Letterman “Explains” His Rape Joke; Fails Miserably.
David Letterman came out with an explanation, via Andrew Malcolm, for why he thought raping a little girl and impregnating her would be thigh-slappingly funny. I’ll sum it up thus, “Geez. I was joking about the 18 year-old, not the 14 year-old. What kind of a sicko do you think I am?”
How about a colossally stupid one, Dave? That excuse would work if it weren’t for the fact that the daughter who was at the game, thus the one who was the target of the joke, was Willow, not her older sister, you bitter old buffoon.
But let’s all assume that Letterman is just an ignorant cue-card reader who had no idea which daughter Palin took to the game. That might — might — explain his rape joke the first night. I mean, hey, she has three daughters, right? There’s a 33 percent chance she took the one who isn’t a minor. Close enough for government work and hack joke-writing.
However, it doesn’t explain why, one night later, after the outrage about his first “joke” was already beginning to burn red hot, he made a prostitution “joke” about the same daughter. Am I suppose to believe that an egomaniac like Letterman was utterly clueless about the little firestorm he generated for well over a day? Then, I’m supposed to believe that not one of his writers heard or read anything about the joke the next day where they would have learned that the daughter at the game wasn’t the 18 year-old?
Nah. I think Letterman needs to do a lot better.
Take two, Dave. This time, give it some feeling, okay?
Other Posts of Interest:
- So, My Leftist Friends, Rape Jokes are In Play Now?
- Bristol Palin and the Deranged Progressive Left
- Ooooh…The Nutroots are Going to Play Hardball!
Category: Featured, Progressives, Sarah Palin
What difference does it make if the daughter is 14 or 18? Either way, its a horrible, sexist, awful thing to say.
I agree, though it's only a rape joke if he's telling it about the under aged girl, not the one who is a legal adult.
Since when is rape a joke? Ask any woman of any age that has been raped if they think the subject is a joking matter.
Where is NOW?
Jimmy, hopefully it's your wife or daughter next time that someone want to be funny. People like you make me sick.
Tim, what the hell are you talking about?
Do you all get this up in arms every time an off color joke is made by a celebrity? Seriously?
Nope. I don't mind off-color jokes. Jokes about someone raping a 14 year old girl? I mind those very much.
My question is, why don't you mind?
Shame on you Tim! Wishing ill on other's families. People like YOU make ME sick.
I thought comments were being moderated or something? Or is this one a free-for all and others arent?
No, comments are still moderated (though my moderating hand is generally light, as you know).
I let Tim's comment slide because I think it's possible that he's on our side of the issue but he badly misread my post. I hope he comes back to explain himself.
And thank you both for having my back!
Hey Tim.
When people like Jimmy make people like you sick.. Well, that makes my day.
Love the mock outrage from the Right. You actually had me on your side, since I thought the joke was crass, but the right wing tendency to pathologically lie and distort always makes it hard to unite. First, anyone who thinks he was talking about the 14-year-old is either a liar or an idiot. Since we know NOTHING of the 14-year-old, that simply wouldn't be funny. We DO know that A-Rod has a tendency to chase the ladies and that Bristol has a tendency to get knocked up. THAT's a joke. And you know that. And you're lying.
Ditto on the contant use of the word "rape" to describe the joke, despite the fact that rape is neither mentioned nor even implicitly implied in the comment. But, as usual, you think if you repeat it enough it will become part of the historical record. And don't give me "statutory rape," either, which is defined both by the law and common sense as a wholly separate crime. By the way- Levi was a statutory rapist- why no outrage that he was invited to pose at the GOP convention last year?
Letterman's joke was inappropriate and unfunny. Manufacturing fake issues and lying because you have nothing else going for your side is even MORE inappropriate and unfunny.
By the way, I love the explanation for not moderating Tim- "He's on our side of the issue." Way to out yourself as not being at all fair, balanced, or democratic as your side always claims it is.
Dude, I"m a blogger. I'm under no obligation to be balanced.
You're new to reading blogs, I take it?
I'll give you a hint. You have to read the post before you spew. If you had, you would have seen all your attempted rebuttals already addressed fully.
No Jimmie, AC Walker is absolutely right–and his dissection of your hysterical (in the original meaning of the term) analysis of this issue offers a good summary of just how morally overwrought-about-nothing conservatives such as yourself drive moderates to vote liberal. Because in no way do you confine that dynamic to trivial, overblown issues like this one.
You're much more guilty of "spewing" than he is, and you're flattering yourself to think that you've "addressed fully" the objections to your analysis.
And, your explanation for not moderating Tim is … well, again a good summary of what the Right is really all about. Though you flatter yourselves to think differently, you people really are no different, psychologically, from the idiots on the Left: Both sides only believe in free speech when it suits them. Way to go for outing yourself on that.
So, what you're saying is that you're good with a rape joke about a 14 year-old girl.
And, please, spare me the "He was talking about Bristol" garbage. Bristol wasn't even in the state. It wasn't exactly a closely-guarded secret that Willow was on the trip with her Mom, insofar as it had been reported in the news before Letterman told his first joke. As I said, even if he was ignorant enough of the facts to make the mistake once, I find it utterly unbelievable that he got it wrong two nights in a row. This is all in the post and your commenter ally down there got the facts wrong.
I dig that it's more convenient for you to believe Letterman's clumsy excuse. It means that you don't have to confront the misogyny that lurks close to the surface among progressives. I'm sure that Hillary Clinton, in an unguarded moment, could tell you a few things about how that works.
