I commented the other day about David Letterman's bad case of "Palin Derangement Syndrome" and criticized him for crossing the line between humour and savage attacks on women that no one should find the least bit funny. Here is Jill Stanek's blog with both the video of the apology and a transcript.
He still maintains that he never intended to make a joke about the 14 year old, Willow, but only about the 18 year old, Bristol, as if it is pefectly fine to joke about the sexual lives of 18 year olds as a way of getting at their mother. Maybe that is the moral standard of the crowd he runs in. And he clearly still despises Sarah Palin, as evidenced by the fact that there was no apology for the "slutty flight attendant" slur.
Nevertheless, Palin graciously accepted the apology on behalf of young women like her daughters who were offended. I think she was more than gracious to do so. I think I would have let him stew in his juices. A lot of fathers are definitely going to be less gracious than Sarah Palin has been about the whole thing.
What is most telling in all of this is that at least one CBS advertiser has pulled its ads and there have been numerous calls to fire Letterman, who just happens to be on the cusp of signing a contract extension with CBS. So it looks like he took a week to "find religion" on this and that in the end money talked. So he calculated that some humble pie in return for his millions in salary was a good deal for him. I still don't think he cares about women or integrity or modesty or crudity. He has come out of this looking worse and worse.
Sarah Palin, on the other hand, looks more confident and like someone you can picture wiping the floor with scum like Letterman. And that only boosts her stock. All those "Feminists" who looked the other way during this little episode are big losers in terms of credibility, along with Letterman.
One last point; there was obviously a well-organized campaign to respond to this incident and it was lightning fast getting out of the gate. That is an interesting development that the pros won't fail to note. The next media thug who assumes Sarah is an easy target might just wait until after his contract is signed and the money in the bank. That isn't much, but it is progress.
Quick Update:
The Times of London nails this story with its headline: "Letterman Forced Into Palin Apology."
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11 comments:
I understand that what Letterman did is disgusting and wrong, but you seem to be rallying around this woman as a Christian hero. Have you seen some quotes from her pastors?
"critics of President Bush will be banished to hell" "[Jesus] operated from that position of war mode."
"I believe Alaska is one of the refuge states in the last days, and hundreds of thousands of people are going to come to the state to seek refuge and the church has to be ready to minister to them."
Not to mention the fact that Palin herself has been caught in numerous lies. Most disgusting of all, she recklessly exploits her children (especially Bristol and her pregnancy) and her position as a mother for political gain. Insulting anyone is wrong, but let's not turn this woman into a saint.
Do you have a source for that quote or did you make it up?
Numerous lies? Which ones? Why no facts here, just baseless accusations?
Palin did absolutely nothing to exploit her children for political purposes. The media (especially Andrew Sullivan who was wierdly obsessed with Palin) make a splashy story out of Bristol's pregnancy apparently believing that this would destroy Palin's support among Evangelicals. But that just shows how out of touch with middle America the media elite is. They actually believed their own caricatures of Evangelicals. When James Dobson commended Bristol for resisting the abortion temptation and the Palin family for supporting her, the liberal media went ballistic. Ever since they have accused Palin of exploiting her family for political gain even though it was the liberal media that made her family an issue by trying to destroy the McCain-Palin ticket by attacking Palin through her children. To accuse her of doing what they actually did is dispicable and twisted and it must be condemned and repudiated by all honest people.
Finally, it is not just "saints" or "Christian heros" who deserve not to have their children attacked by the media; everyone deserves that.
I believe you have caught a case of Palin Derangement Syndrome.
Wow. I'm somewhat surprised by your intensely vitriolic response. As I said in my comment, what Letterman did was wrong and should be condemned. I merely pointed out some serious issues with this woman.
