Put your political party aside for a moment and watch this 42 second clip of David Letterman cracking a joke about Sarah Palin’s 14-year-old daughter, Willow:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5g8kE_g-YA&feature=player_embedded
Regardless of the intent of the “joke” or the parties involved, this is not funny. I think Sarah Palin’s response was very fitting.
“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 are not only disgusting, but they remind us Hollywood has 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.'”
Agreed. I was never a huge Letterman fan and now I’m thoroughly disgusted. David clearly has no respect for women or in this case children. If anyone is interested in complaining, here are some companies that support his show:
TV.com, Lifelock, TransUnion, Bowflex, M&M’s (Mars Candy), EBay, Best Western, On The Border Restaurants, Ancestry.com, Intel, Capitol One, Embassy Suites .
Or contact CBS directly:
Kim Sartori
Director, Communications
CBS Television Studios
kim.sartori@cbs.com
15 comments
gretchen
I didn’t say people shouldn’t be held accountable. I said they make mistakes. At the time of this posting, Letterman had not apologized. He has since issued an apology, whether he was sincere in that, I’ll let you be the judge. As for Leno – I don’t hold him to any higher or lower standard. I don’t personally watch these shows.
My purpose in posting this to begin with is because the comment is derogatory to women. “Knocked up” refers to a women’s physical state…there isn’t an equivalent term for the male who participated. It’s women who bear the consequences and the labels. My goal is to point that out on my site as much as possible to help others become aware of what we women accept as “the norm”.
Jessica
Then why should be hold David Letterman accountable for what he did. That joke was in the past. Jay Leno has made similar jokes (reference to John Edwards being in trouble that Bristol Palin was pregnant)
gretchen
We’re straying from the topic here, but I will indulge. That link is not what I would deem a trustworthy source. In fact, if you Google select lines from that “article” it shows that that site is the only place it appears, meaning it was not an associated press news story which would show up in multiple places on the Internet – it’s someone’s pathetic satire on the situation. Nowhere did I ever find an article stating Bush admitted to anything.
I’m not trying to defend Bush or Palin here, but human beings are not perfect. Every single one of us makes mistakes and even change our viewpoints as we get older. I can name quite a few things that grew up believing that I have since changed my mind about. That’s how we learn and mature.
Holding people to things that happened in the past is pointless. We need to look at a person as a whole and then see how their character lines up. We can’t let a few mistakes or differing viewpoints skew the entire picture. Just my two cents. :)>-
Jessica
http://www.bettybowers.com/newsbush.html
Even former President Bush admits that it is true.
Jessica
They aren’t rumors. Do some research. They are true.
Ericka
Jessica,
It would also help your arguments if you stuck to facts instead of unsubstantiated rumors such as those you mentioned about Bush. It weakens the points you were trying to make.
gretchen
“A man shouldn’t be considered a sex offender unless the girl who also decided to have sex is a sex offender as well.” But it does work both ways. If the male is a minor and the female is an adult, it’s still rape. Rape isn’t always a violent, horrible act and our laws are far from perfect. But the laws do exist and whoever the “adult” is in the situation should have the maturity to walk away or stop when the other person is underage.
I am a firm believer that teens are not emotionally ready to make those kinds of decisions. They may think they are so they call it “consensual” but physically consenting and emotionally consenting are two different issues. ;)
Jessica
I agree that they are not mature enough and neither are 17 year olds. I just don’t think that if a young girls decides to have sex should be considered equal to a man attacking and raping a girl. Those are two different things. A man shouldn’t be considered a sex offender unless the girl who also decided to have sex is a sex offender as well.
Laws are made by people and people can be wrong.
gretchen
Jessica that is in entirely your opinion on whether it should be considered rape and not all fourteen year olds are mature enough to make those kinds of decisions. By law, it is still rape.
Jessica
Look, this joke is not about rape. David Letterman said “knocked up” not “rape”. Fourteen year olds do have consensual sex and regardless if the person is above age, it should not be considered rape if it is consensual.
Also, Sarah Palin gave Bristol the choice of having an abortion, but Sarah claims to be a pro-life candidate. So her daughter deserves that choice, but not ALL women? Sounds double-sided to me, just like George W. Bush who was 24, got a 15 year old pregnant and paid for her to have an abortion in 1971 when abortions were still illegal. GWB considers himself to be pro-life and at that time his dad was also running as a pro-life candidate.