Palin’s statements on Letterman are from 3:15 to 9:40
There’s been some back and forth between David Letterman and the Palin family that we missed until it reached fever pitch. Sarah Palin appeared on The Today Show this morning to express how upset she is that David Letterman cracked a lewd joke, possibly about her younger daughter, Willow.
Letterman made a joke on Monday night about Palin’s daughter’s attendance at a Yankee’s game. He joked that Alex Rodriguez got Palin’s daughter pregnant, but he didn’t mention which daughter he was referring to, and later claimed he assumed that Bristol, Palin’s daughter who also happens to be an 18 year-old mother, was at the game. Only Willow, 14, was there though. Letterman said “One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game, during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.”
Todd Palin then responded in a statement calling the joke “sexually perverted,” and “disgusting”. He claimed statements like that “contribute to the atrociously high rate of sexual exploitation of minors by older men.” Last night on his show Letterman clarified that he thought he was referring to 18 year-old teen mother Bristol, not Willow, and he would never joke like that about an underage girl:
“Concerning Letterman’s comments about my young daughter (and I doubt he’d ever dare make such comments about anyone else’s daughter): ‘Laughter incited by sexually-perverted comments made by a 62-year-old male celebrity aimed at a 14-year-old girl is not only disgusting, but it reminds us some Hollywood/NY entertainers have a long way to go in understanding what the rest of America understands – that acceptance of inappropriate sexual comments about an underage girl, who could be anyone’s daughter, contributes to the atrociously high rate of sexual exploitation of minors by older men who use and abuse others.’ ”
Todd Palin added: “Any ‘jokes’ about raping my 14-year-old are despicable. Alaskans know it and I believe the rest of the world knows it, too.”
Letterman responded last night by saying that the joke was aimed at 18-year-old Bristol Palin, not Willow: “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.”
[From ABCnews]
On her appearance on the Today Show, Palin said Letterman’s excuse that he thought that he was talking about Bristol was a convenient one and that he shouldn’t be able to get away with saying that. She said jokes in that vein contribute to a culture in which statutory rape is acceptable. She also claimed she wouldn’t want Willow to be around Letterman, implying that he might hit on her. Palin did backtrack a little on that statement, though:
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said Friday that “Late Night” host David Letterman “crossed the line” when he joked about her daughters.
“I would like to see him apologize to young women across the country” for contributing to a culture “that says it’s OK to talk about statutory rape,” Palin told Matt Lauer on TODAY. “It’s not cool; it’s not funny.”
During his opening monologue on CBS’ “Late Night” Monday, Letterman poked fun at Palin’s visit with her family to a New York Yankees game this past weekend. “There was one awkward moment during the seventh inning stretch,” Letterman said. “Her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.”
Letterman also said the hardest part about the Palins’ trip to New York was “keeping [former New York Gov.] Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter.”
“I don’t find it humorous,” Palin said Friday. Speaking by satellite from Texas, where she’s championing a $26 billion natural gas energy pipeline for her home state, Palin criticized “acceptance of a celebrity being able to get away with a disparaging comment that does erode a young girl’s self-esteem and does contribute to some of the problems we have in society.”
Letterman did give an apology of sorts later in the week when it became clear that it was Palin’s younger daughter, Willow, 14, who had come to town — not Willow’s older sister, Bristol, who has broken up with the father of her infant son. But Palin declined Letterman’s offer to appear on his show, saying “it would be wise to keep Willow away from” him.
On TODAY Friday, Lauer asked the governor if she had been implying that Willow would not be safe around the late-night comedian. “Take it however you want to take it,” Palin replied. “It was a comment that came from the heart.”
“Hey, it’s not in bad taste,” the governor added. “Maybe he couldn’t be trusted because Willow has had enough of these kinds of antics, and maybe she would want to react in a way that would take him off guard.”
[From MSNBC]
Palin has a point that it’s not funny to joke about young girls in that way. I can see why she got upset no matter which daughter Letterman was referring to, but to make the logical leap that jokes like that contribute to statutory rape is a little much. Still, you can understand why people are protective of their children and don’t want obnoxious, sexually suggestive jokes made about them to the whole world. Maybe the Palins could have left it at their initial statement and decided to let the feud with Letterman drop instead of continuing it. I think it’s a little much, but I’m not in their position and they have very conservative values. They surely are offended and want people to know that this is unacceptable.
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