Just in. Letterman issues formal apology to Palin

[nomaco-10]

Just on CNN. Blitzer read it verbatim. I hope it puts an end to the subject once and for all and gets sarah palin off my tv.

There are a lot more important issues to be discussed such as health care here at home and international news about what is going on in Iran.

GO AWAY sarah. Just go away now. Your 15 minutes ran out a long time ago.

[NightWatcher]

1. she now has nothing more to say. He was the bigger person and completely made her look like a baby

I wonder what she and Gretta Van Facelift will find to complain about now?

[JerseygirlCT]

40. Agreed. nt

[Tangerine LaBamba]

2. Smart on Dave's part ........

Defang that attention whore and render the whole thing moot. Take a dive for the sake of shutting her up, and know that the whole country is behind you.

I'm gonna email Dave and tell him how much I like him.........

Edited to add the email I just sent to The Late Show:

Dear Dave,

I've enjoyed you for years and years, and I thought your Top Ten about Palin was a grand piece of comedy, just the kind of thing I expect from you and your show. I like smart, and you and your writers are smart.

That said, I just heard that you've issued an apology to Palin.

Good.

You do know, I trust, that you did not need to apologize for anything in that bit. She's an attention whore who was just desperate to capitalize on an imaginary slight - yeah, like she didn't have the unmarried teenage daughter. Right. Your joke about Yankee Stadium was spot on.

I'm glad you apologized, but I hope you didn't mean it. I'm going to pretend you did it for the smartest of reasons - to defang that bag and shut her up. I'm gonna be watching you, hoping you don't start to pull your punches, but, if you really want to piss her off, ignore her. Maybe she'll be forced to jump out of helicopters and strangle the moose herself instead of just shooting them, just to get a headline.

Dave, you did good, and I hope you keep on keeping on. That twit is meaningless, and, believe me, you are far more important to the good of America than Sarah Palin.

Thanks for all of it.


Your fan,

[Cha]

20. That's funny, Tangerine~

I'm sure Dave will get a kick out of it if he gets to read it..it's funnier than some of the writing on his show.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

23. Thank you, Cha ........ I amuse myself

I doubt he'll ever see it, but I hope it's just another check mark on the "Pro-Letterman" tally at CBS.

This whole thing is absurd, and the outrage I see from DUers - who are, for reasons that make no sense, taking Palin's side - is beyond absurd......................

[rvablue]

3. Yes, there are more important things to worry about. And Dave is probably more aware of that than

Governor Bible Spice, so he took the high road so that the cameras and microphones could again be trained on what matters most.

Good for him.

[marmar]

4. "Governor Bible Spice"

:rofl:

Minus the brains and talent.

[rvablue]

12. I've gotten some good laughs out of that one, but I can't take credit

Alec Baldwin coined the term....on the David Letterman show, I think!

[timeforpeace]

11. Now that's funny.

[MADem]

5. I'll be sure to watch Dave tonite! nt

[otohara]

6. Here's Statement

Letterman Apologizes — Again — to Governor Palin and Her Family
By Bill Carter

David Letterman directly apologized to Gov. Sarah Palin and her daughters on his program Monday night, saying he took responsibility for a joke that had offended Ms. Palin, her family, and her supporters.

Mr. Letterman opened the desk portion of his show with the apology in which he said he wanted to say he was sorry to “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.” Two weeks ago on his “Late Show” program on CBS, he had joked about Governor Palin attending a Yankee game with her daughter.http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/letterman-apologizes-again-to-governor-palin-and-her-family/?hp

[Fuzz]

7. What was said:

In tonight's show.

For the jokes.

