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Letterman's Lame Non-Apology -UPDATED

Letterman's Lame Non-Apology -UPDATED

Last updated on: March 15, 2017 at 6:22 pm by Elizabeth Scalia

Letterman's Lame Non-Apology -UPDATED 2017-03-15T18:22:20+00:00 Elizabeth Scalia

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Hey, David Letterman wasn’t making sexual jokes about the 14-year old! He was just branding the 18-year old who, after all, “did get knocked up” and should therefore be forever caricatured as a slut by a 62 year-old progressive looking for adolescent laughs! And their mother looks slutty, too! Haw-haw! They’re all sluts, haw-haw!

So much for the progressive notions of “respect-for-women’s-choices” and the “tolerant” mantra that “teenagers-will-have-sex-so-what’s-the-big-deal.” I wonder how an “enlightened, progressive” sort like Letterman can reconcile those notions with his scornful reminder of the still-teenaged Bristol Palin’s terrible “sin” (shall we sew her a scarlet A?) and his willingness to subject her to sexual slurs and slutty innuendo.

I guess women-who-make-choices and teenagers-who-have-sex are only to be tolerated if they are the right sort of women and teenagers, i.e., coastal, progressive, wealthy and/or minority secular. If they are the wrong sort of women and teenagers, i.e., “fly-over,” “Christianist,” “wealthy-not-minority” well, then nothing matters but that they be diminished, de-humanized and destroyed for their choices and their sex lives. And if the perpetually adolescent bigots can hypocritically snigger about it at the same time, all the better.

In his eye-rolling, mocking non-apology to “these people” 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.”

No. He meant to suggest that when an 18 year-old gets “knocked up” (and has the bad taste not to abort the little inconvenience, so as to hide her actions) she is forever-fodder for a foole. She is forever a slut and therefore worthy of public mockery by the perpetually adolescent.

I wonder, if Letterman had a daughter who’d gotten pregnant and had the baby, if he’d want her made a national joke and “branded” in this way, or if he wouldn’t hope that the world could be just a little bit more respectful of a kid who did what so many kids do, and is living out the consequences of her actions in such a public way?

Letterman does have a little boy, whom he undoubtedly loves. When that boy is a teenager and makes the sort of stupid mistakes teenagers make, I expect Letterman will do everything in his power to make sure the family’s private business remains private. But if the news were to get out, I wonder if he would be cheerful about comedians using his kids mistakes for spiteful laughs.

Letterma’s lame, not particularly respectful non-apology to the Palins (who love their daughters at least as much as he loves his son) may be viewed over at Fausta’s place.

It seems CBS altered the transcripts of the original-joke Letterman show, before releasing them to the press.

Don Surber looks at how the left gets away with misogyny and bigotry while lecturing the rest of the world about it.

John Nolte: Has his own top ten list

Michelle Malkin: Wonders if Letterman would ever talk about Barack Obama’s daughters as he does Palin’s, and also whether he will teach his son to talk about women like this.

Victor Davis Hanson calls Letterman boor and a coward

Jim Geraghty, slightly O/T: Press delights in misquoting Sarah Palin. Egregious example.

UPDATE: There is talk of Boycotting Letterman’s advertisers. I think that’s way over the top, just as I think the emails I am getting saying “he should be fired” or “reported to the FCC” are overboard. We believe in free speech; I am not of a mind that anyone should be silenced simply because he’s an ignorant boor. And being a misogynist bigot is simply not enough to get a guy fired over; he’s gotta be a conservative, too. Leave the hysteria aside; disgust and mockery beats it, every time.

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