Willow Weep For Me

This Letterman-Palin fracas has been going on a week and I think it's getting out of hand. Tonight, Letterman--for the second time--apologized. (Some said he didn't mean it the first time.)

It started when he told a couple jokes about Sarah Palin, who was visiting New York at the time. In particular, this one:



It's tasteless and stupid and not that funny. But it probably would have been better if everyone had just shaken it off.

A few points:

1) I admit I don't know what the taste standard should be in these cases. It depends so much on context. (I'm not talking about censorship, just standards.)

2) Is Dave doing this for ratings, as some have claimed, especially now that he's in a new race against Conan? I doubt it. The joke was just one of many and he probably didn't think it would get any special attention. The controversy started because of the reaction. I'd guess Dave was startled and annoyed that people were making such a big deal of it. When it got to the level that people were demanding his dismissal, it's not surprising he'd discuss it.

3) Is the outrage from Palin and her supporters real? I can't look into their hearts, but it seems these days that 95% of our nation's political dialogue is manufactured outrage. I'm not saying people don't believe they're outraged. Just that so many have gotten used to the idea that the other side is so horrible that it's justifiable to be angry all the time.

4) Dave's live audience is on his side. I don't think that makes a difference (and I think he's smart enough to know it doesn't).

5) Some are still saying the joke was about Palin's 14-year-old Willow (who was at the game). No way. The joke doesn't make sense unless it's about Bristol. (Not that this makes the joke acceptable.)

6) Sarah Palin has certainly been attacked a lot, often unfairly. But that's part of playing in the big leagues. The question is what to do when your family gets it. Politicians regularly declare their spouse and kids out of bounds, which makes sense--unless they become news or, more often, are used by the politicians to further their careers. So it was perfectly reasonable for Palin to comment (though it's often best just to rise above it). But that should have been it. If you try to blow up this sort of issue into more than it is--saying it's an attack on women, claiming it tells us something about the state of our culture, etc--it may play well with the base, but can make the accuser look opportunistic or foolish.

7) For a long time Dave has been making stupid, false-premise jokes about politicians, and in the last few years he's gone after Bush and then Palin so harshly it sometimes seems he's lost his sense of humor. But what I'm actually more offended by is how he treats Obama with kid gloves.