The relevant part of the transcript, followed by the full one:

"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.” (audience applauds) “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. "


Letterman: “All right, here – I’ve been thinking about this situation with Governor Palin and her family now for about a week – it was a week ago tonight, and maybe you know about it, maybe you don’t know about it. But there was a joke that I told, and I thought I was telling it about the older daughter being at Yankee Stadium. And it was kind of a coarse joke. There’s no getting around it, but I never thought it was anybody other than the older daughter, and before the show, I checked to make sure in fact that she is of legal age, 18. Yeah. But the joke really, in and of itself, can’t be defended. The next day, people are outraged. They’re angry at me because they said, ‘How could you make a lousy joke like that about the 14-year-old girl who was at the ball game?’ And I had, honestly, no idea that the 14-year-old girl, I had no idea that anybody was at the ball game except the Governor and I was told at the time she was there with Rudy Giuliani…And I really should have made the joke about Rudy…” (audience applauds) “But I didn’t, and now people are getting angry and they’re saying, ‘Well, how can you say something like that about a 14-year-old girl, and does that make you feel good to make those horrible jokes about a kid who’s completely innocent, minding her own business,’ and, turns out, she was at the ball game. I had no idea she was there. So she’s now at the ball game and people think that I made the joke about her. And, but still, I’m wondering, ‘Well, what can I do to help people understand that I would never make a joke like this?’ I’ve never made jokes like this as long as we’ve been on the air, 30 long years, and you can’t really be doing jokes like that. And I understand, of course, why people are upset. I would be upset myself.

“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 – ” (audience applause) “– 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.” (audience applauds) “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.” (audience applause)

http://weblogs.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/blog/2009/06/bulletin_david_letterman_apolg.html

[rvablue]

14. Do you think she'll respond with even a sliver of the class shown here?

Or call off her pal the racist Zeigler who is organizing a protest tomorrow?

Probably not, as that would entail having some class and humility. But you never know.....

[Tangerine LaBamba]

26. That remora, Zeigler ............

There's a big part of this brouhaha right there - that little scumbucket is trying to get publicity for his Palin "documentary." Which went nowhere, and will never go anywhere.

Now, this just occurred to me: how funny would it be if we found out that the next Palin daughter is knocked up?

Just wondering ......................

[LiberalFighter]

34. He took time to watch Jim Lehrer?

[Bolo Boffin]

37. Out of the park, Mr. Letterman.

Great, great, great statement on the matter.

[mzteris]

8. sarah sarah sarah -

he "apologized" cause he had to about the daughter mixup - everyone on the planet knew to whom he referred.

And now?

Well, I suspect that YOU will become (even more) the brunt of the late night joke set.

(Then again, you ARE a joke, so :shrug: )

[TahitiNut]

9. Transcript (tonight's show) ...

Letterman: “All right, here – I’ve been thinking about this situation with Governor Palin and her family now for about a week – it was a week ago tonight, and maybe you know about it, maybe you don’t know about it. But there was a joke that I told, and I thought I was telling it about the older daughter being at Yankee Stadium. And it was kind of a coarse joke. There’s no getting around it, but I never thought it was anybody other than the older daughter, and before the show, I checked to make sure in fact that she is of legal age, 18. Yeah. But the joke really, in and of itself, can’t be defended. The next day, people are outraged. They’re angry at me because they said, ‘How could you make a lousy joke like that about the 14-year-old girl who was at the ball game?’ And I had, honestly, no idea that the 14-year-old girl, I had no idea that anybody was at the ball game except the Governor and I was told at the time she was there with Rudy Giuliani…And I really should have made the joke about Rudy…” (audience applauds) “But I didn’t, and now people are getting angry and they’re saying, ‘Well, how can you say something like that about a 14-year-old girl, and does that make you feel good to make those horrible jokes about a kid who’s completely innocent, minding her own business,’ and, turns out, she was at the ball game. I had no idea she was there. So she’s now at the ball game and people think that I made the joke about her. And, but still, I’m wondering, ‘Well, what can I do to help people understand that I would never make a joke like this?’ I’ve never made jokes like this as long as we’ve been on the air, 30 long years, and you can’t really be doing jokes like that. And I understand, of course, why people are upset. I would be upset myself.

“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 – ” (audience applause) “– 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.” (audience applauds) “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.” (audience applause)

Now maybe the Failin' Palin Poutrage Brigade can go away. :eyes:

[tabbycat31]

33. Sarah won't go away

It just dawned on me that she's a cross between Dick Cheney and Kate Gosselin. Unfortunately neither of them are going away anytime soon.

