There's been quite a stink over David Letterman's ill-judged and offensive joke about Sarah Palin's daughter getting "knocked up" by Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees. I initially took it as a reference to Bristol Palin, who is now 18 and has a young baby.
Turns out though that the daughter who did accompany Governor Palin to the Yankees was Willow Palin, who's 14. Letterman has taken a lot of flak and few, even on the Left, have been prepared to stick up for him with any conviction.
So Dave has apologised. Kind of. Sort of. Well, hardly at all really.
He didn't mean it to refer to Willow at all, he insisted. He was talking about Bristol. So is it OK to make that joke about an 18-year-old but not a 14-year-old? Well, it's not as bad but it's still pretty grubby. My hunch is that some half-wit wrote the joke for him and Letterman himself didn't really notice - or care much - whether it was Bristol or Willow. Either one was a cipher to get at the Alaska governor.
"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 said.
"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."
He then invited Palin to appear on his show. Good luck with that Dave. Oh, and he made no mention of calling Palin a "slutty flight attendant". |