>>and that Bristol has a tendency to get knocked up. >>
So has Letterman's present wife. Guess she's fair game?
Thanks, but I read all of the posts above mine before I posted, as I always do, and none of them addressed my points. In fact, there you go again, immediately afterward, conflating "rape" with "statutory rape," and there you go again, not addressing the fact that, by your definition, former GOP poster child Levi Johnston is a "rapist."
And yes, I choose to believe his "flimsy excuse" because anyone with a sense of humor would have figured that out as his intention all along- as I pointed out, but which you chose not to address.
As a blogger, you have no duty to be fair and balanced- that is true. But I do wonder what the point of a blog is if you're only meant to be serving as an echo chamber. What exactly is gained by letting everyone who agrees with you speak and everyone who doesn't go silent? Are you familiar with fascism and the roots of it?
suck: Yes, she IS fair game, actually. Letterman and others have made several jokes about his wife, their baby, and the fact that the baby was born-out-of-wedlock.
However, the fact that the Lettermans were in a committed, monogamous relationship for well over a decade; that the pregnancy was planned; and that both parents were well within their financial, emotional, and mental capacities to raise a child is sort of different from two parents who, while living with their parents and not supporting themselves accidentally got impregnated because they didn't insist on using protection– two people who have openly given interviews about what a burden it is to have a child at their age. Or don't little distinctions like that make a difference to you?
Not really. Illegitimate is illegitimate. It seems more forgivable to me that two young people make a mistake than that two mature adults plan a pregnancy without the benefit of marriage.
If Palin's daughter had had an abortion, would you consider her still to be fair game?
Of course! She's the daughter of a Politician they hate: they ALWAYS have a bulls-eye on their heads.
I suppose that the advice to "keep Elliot Spitzer away from her" wasn't suggestive at all then? You know, keep her away from him since he might do something you don't want to happen to her? I think its pretty obvious where I'm going with this. 'Knocked up' by A-Rod, 'keep her away' from Elliot Spitzer, yeah. Plus, after the first day, you would imagine someone would've told him that he'd just made a joke about a 14 year old getting knocked up and backpedaled, but no.
Really, his 'excuse' was nothing more than him saying "I meant the joke about the one that wasn't underaged" OR "It doesn't matter who the joke is about, I was attacking Sarah Palin."
He's hiding behind the comedian label to get his slams in against politicians he doesn't agree with, just like John Leibowitz. But that's ok. We know cowards when we see them.
>>He’s hiding behind the comedian label to get his slams in against politicians he doesn’t agree with>>
That's one interpretation. The other is that he's a dirty old man who can't get his mind out of the gutter or this thoughts off young women young enough to be his granddaughters…
cheesecake: Interesting that you brought up the Spitzer joke. Spitzer was a disgraced Democrat, and nobody is getting upset about him being mocked. Eight years of CLinton jokes (including jokes about Chelsea from Limbaugh and others) didn't get your jockeys in a wad. But the Palins, apparently are off-limits. Hm.
suck: The fact that you think it's better for an unmarried teenage girl with no apparent skills or source of income (other than the money she is now receiving as a spokesperson, which I would wager makes her a public figure just like Mom) is a better "family" in this case than a loving mother and father says enough about your mentality and intellectual honesty to me that it's not worth arguing with you anymore. I thought Republicans thought the best families had a mother and a father? Guess not when they're Democrats, huh?
That's not quite the right characterization, I'm afraid–even from your example, it's more like people who agree get discussion and conversation, whereas those who disagree are ignored. Or, possibly, misinterpreted. Crying 'fascism' over that seems a bit of an overreaction…
>>The fact that you think it’s better for an unmarried teenage girl with no apparent skills or source of income (other than the money she is now receiving as a spokesperson, which I would wager makes her a public figure just like Mom) is a better “family” in this case than a loving mother and father>>
No mistakes allowed? You didn't answer the question about abortion. Does that mean that you think abortion should have been the young woman's decision rather than maintaining the pregnancy? Obama's mother should have made the same one?
Teens make mistakes. Lettermans'planned their pregnancy – but chose not to get married until _after_ the baby was born. Why? What was the point of getting married? Why plan a pregnancy without the expectation of the permanency of marriage? Why haven't they had a second child?
Children should ideally have two loving and responsible parents to raise them, and ideally, those two parents should be a male and a female. Given a choice between less than ideal and dead, I'd choose less than ideal. Therefore, I'd rather that Bristol carry the child to term than abort it. I'm sorry that she and the young man elected not to get marry as they had planned, but the fact is that the reality of a baby can force maturity on a young person, and maybe it's a better decision in the long run.
Do you think that all illegitimate pregnancies outside of marriage should be terminated?
I don't know- do you believe all people should argue points that have not been raised? So far you've brought up abortion and found time to condemn gay people, but you haven't actually commented on what I wrote, which was that I thought the joke was inappropriate, but that the people on your side are deliberately making it into something it wasn't in order to stir up your rapidly-dwindling "base."
Whether she aborted or not was her choice, legally, as was her decision to have the baby (well, not quite- I suspect any decisions that had to be made were made by her parents, the same way they have apparently made the decision that Levi is to have no role in the raising of his child. Even though Republicans always say that a child needs to be raised by two parents.)
Should I reiterate that I thought the joke was crass and unfunny, even inappropriate? No- why bother- you'll only keep making up arguments I DIDN'T make rather than addressing the ones I did. It's funny- I have conservative and Republican friends who know how to rationally argue without bringing in every straw man and false attribution on the books. Why aren't there any of them on the Blogosphere?