Even a cursory google search will bring up numerous troubling quotes from Palin and her pastor, but I did the work for you and her are some links:
http://www.wasillaag.net/all.html
http://www.alternet.org/rights/97939/?page=entire
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/02/palins-church-may-have-sh_n_123205.html
Another cursory search will bring up many of her lies, including famously being against the bridge to nowhere after she was for it. Here's a couple pages for you:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_biden-palin_debate.html
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/whats_the_full_story_on_the_bridge.html
As to exploiting her family, I'm shocked that I even need to back that up. But here's just one example: She signed up to run for VP of the US while touting abstinence only sex education (which I agree with btw) while her daughter was pregnant. Not only that but she dragged her whole family on stage for almost every single political rally and she forced her daughter to cover up her pregnant belly at every single one.
I don't know how a loving mother could put their daughter through that whole situation, knowing that there was going to be a media feeding frenzy about it (I'm not justifying the media's response, it too was wrong, but Palin knew what she was getting into.)
Let me say this again, since you missed it twice in my first comment. What Letterman said was wrong and deserves to be condemned. Now, are you going to dedicate a post to condemning the damage that Palin's theological mingling of christianity with American imperialism is doing to American Christianity?
Feel free to retract your inflammatory Palin Derangement Syndrone comment. I will graciously accept your apology.
Well, I'm shocked that you are shocked. Where to begin. You claim that what the media did to her family was wrong but you also say that she should have refused to run for office because her daughter was pregnant. I don't know quite what to make of that. It seems to make her responsible for the irresponsible actions of the media (not to mention of her daughter). If you are accusing her of failing to "protect" her children, are you thereby saying that all parents of children in trouble need to resign from politics? Or is it only politicians that the liberal media declare war on? Biden's kids have not been problem-free, should he have run? Why didn't the media just leave her family alone like they did the Obama and Biden families? The media didn't even focus on McCain's dispicable divorce of his dying wife many years ago (which was worse than anything in the Biden or Palin families because it was done by the candidate himself). But Palin alone is fair game. Why? Could it have anything to do with the fact that she is the only female among the four candidates?
You also seem to think it is a problem to have a teenager who made a mistake and got pregnant and at the same time hold to abstinance education. Why? Do you think that only perfect people can legitimately support abstinance education? I am really having a hard time following you here. Palin never said what her daughter did was right. What part of supporting your kid when she makes a mistake is not comprehensible? There is a difference between condoning and loving the person but not the behaviour.
Her family was on stage at some (not most) rallies, but no more so that the Obama, Biden, and McCain families. Why the double standard? Why is it OK for them but not her? Because she had a pregnant daughter? Do you think unmarried, pregnant women should go into isolation like they did a hundred years ago? And their parents should withdraw from public life until the birth of the baby? or forever?
It seems to me that you are blaming the victim. How many times do we hear statements like: "She shouldn't have made him angry, so she is partially responsible for the abuse." And it is abuse that we are talking about here. This is the kind of discrimination women have yet to overcome and it is being perpetuated by the liberal media that likes to take bows for being "feminist." That is the hypocrisy here.
I'll get to your point in a minute, but should I assume from your silence that you have ceded the points about the dangerous nature of her theology and the widespread lying that she has exhibited?
Of course not. I'd have to consider your points one by one and I don't have the time now. There are better ways to determine her theology than to quote her pastor - or do you accept that Barack Obama is a black liberationist like his pastor?
You know, my point was not that Sarah Palin has no faults. I was ripping the media and especially David Letterman's treatment of her. I find it curious that you could not just agree, but had to use my concern to bring in an attack on her. I think this is a deliberate tactic.
First off. I think a more appropriate analogy would be a woman that knows that her husband is abusing their children and yet refuses to do anything about it. Sarah Palin knew that the media would attack her family, esp. because of her extremely vocal "pro-family" stance. With that knowledge she thrust her daughter into the limelight (she couldn't wait 4 years?). You may not think there is anything wrong with that. I do. We disagree.
I do agree with you that you can't make definitive statements about someone's theology based on quotes from their pastor. But the community that someone chooses to surround themselves with at least some something, does it not? Obama may not be a liberation theology, but it certainly is cause for concern that he attended that church for so long.
