Dann Todd's 'Dain Bramage'^**

Credit Where It Is Due - Round II

The ongoing Letterman/Palin saga continues. Mr. Letterman apologized to the Palin's on his Monday night broadcast.

"And then I was watching the Jim Lehrer 'Newshour' - this commentator, the columnist Mark Shields, was talking about how I had made this indefensible joke about the 14-year-old girl, and I thought, 'Oh, boy, now I'm beginning to understand what the problem is here. It's the perception rather than the intent.' It doesn't make any difference what my intent was, it's the perception. And, as they say about jokes, if you have to explain the joke, it's not a very good joke. And I'm certainly - " ... "- thank you. Well, my responsibility - I take full blame for that. I told a bad joke. I told a joke that was beyond flawed, and my intent is completely meaningless compared to the perception. And since it was a joke I told, I feel that I need to do the right thing here and apologize for having told that joke. It's not your fault that it was misunderstood, it's my fault. That it was misunderstood." ... "Thank you. So I would like to apologize, especially to the two daughters involved, Bristol and Willow, and also to the Governor and her family and everybody else who was outraged by the joke. I'm sorry about it and I'll try to do better in the future. Thank you very much."

Now he gets it. I wonder how many people that thought the Palins were humorless and that anyone else complaining about this was oversensitive will get it, too.

For those paying attention to the last 30+ years, we have been repeatedly lectured regarding appropriate and inappropriate comments. The reasoning behind those lectures is that regardless of the speaker's intent, if the comments were perceived as harmful by the object or recipient, then they were in fact harmful. Describing those comments as humor was not an acceptable defense.

That has been the basis for ending academic and professional careers [along with many lesser punishments] for the last 30 years or so. Being 'edgy' with respect to race or gender is no longer acceptable if the targets of that 'edginess' are not white and male.

Here's the part that has been overlooked of late: Much of those changes were needed and beneficial. Degrading humor, such as Mr. Letterman's joke that started this mess, adds little to our culture. It does not build a better society.

It is a hard lesson to learn and there are times when old habits die hard. Which is a polite way of saying that having been raised in a culture where such humor was more acceptable, I struggle with keeping my teeth behind my lips from time to time when similar opportunities arise today.

The only problem is that such a standard seems to be applied unevenly. White males can be the subject of such humor without any expectation of concern. And as we have seen over the last week, being a Republican can also leave one open to some pretty disgusting commentary as well.

In a country that has been struggling for well over two hundred years to have a single standard for all people, the presence of such an obvious double standard ought to be more troubling than it apparently is.

At any rate, Mr. Letterman finally "got it". His intent in telling the joke is irrelevant if the perception of the joke is offensive. Good on him for understanding....eventually.

by Dann 

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More From John Cox

I love this guy. Here's a whole page of these things.

by Dann 

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And Now A Word....

....from John Adams.

by Dann 

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A Little Self Control Problem

I had a little problem maintaining my self control last night. After everyone else had gone to bed, I went down to the lake to wash my fishing lures. I was doing the one at a time. That fancy pole and reel were a real big help!

While I'm busy cleaning up my lunker busters, this woman pulls up to the park. The most repeatable phrase out of her mouth was "We're here. Now hurry up, get in the water, get wet, and have fun or we are going straight home! Don't run in the [bleeping] road! You idiot!"

I...and her two sons....were treated to about ten minutes of that.

On the one hand, I really wanted to tell her to knock it off. They were just kids that wanted to go for a swim.

On the other hand, confronting her in front of her kids would undermine her authority with the one that [apparently...I didn't see much of a problem] gives her a hard time. Plus that puts him in the position of being the reason for of her being confronted publicly.

If she had swung one of them with the same anger that was in her words, then I would have called the cops.

I'm not going to feel good about this anytime soon.

by Dann 

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What Double Standard?

I'm not sure which news item is the bigger piece of news. The first story of interest is that David Letterman finds that the topic of molesting 14 year old girls is a suitable area to make jokes. He also seems to believe that calling women "slutty" in the absence of any evidence in support of that label to be the height of hilarity. Mr. Letterman must not listen to much of the Imus in the Morning show.

