed, let's get back on topic...

Do you approve of David Letterman making a joke about the rape of a 14 year old girl? Do you approve of David Letterman making comments about the "slutty stewardess outfit" of Sarah Palin?

Or is it only sexist when it happens to your side?

[DRJ]

Our family watches Letterman now and then -- we used to watch him all the time, but he's too bitter to enjoy now -- but we watch CBS sports all the time. CBS has a special comments line that is handling the Letterman calls and I called today to object to Letterman's attacks on the Palin family. I also let CBS know that our family will protest the Letterman show by turning off all CBS sports programming this summer.

[Susan Buckley]

Face it, the Palins are a joke. A son forced to go into the army to stay out of prison, a daughter pregnant by age 16, what's next? I don't blame the kids; I blame a power-hungry mother who has obviously sacrificed the stability of her family for her own personal ambition. She and Todd are obviously horrible parents who pretend to be all about patriotism, family values and teen abstinence...uh, excuse me? This is why they are laughable.

[Zaugg]

SusanBuckley- Why are you so afraid of a smart successful woman? Is it because there are so few on the looney left? Sarah walks the talk and the BS walks. Your Obambi is all talk. Anything he says has an expiration date and he means almost the opposite of what he spews.

[Dan Riehl]

Susan B - Why don't you make yourself useful and go make the folks here some sandwiches, or something. If we want anything else, we'll let you know.

[djn]

Don Imus was fired-Letterman should be fired.
Can you imagine comments being made about Michele Obama and her daughters-would anyone DARE? Liberals are insecure hypocrites. Everyone should be outraged by Letterman's behavior which runs like a cancer through the left. They are constantly picking on Gov. Palin, while VP Biden is truly the joke. I can only assume Gov.Palin threatens the insecure: 5 kids later, she's beautiful, smart and successful. If she was not a conservative, liberals would embrace her, instead they want to destroy her. Liberals are really fools, but they are dangerous fools.

[Kyle Menig]

Dan Riehl in his post:

For too long, the Right has had to put up with being called homophobic, racist, misogynist, ignorant, or evil, ad infinitum - you name it, often for nothing more than trying to convey a legitimate political point.

_________-

Dan Riehl in the comments:

Susan B - Why don't you make yourself useful and go make the folks here some sandwiches, or something.

[Wally Sandaber]

Wow! "Go make sandwiches." Still fighting against the 19th amendment Riehl? BTW, since you are right wing guy who aligns himself with misogynists like Limbaugh, you don't get to make fun of your own misogyny.

[Ran]

Right. Susan B. comes from a *fucking perfect* family, the very exemplar of harmony. Nope, obviously nothing laughable about Susan.

So the Palins are laughable. Fine! Let's go with that, shall we? Let's see: Her son's deployment automatically negates any libertarian legislation she may wish to promote, and her energy policy is toast. Clearly, her daughter's teen pregnancy is sufficient proof that Sarah's tax policies won't cut it. [There goes our hopes to shrink the deficit.] And Sarah's ambition... Damn, can't have that sort of attitude corrupting our young ones, now can we?! Putting herself through college, starting a thriving business, running for mayor... it's too bad female ambition is *SO* unpatriotic. And Todd's in on it too! Talk about corrupt family values.

Let me tell you what's pretentious, Susan: Your ignorance posing as analysis. You've just dumped one of the most pathetic comments ever made here. Fucking public schools.

[lala]

But liberals love teenagers who redeem themselves and take personal responsibility. And they love single motherhood and sex for teenagers. And women who work are to be applauded for wanting and having it all. Or are they changing their tune and pushing for stay-at-home-moms?

[Keebler Elf]

Don't feed the trolls!

[Mike2Cents]

ok...please THINK about this.
letterman's joke could/would only be considered humorous if he was referencing bristol -
and he obviously was. and it could be argued it was in poor taste.
but there was no suggestion in letterman's joke about 'raping' anyone.
so what this means is that the palins are either cynical opportunists or just plain very dumb.
it's just unreal that they would think to suggest the rape of their 14 year old daughter as a component to this in any way.
please, someone somewhere call them out on that.
sick, and sad.
those poor palin kids....

[North Dallas Thirty]

LOL....Mike2Cents, if you really cared about the Palin children, you wouldn't be supporting people who make jokes about them being raped on national television.

What you are is simply like Susan; a worthless tool of the left.

Oh, and Kyle; Susan was told to go make sandwiches because that's all she obviously has the intelligence to do. The fact that you automatically assume sexism is merely you projecting your own liberal misogyny. Indeed, the reason you and your fellow leftists hate Palin so much is because she doesn't worship you and kiss your feet every day for your plantation kindness in "allowing" her to abort the children with which you impregnated her.

