June 11, 2009
David Letterman's Stupid Blame-Dodging Tricks
Whew! Everything's okay now, folks, because David Letterman has publicly apologized for cruelly mocking the teenaged children of a politician he doesn't like:
You can tell this is an apology because at no point does he actually apologize. Just because it's an angry, insincere, self-pitying ("Get yourself a talk show, folks"), self-justifying whine, that doesn't mean we shouldn't just drop the whole thing already. They're only jokes, right? First Amendment! You wingnuts do it too! Etc.
So now we're supposed to accept that Letterman wasn't lashing out at Sarah Palin through her 14-year-old daughter -- which would be totally sick, after all -- but through her 18-year-old daughter. He was just too lazy to make sure he was publicly humiliating the correct offspring of the person he clearly loathes, right?
And we're also supposed to accept that even though he was joking about Bristol being a slut -- not Willow, honest! -- it's okay because after all, Bristol is an unwed teen mother. It wasn't a rape joke, silly, it was a whore joke. This is the substance of Letterman's "apology."
Hey, all you Palin-haters, here's a fun fact you might not know: Barack Obama was conceived out of wedlock when his mom was barely legal!
That's right, Ann Dunham Soetoro was born on 11/29/42, she married Barack Obama, Sr. on 2/2/61, and their son was born on 8/4/61. So lil' Barry would've been conceived somewhere around his mom's 18th birthday, most likely before, with a man who was not her husband. And his parents' subsequent marriage wasn't even legal, because Barack Sr. was still married to a woman in Kenya. Ann was in the same situation then as Bristol is now, except the father hung around a little longer. And she didn't have a seething mob dogging her heels and then running back to their news networks and late-night talk shows.
Boy, I'll bet Jack Parr is in Heaven right now, wishing he'd done some hilarious gags about Obama's mom banging Mickey Mantle and getting hit on by JFK.
Here, Dave, let me try to help you out: "Governor Palin, I apologize for my amazingly stupid and cruel jokes about your daughter, and for being too lazy to even make sure I was joking about the correct one. It was wrong to lash out at you through your children, and I won't ever do it again." If you're capable of saying that, then maybe we'll think about letting you off the hook.
Until then, I'm sticking with "Letterman thinks raping little girls is funny."
P.S. Tim Blair has a good round-up of reaction to Letterman's hostile squirming. Isn't it interesting that CBS took the A-Rod joke out of the transcript it sent out?
P.P.S. The Palins put out a statement that they have no intention of boosting Letterman's ratings by appearing on his show, and besides, it would be wise to keep Willow away from him. I was kind of hoping Todd would help Letterman with a brand-new bit: "Will It Heal?"
P.P.P.S. "Because, you know, all unwed mothers are sluts, except for Letterman's wife." Well, he did marry her... once his son hit kindergarten.
Posted by Jim Treacher at June 11, 2009 11:24 AM