The second story of interest is that American feminists and the vast majority of the American left are hypocrites of Titanic proportions. Having treated America to serial lectures and diatribes regarding the past inappropriate perceptions of the distaff gender, having provided the country with the model for treating women in a civilized and equitable manner, they have remained quiet regarding this nationalized sexual slandering of this woman and her daughter.

The subject of Mr. Letterman's sophomoric attempt at humor is none other than Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin....and her 14 year old daughter.

During a recent monologue, Mr. Letterman 'joked' that as a part of her recent visit to New York City, Mrs. Palin had gone shopping so as to update her "slutty flight attendant look".

He then went on to suggest that when Mrs. Palin and her daughter.....14 year old Willow....attended a Yankees baseball game, Miss Willow had become preggers courtesy of Alex Rodriguez. <Rimshot!> Statutory rape! What a gasser! How special Willow must feel to have her sexuality and morals become the subject of national humor. What an accomplishment for a 14 year old! I imagine that she just can't wait to get back to school this fall to see how this improves her social standing.

Parenthetically, how must Mr. Rodriguez and the Yankees organization feel about being associated with molesting teenage girls?

The response from American feminists?

Silence

The response from the American left? After years of preaching to the rest of the country about the ills of misogyny resulting from a maleandrocentric culture?

"He didn't mean it. The Palins have no sense of humor."

I'm sorry....I couldn't hear you. One more time?

"He didn't mean it. The Palins have no sense of humor."

Ah. And why should anyone take them seriously every again?

The second link above offers a little turn-about-is-fair-play using daughters from the Obama and Biden families as examples. The obvious different between that author and Mr. Letterman is that Mr. Letterman wasn't trying to illustrate inappropriate commentary. He was seeking to embody inappropriate commentary. On the other hand, Jim Treacher obviously thinks no one should be joking about molesting little girls.

But apparently that sort of concern only matters when you...or someone close to you...puts a "D" behind their name. "R's" need not apply for such consideration.

UPDATE: As promised in the comments, we have an update on this bit of bloviatary.

Right of off the bat, I have to give credit where it is due. The National Organization for Women thought that Mr. Letterman's performance was good enough to get him into their Hall of Shame. Good on 'em.

With no qualifiers or extraneous commentary. [from me]

As Sherwood pointed out, there are lots of rank and file folks on the left that don't find that sort of thing funny. But the leadership on the left? Daily Kos? Olbermann? [Who I do enjoy watching from time to time even if he makes me want to scream.] Mrs. Pelosi? Mr. Reid? ABC? NBC? CBS? CNN?

Their responses ran from utter silence to almost verbatim what I posted above. Inexcusable.

James Lileks had some interesting thoughts worth sharing.

Yes, reading too much into it. Really, it’s just a rote slam: If your mother is a loathed politician, and your older sister gets pregnant, famous old men can make jokes about you being knocked up by rich baseball players, and there’s nothing you can do. That’s the culture: a flat, dead-eyed, square-headed old man who’ll go back to the writers and ask for more Palin-daughter knocked-up jokes, because that one went over well. Other children he won’t touch, but not because he’s decent. It’s because he’s a coward.

Sometimes humor is used to cut through the confusion and deflate those that are in dire need of deflating. At other times it becomes the coward's cudgel that is used to get in a few rhetorical swats at the target whereupon the humorist backs off and says "Oh hey! You ought to get a sense of humor! It was a joke! You should laugh like everyone else!". And thus their target has no option except to look like a fool or sound like a fool.

Every once in a while, such situations can justify a beat down for the coward. Sometimes crossing the line ought to have consequences.

James continues -

Oh, one more thing: it’s okay for David to say that because someone said something else about someone, and since I didn’t write about that, I’m a hypocrite. Just so we’re clear.

I suppose that makes me a hypocrite as well.

Although as long as we're on the subject of commentary about female public figures, would whoever is talking about strange odors and Judge Sotomayor and her monthly period please knock it off. That goes double for the folks trying to call her a racist. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to oppose the nomination of such a mediocre Supreme Court nominee. Stick to those instead.

Looks like I'm going to bed grumpy after all. Congrats to the Pittsburgh Penguins on winning the Stanley Cup.

by Dann 

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