[w3]

Riehl does it again... brings out the "humor" and "intelligence" of the left and makes it seem so effortless.

The meme is being set, by the way. "He didn't mean Willow. He's just a harmless old man who barely knows what day it is. Even a person with twice his senility would be hard pressed to name which of that huge, ignorant brood she was exploiting in New York that day.

Hey, did you see those precious pictures of Michelle and The Girls in People last week? Oh my gawd!"

[jana]

So, I guess the "children are out of bounds" rule only applies to Chelsea Clinton and the Obama girls, eh?

Cross out Sarah Palin & Willow's names from Letterman's "joke", and insert Michelle Obama & Malia, and you'd have an uprising from the left. And they would be justified in that uprising. Letterman's remarks were straight up vulgar, regardless of which daughter he was talking about.

Hate Sarah Palin for her politics all you want, but to make jokes about her children is shameful.

So, he excuses making jokes about 14-year-old Willow by saying he was just calling 18-year-old Bristol a whore? Either way, he's a partisan hack, too bitter to see past his own hateful world view.

And, as for Susan, she's an idiot. I'm pretty sure that the sandwiches errand would be too complicated for her to carry out successfully.

Mike2cents: If an adult baseball player molests a 14-year-old, (which is the basis of Letterman's "joke"), that's rape. It doesn't take a genius to make the connection. Which, I guess, makes it even sadder that you couldn't.

[Mike2Cents]

ND30,
calm down.
all did was ask that you/all THINK about this.
my overall beef with your approach is that you can't argue the relevant point, so you invent a more extreme one.
i would agree that letterman's joke was in poor taste.
but i also know what that joke was meant to be.
you on the other hand are raging against something that didn't happen. he did not make any jokes about raping any 14 year old. did not happen.
you may as well be angry at letterman for kicking a puppy.
'what's wrong with all these liberals...do they just not care if letterman kicks a puppy??!!'
that is the gist of your rant.
so, calm down and THINK.
please, try and be sensible?
you could try and make sober point about letterman's joke being out of line..but first you/others would need to be commenting on the actual joke.

[Chris]

Joey Plugs' daughter is OB too, and she's late twenties.

[Mike2Cents]

jana,
re:
"Mike2cents: If an adult baseball player molests a 14-year-old, (which is the basis of Letterman's "joke"), that's rape. It doesn't take a genius to make the connection. Which, I guess, makes it even sadder that you couldn't."

Letterman's joke was simply not making that suggestion...it just wasn't.
I won't dissect the joke for you, etc. - your mind is made up, and you are outraged.
I imagine you woke up outraged and you will go to sleep outraged.

[jana]

Regardless of who you *think* he was talking about, or who he *thinks* he was talking about, the fact of the matter is that the daughter that was at the ballgame was Willow. Not Bristol.

So his (and apparently your) excuse is "Since I'm too stupid/lazy/incompetent to figure out which daughter was with Palin, I'll just say I wasn't talking about the 14 year old being raped.. I was calling the 18 year old a whore. That's ok, right?"

Uh, no. Still not ok.

Regardless of the age of the girl, those jokes were ugly, misogynist, and partisan.

Democrats have screamed for years about children being out of bounds. Well, that goes both ways. It counts just as much for Palin's kids as for Obama's and Clinton's.

Or, it should.

[Reggie1971]

Letterman: But I was talking about Bristol, not the 14 year old.

The sick, mean, cruel, hateful "joke" you told was directed at the daughter who attended the game with Sarah Palin, HER MOTHER. That daughter happened to be the 14 year old. So you see, her parents are naturally going to assume that you were referring to their 14 year old child. Let's try to ignore for a second that the joke was incredibly sick even if it was directed at Bristol. For this supposed bit of mistaken identity that has understandably caused two loving parents hurt and distress, you owe them an apology. But you didn't give them an apology, you pathetic rugheaded sack of donkeyshit, did you? You deserve to be fired. You deserve to be shunned and completely out of show business.

I hope Conan beats the dogshit out of you in the ratings you no good son of a bitch.

[Glen Howard]

"letterman's joke could/would only be considered humorous if he was referencing bristol -
and he obviously was. and it could be argued it was in poor taste."

How stupid are you liberals ?! 14-year-old Willow was the daughter at the baseball game and that's who Letterman made the joke about . Are you so stupid that you can't even see and hear for yourself ? How could he have been referencing Bristol when she wasn't even there? If you liberals got your faces out of Obama's butt for five seconds you might see the world as it actually is...

