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i see the pile on sarah palin shit parades are still popular….

By American Girl in Italy on June 11, 2009 at 11:31 AM in Media Handling of Story, Media, Television, Misogyny, Sara in Italy, Sarah Palin, Sexism

Having recently returned from vacation, I am trying to catch up on all things political. As my title states, I see the attacks on Sarah Palin are still quite popular. Dang, has any woman ever posed such a threat to so many that she, and her children, were subjected to such public attacks?

From No Looking Backwards:

“Call It a Hunch…

…but, I have to think that if Barack Obama had taken his daughters to a Washington Wizards game, and a conservative television personality made a joke about one of them getting raped and impregnated at halftime by Antawn Jamison, that person might be in the middle of a major shitstorm right about now.”



From Jim Treacher’s Blog:

“Okay. Most of the attention is going toward Letterman’s “slutty flight attendant” crack, but this one is actually worse.

At first I thought “her daughter” referred to Bristol. Which would be a pretty crappy joke to make about somebody’s kid, no matter how much you disagree with the parents’ politics (or mere existence, apparently). But it’d still be fair game. After all, Bristol did what she did. That’s not to say she should be happy about over-the-hill comedians getting cheap laughs from her mistakes, but hey, that’s comedy.

The thing is, that joke isn’t about Bristol: Palin brought her 14-year-old daughter Willow to the Yankees game with her.

That’s right: A state governor went to a baseball game with her underage daughter, and a national talk show host made a joke about the girl being sexually assaulted by one of the players.

I realize I’m just an inbred backwoods moron who can’t abide by any criticism of Sarah Palin whatsoever, but is this really the precedent we want to set for our politicians and their families?

After all, Samson Obama, one of the president’s many half-brothers, isn’t allowed in the UK because he tried to assault a 13-year-old girl. Are we to impose the Letterman standard there?”

Can you imagine the reaction if jokes were made about Sasha and Malia? Letterman is attacking the 14 year old daughter of a sitting U.S. Governor on national TV, and getting away with it. Letterman can’t contain his hatred for Sarah Palin, and he has gone too far.

Letterman had a funny bit during the Bush years called Great Moments in Presidential Speeches, and he has PLENTY of material to continue that bit with Obama and Biden. Instead he chooses to attack Palin and her children.

I wonder how he would feel if people started making fun of his kid, or his wife Regina?

And surprise, surprise, the joke was somehow left out of the transcript… Apparently they realized how disgusting it actually was.

As if comparing Palin to herpes wasn’t bad enough….

Well, I guess we can definitely say that times have indeed changed.

UPDATE: Apparently Letterman didn’t get enough Monday night. Here he is last night:

Really? He couldn’t leave 14 year old Willow alone? She has to worry about Spitzer going after her, because he goes after prostitutes? So Willow is a prostitute?

Comments from the Palins:

“Any ‘jokes’ about raping my 14-year-old are despicable. Alaskans know it and I believe the rest of the world knows it, too.”

- Todd Palin

“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, contribute to the atrociously high rate of sexual exploitation of minors by older men who use and abuse others.’”

- Governor Sarah Palin

UPDATE 2: Letterman responds, the video is here. Here is an exerpt of his pathetic excuse from Entertainment Weekly.

“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 says on tonight’s show. “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.” Saying he hopes he’s “cleared part of this up,” Letterman extended an invitation to Palin to come on the show as a guest.

He didn’t hear from Alex or Elliot because they aren’t 14 years old. And it isn’t ok if these jokes were intended for Bristol either. And frankly, as a former flight attendant, calling Sarah Palin a slutty flight attendant isn’t ok either.