[TheCowsCameHome]

10. Of course Sarah the Stupid will keep on yapping about it.

She can't stand not having he face in the news.

[Contrary1]

13. My money's on Palin refusing his apology...again. n/t

[ColbertWatcher]

15. I expect her to try to make it about herself. n/t

[MADem]

16. She needs to read this link--and everyone needs to pass this list around.

She's a hypocrite, plain and simple:

http://shannynmoore.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/top-10-reason-sarah-palin%e2%80%99s-outrage-is-a-little-late/#comment-4340

[nomaco-10]

19. I posted it this morning. It got the same reaction...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5852119&mesg_id=5852119

[PunkinPi]

27. Good article, thanks for posting.

:thumbsup:

[LiberalFighter]

35. I tell you!! Palin is trying to get back at Letterman cause he kept slamming McCain.

When McCain didn't show up.

[mitchum]

17. That white trash grifter will refuse the apology unless it's accompanied by a very large check

That's the nature of grifters AND people who pimp out their children

[magellan]

18. Good on him, he's taken that bone away from her

It's sad that it had to come to this. And I won't be surprised if Palin or others who escalated his joke out of all proportion find something to nitpick in his apology.

[chat_noir]

21. Dave's show was filmed BEFORE Palin showed up at the game

How could he or any of his writers know that Palin would have a daughter there (if, in fact, Willow did attend the game)?

If you don't think Sarah Palin is dangerous -- and chances are, you are already do -- what she and her husband Todd pulled off this week is just the latest chapter in "Which Palin family member will be sacrificed to make Sarah Palin look like a martyr."

She got a significant percentage of the population to think David Letterman was actually making a sex joke about a 14-year-old girl and got Letterman to apologize profusely for something he never did.

Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg News put it best when talking to Keith Olbermann last night on "Countdown."

"David Letterman did not drag the 14-year-old daughter into this. The Palins dragged the 14-year-old daughter into it. And it was absolutely egregious. And they obviously hunger for this kind of melodrama.”

http://blog.buzzflash.com/analysis/813

[TahitiNut]

36. Funny how so many just don't fucking get it.

The Failin' Palin Poutrage Brigade can't seem to see above crotch level politics.

[Bolo Boffin]

38. "Which Palin family member will be sacrificed..."

And then there's this aspect of it. Buzzflash is absolutely right about this, too.

[JenniferJuniper]

22. Borderline personality disorder

That's my armchair diagnosis of Palin.

And no, she will not leave this alone.

[Bunny]

24. She is a classic BPD. Textbook, really.

That was a very classy apology on Dave's part, too.

[xchrom]

25. palin, her daughters, anyone who took offense at Letterman's joke can kiss my ass. nt

[lunatica]

28. Sarah still sees blood in that desicated turnip

And she's gonna keep squeezing.

[MiniMe]

29. Now, will Sarah apologize for calling Dave a pedophile?

I doubt it.

[kath]

31. Sure she will

Around the same time that hell freezes over.

She is an absofuckinlutely despicable piece of shit, in so many ways.

[PopSixSquish]

30. And Now Sarah to Quote Oliver Cromwell and Keith Olbermann

"You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately,
Depart, I say, and let us have done with you.
In the name of God… go!"

[kath]

32. Yet another example of the incredible power of the RightWingNoiseMachine

Sooo sick of how they manage to twist and distort everything to meet their ends...

[GoesTo11]

39. Apologizing is the right thing to do

The jokes were ones that at the very least risked offending. They put into play daughters who, even though they have become public figures, didn't ask for this. And calling Palin slutty - well, the fact that this happens to a young and attractive governor isn't any better because she's conservative. It's no surprise at all that she took offense. Whether or not she is playing it up doesn't matter. Whether you like her doesn't matter. The apology's the right thing to do after Letterman said offensive things that he shouldn't have. Apologizing is a fading art (see Letterman's first try) but when you screw up, it is usually the best thing to do.