[Glen Howard]

"Letterman's joke was simply not making that suggestion...it just wasn't."

Sure it wasn't ! What suggestion was it making then ? Sex with a 14 year-old like Willow is considered rape in this country...I know your islamofascist buddies think sex with children is acceptable but Americans don't. It's amazing how liberals can defend filth and misogyny just because it's aimed at conservatives.

[John]

So what are you saying, Riehl? Are some right wingers going to go shoot up Letterman's studio now? You know he's a libertarian, not a liberal, right?

The right wing spread the most vicious lies for years about Hillary Clinton. A few off-color jokes about the Palins hardly rises to that level.

[MG]

Hey susan- fuck you you fuckin fuck it must suck to think like you. When you think it must fucking hurt you useless douchbag.

[xerocky]

Is it any wonder that this is going on at the same time that Conan is first getting the same time slot? Letterman is old old old news and he's trying to drum up ratings. The Palins are an easy target, but they're also not the Obama's. So they get the green light from CBS, fire away!
Who watches this old hat anymore?

[jpp]

Seriously, I would like to see some man from the Palin family, whether Todd or another male relative, seek out that little, old wimp in New York and simply beat him up. Damn the legal consequences, it's a matter of honor.

Make Letterman cry and grovel on the ground, perhaps take cell phone pictures of it and that will finally settle this 24/7 news media and "entertainment" media bashing of Gov. Palin.

[betwyan]

John, you limp wrist, you got your big eared, anti-American, moooslim in the White House and you side of "feminized men" still can't tone down the 24/7 trashing of a woman governor and her family? Ah, are you a man or like that old, wrinkled, impotent Letterman? The problem is Letterman, Colbert, "little Keith" O., Rachel "the beast" Maddow, Jon Stewart, plus 99% of Hollyweird is relentless, 24/7/365 on Palin and her family. Conservatives didn't attack Chelsea Clinton - ever. Now al Hussein, his beast of a wife are fair game. Game on!

Barry is the one who led a privileded like in private schools paid by others (sort of like his economic philosophy, huh?). Palin is the one who worked her way through school and worked her way up from PTA council - quite an accomplishment.

al Hussein is the one who was groomed in and around radicals, anarachists, communists, and moooslims.

[bear1909]

How many of you folks are keeping your eyes on the prize? Susan, Mike2Cents, and David Letterman all accomplish the same thing: they distract you from the hard work of saving this Nation from the Enemies Within.

Barry Soetoro intends to starve us financially (where is all the money going if it isnt being spent on banks and shovel-ready projects yet?) and nutritionally. The latter will happen as he touts his own diet of foie gras, vegetables, and Michelle's Spam sandwiches....right in front of our faces his policies are going to interrupt supply chains that bring food to our tables. So....the strategy is simple: take your job, take your investments, take your currency and your food--- now who you gonna call?

Get ready people. I chit you not---- news of the first food shortage in the USA will signal the beginning of the vise clamp-down, the "manufactured crisis" Biden gaffed about during the campaign. They are telling us what they are going to do to us, and we are braying about Sarah Palin? Bigger fish to fry than that gapped tooth Hoosier moron Letterman. The Palin's made their beds....are in the public eye....and they are better for it. Tit for tat with libtard morons is a waste of energy and a no-win: hit em where it hurts--- help your own families survive when this impostor President pulls the plug on their fantasy and begins to starve them while giving their home loans to peace loving families who are Follower of Islam (FOI--- i refuse to call them Muslims, as if they are some kind of legitimate "people" who are not religious zealots)....check it out---Barry's Tax Cheat Timmy and the Treasury's connections to Indonesian banking interests (we have no way of knowing where the TARP funds are going--- the testimony has already been made more than once to Congress.)

Before our very eyes.

Bear1909 out.

[Dano]

betwyan

Easy on the libs man. You cannot criticize the obamamessiah!!! We can only joke about raping a 14 year old girl, call her a prostitute and call her mom a slut is ok and then tear up their family every day on a tv show. Oh.. then ask her to come on your show. NBC = nothing but class.

So calling Obama a coked-out turd, possible pole smoker of Frank Marshall Davis in Hawaii, Michelle and both raging hypocrites for taking trips to NY on our dime or claiming "you cannot spend like you used to, eat what you want, set the thermostat to 70 degrees" and do that very thing (80 degrees at the White House) is off limits. OK?

[betwyan]

Gotchya Dano.... :)

[Dan Riehl]

Let's stay away from racial slurs - I'm not Letterman and I work in politics. I'm not flushing my life so someone can rant like that here. And it's me, not you who will pay the price for it.