Finally, let me address my "deliberate tactics". I scrolled down to your side navigation and in 4 posts on Sarah Palin you have made several positive comments including:
"I admire Sarah Palin as a person and she is definitely a symbol of middle America. I admire her beliefs, her tenacity and her cheerfulness in the face of stuff most of us could not put up with."
My "tactic" was to draw attention to the fact that you are writing statements that indicate no reservation in your support of her. The only criticism I've gathered from your posts so far is your concern that she may not be able to win the presidential election in 2012 (but she has the evil 'liberals' on the run).
I find it odd that someone who claims to hold to a Yoderian view of church and state seems to give carte blanche approval to Sarah Palin, who has said that the war in Iraq is a "task from God."
footnote here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2ypVSYoEKA
The comments you quoted that I made about Sarah Palin are clearly made in admiration of her personally, not of her policies. You can't seem to see any distinction here can you? Can't you admire someone you disagree with? Or are all political debates ad hominum all the way down for you?
I certainly admire her evangelical faith, which I share. And when she is attacked by anti-women and anti-Evangelical thugs, as a father of two girls and as an Evangelical Christian I identify with her.
What I notice is that liberals are eager to turn a discussion of liberal attacks on women into a partisan debate. This distracts attention from the main issue and I think that indicates something deeply pathological. We should be able to follow the example of the PUMA-PAC, which is devoted to Hilary Clinton, but which has spoken up for Sarah Palin without any partisan distractions at all.
See:
http://pumapac.org/2009/06/15/letterman-apologizes/
The reactionary nature of a blog comment does not lend itself to civil discourse. That said, I should have been more tempered in my original comment. But for you to claim that I'm all ad hominem after accusing me of lying and calling me deranged reminds me of a quote from Don Quixote, "You are like what is said that the frying-pan said to the kettle, 'Avant, black-browes'." Also, does someone's beliefs not affect their policy?
I think that to some extent you are right that she was attacked more viciously by certain people because of her christian self identification. However, I disagree with your claim that it is a 'liberal' media bias that leads to this. The overwhelming bias in American media is the desire to attain more viewers and thus to drive advertising. This is equally true of MSNBC and Fox News.
Additionally, what I notice is that many christians in circles that I run in have very low standards when it comes to praising politicians who self identify as christian. Therefore, in my context, your silence on Palin's policies indicated approval. If that is not true in your context, I apologize.
p.s. isn't Puma Pac the group that switched from supporting Hillary Clinton to Sarah Palin during the election? Wikipedia tells me so, so it must be true.
I think you are right about ratings driving the media to a very great extent. However, I think that to the extent that personal bias shows through it mostly tends to be liberal. There is also a class thing going on, however, with Palin. She is considered lower middle class by Yuppies anxious to disguise their own class origins and fit into the NY - LA upper classes.
The reason the Palin situation is so unusual and fascinating to me is that I think the medea bias was so strong in this particular case that it over-rode their natural interests in a couple of ways. During the campaign, some Obama supporters realized that more piling on was just creating sympathy for Palin and tried to tamp it down - only to fail. The people - like Kieth Olberman - who were attacking Palin really wanted Obama to win yet were putting that in jeaprody by attacking Palin. Yet it seemed like they couldn't help themselves. It also made people like me come to believe in extreme liberal media bias. I never saw it so clearly before, but faced with this phenomenon I had to admit that the conservatives were not making it up. This hurt the mainstream media big time at a time when alternative media (blogs etc.) were posing a credible alternative.
What we are seeing now is the release of pent up anger that did get stifled during the campaign. But the fascinating question is "what make liberals so crazy when she pops up?" It is really amazing and fascinating.
The PUMA group is made up of hard core Hilary supporters who want Obama to fail so Hilary can take over. They are feminists and very mad at the Democratic Party establishment. But they don't have a conservative bone in their bodies and for them to say anything nice about Palin is as difficult as it would be for Evan Thomas to stop worshipping the One.
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