[G Norman]

I watched something on TV last night that tried to link the Holocaust Museum shooting to white supremacists. The program essentially stated that the election of B.O. sent a lot of white males running for guns and more. So I'm sure your anger will be labelled and junked in with that.

My anger goes something like this. Raise my taxes to support all your stupidity, base your entire program on my paycheck. Marginalize my opinion. Tell me I'm the problem. I'm thinking take all my toys and going away.

Proper channeling of righteous anger is important here. If you're serious, you should start boycotting anyone who advertises anything on his network. If you break the network financially, it sends a powerful message. The mainstream media is losing viewers in droves and become more irrelevant every day. Help them out a little.

Finally, my culture is based on responsibility. It was from the earliest memories of my parents. How someone who will ultimately judge me tells me the richness of their culture that appears to embrace irresponsibility, over responsibility is somehow better....

[L Peters]

I believe the show is taped. It could have been fixed. But no, the audience and the staff and the band guy and letterman all think this crackpottery is funny.
It is not. It is beyond awful.

[Dave C]

So David Letterman is in trouble with his wife again. It turns out he let Michael Jackson baby sit his son, Harry. Now Dave has to figure out how to get Boone’s Farm and semen out of a little league uniform.

See.

Not funny. Leave the kids out of it.

[seekeronos]

The Liberals in a nutshell, are evil, vile traitorous scalawags who want nothing short of the destruction of this Republic, to replace it with a transnationalist, socialist "utopia" (which is itself a failed state of affairs) where the many are dependent serfs begging the government for a few morsels to secure its woeful and miserable existence at the whim of the socialist party elites:

- Destroy traditional America and her culture -- specifically "white" or European-American cultural identity.

- Promote the destruction of belief in, and the ridicule of, Biblical Christianity.

- Destroy the traditional family of:
--- one male father who loves his wife and protects her and their children;
--- one female mother who honours and serves her husband and raises their children;
--- their many children who respect, honour, and obey their parents.

Liberals are the tools of Satan, the great deceiver... and more often than not follow their dark master in sickening perversity and wickedness, all too quick to project their hatreds, their moral failures, and their utter lack of compassion for those they see as less than equal to themselves on those of us who wish to preserve, and indeed, restore this Republic which was once formed under the blessings of the Most High God.

[Jim Treacher]

Wow, the left is really having trouble justifying all this. Good.

[Kyle Menig]

seekeronos....us liberals want to eat your children too. They taste like chicken.

[Mike2Cents]

Can any of you ranters even consider the possibility that letterman/writers were unaware that it was willow at the game? that it might be possible he mean bristol here??
and, i'll try one more time...i do think the joke was in poor taste.
but the real one about bristol - NOT the imagined one by y'all about willow.
but whatever...i give up.
i feel it is ironic and disturbing that the palins are the ones who suggested and have now amplified (with all your help) the idea of a 14 year old, their daughter, being raped.
i'll give them the benefit of the doubt that perhaps this was relay to them in a way that they assumed that was the case, and understandably were upset by that falsehood.
but it's been a few days now...watch the clip of the joke. they should know that bristol is the punchline here - and thanks in large part to them - will be a punchline for a long time.
do they really now want to set willow up for the same thing?

the joke was still in poor taste.
but all this ranting is just another example of an inability by the enraged right to sensibly put forth or argue any concerns.
it's not enough to disagree with obama's policies and put forth reasoned arguments.
instead they have to let the world know he's socialist muslim who wasn't even born here.
and instead of being able to rightly criticize letterman for a crass joke, they have to accuse him of laughing at 14 year olds being raped.
for my side, maybe it's good news to see you all off the rails.
but i'd prefer to see you get it together and be able to participate in real debates.

riehl - how must you feel about some of your posters here?
someone suggested this site as a place to find some reasoned conservative arguments.
but few are to found here.

now who wants to be the first to call me a 'tool', 'idiot', 'libtard moron'?

[seekeronos]

"--- us liberals want to eat your children too. They taste like chicken. ---"

Ah, snarky humour.

But what your liberal masters really want to do is to pervert our children's minds, make them despise the old paths, the Anglo-Celtic culture and the Judeo-Christian faith that this nation was founded upon.

You want them to believe that it is perfectly alright for men not to give thanks to the Living God who gave them life and offers them forgiveness for sin; you want them to worship the created things of man, and perhaps worse, all manner of four-footed creatures and "forces of nature" by false science; you want them to turn their backs on the institutions God Himself ordained - their filial loyalty and love for their parents replaced by a worship of the State, reducing the undefiled marriage bed between a man and a woman, his wife, to joyless and meaningless fornication, or worse, lifting up the perversion of men defiling themselves with men, and women with women in the place of holy marriage.

You seek, like your father, the devil, to kill, steal, and destroy, and to make a mockery of the Living God.

But know that you too, shall regret your foolishness when you bow your knee and confess that Jesus is Lord.

Whether you do so now in this life, willingly receiving the forgiveness of Christ, or whether you do so from Hell, and then from within the Lake of Fire in eternity... is entirely up to you.

But if you have a mind to repent, you'd best get on with it, for the Day of Judgment draws closer, and you'll not likely have the foreknowledge of when that Day comes for you.

[seekeronos]

Mike2Cents:

We fully well know that the the joke Letterman made had Bristol in mind. And to say that the joke was merely "tasteless" is the sockdologer of understatements.

This doesn't excuse that fact that Willow (the 14-y.o.) was the Palin daughter present at the event, and that the Palins should (and rightfully!) be upset that Letterman targeted, however accidentally, this young woman for his remarks.

Nor should he have been so quick to comment about Bristol supposedly fornicating with a baseball player. She did fornicate (with a young man) and produce a child out of wedlock as a result of that fornication... this much is common knowledge ... but to add further insult is quite unnecessary.

In other words, what we resent is the double standard, in how Letterman - a left-leaning Hollywierd liberal elite - so easily denigrates a target of liberal derision and gets a free pass... when all we hear from the liberal left is how women should never be subjected to the "Infamous Misogyny of the Patriarchy" at every turn.

Or how "the Children" are the sacred, inviolable lambs who must by all means, never suffer to hear such vile language uttered by the likes of Mr. Letterman.

How is it that "what is good for the (cooking the conservatives') goose" is seldom ever "good for the liberal gander"?

Sorry for the mixed metaphors, but they do fit quite nicely... especially when the shoe is on the other foot.

[Mike2Cents]

Seekaroonos -
Thank you!
Really...you make some good points.
I do not agree with all of them, but I do appreciate that you are able to make them without
lowering to insults and whacked out hyperbole.
We agree the joke was in poor taste - though perhaps to what degree, we differ.
I think Letterman would have been wise and more decent to have sincerely apologized for the joke and any offense caused, and at that time explain that he didn't mean it as badly as some were interpreting it.
Myself, I am more offended by in the overreaction to and misrepresentation of said joke.
Perhaps we differ there as well.

[Trenton Hansen]

Mike2Cents, the misrepresentation of the joke is yours. You are relying solely on Letterman's excuse for the context of the joke.

But Letterman's excuse falls flat when you acknowledge the reality of the context, which was that the daughter present at the ball park was the 14 year old, not the 18 year old. Additionally, the "joke" only has impact when the 14 year old is considered as the subject, because the 18 year old has already had a child out of wedlock. Letterman's intent was that the 14 year old getting pregnant would be the next logical step for the Palin family.

Letterman tried to be funny at the expense of a young girl and failed. What I find disheartening is that there are people who thought it was not only funny, but somehow defensible.

[Kyle Menig]

I'm still waiting for Letterman to apologize to ARod. Nobody makes fun of ARod that way! Nobody!

[Hughie]

Susan Buckley! The biggest skank ho I ever met in my life was named Susan Buckley. Must be the same person. I say fight fire with fire!

What is the difference between Michelle Obama and a bowling ball?

You could eat a bowling ball if you had to.

What is the difference between Barack Obama and God?

God doesn't think he is Barack Obama.

[Mike2Cents]

Trenton -
I don't accept your premise that the joke had/would have no impact unless it was about Willow.
When I heard the joke, I had no idea who she was with and understood/took the reference to be Bristol.
As did everyone, until it was pointed out she was with Willow.
Answer honestly - had you heard this joke unawares of later details revealed, who would you have thought he was referring to..Willow? No, of course not - you would have rightly assumed Bristol.
I agree it was a lame joke, a crass one. Plenty of those made by all sides (see many comments here). But my point remains - it was the Palins etc. who brought into all this '14 year old', 'rape', 'Willow'. Either they have no sense or they have no decency.
I believe them to be, for the most part, decent folks. So my take is they have no sense.
And it is sad for the kids.
But most importantly, none of this is really a big deal.
Moving on...

[tim maguire]

Mike2cents, why does it matter so much whether Letterman intended Bristol? So that takes the rape charge off the table, but still, what did Bristol do to deserve being made fun of on Letterman?

It's sad but undeniably true--there is a core of liberal for whom partisanship is everything and no low is too low when defending a liberal or attacking a conservative. Barbarity in defense of liberalism is no vice.