Letterman vs. Palin: Ratings Gold
David Letterman had to eat two servings of crow to wrap up his dispute with former VP candidate Sarah Palin, but from the looks of this it paid off for CBS:
To put this all into historical perspective: Jay Leno began his late night dominance over Letterman after talking with Hugh Grant about his dalliance with a prostitute. Years later, Letterman reclaimed the throne after talking about Sarah Palin looking slutty. Ya gotta love show biz—always aiming high.
But I’ll bet you Letterman isn’t feeling all that thrilled about l’affaire Palin propelling him to the top of the late night heap. I have no doubt that, given the chance, he’d wouldn’t do those jokes about the Palin daughters (Bristol OR Willow) getting “knocked up” by A-Rod at a Yankees game. He was correct in his apology when he called the joke “beyond flawed.” While it’s also true the Palin parents exploited the situation at further expense to their daughters’ privacy, Letterman cast the first stone. So since we’re talking about Dave, let’s make a Top 5 list of things he learned from the feud with Sarah Palin:
5. She wasn’t joking about that whole pit bull/lipstick thing.
4. 62-year-old men shouldn’t joke about teenaged girls and sex.
3. 62-year-old men shouldn’t joke about teenaged girls and anything.
2. Good ratings aside, abject, repeated apologies aren’t funny.
1. Beating Conan? Easy. Beating a voraciously ambitious politician? Not so much.
Comments: 19
If Letterman is forced to make an apology, not once, but twice, is he really even sorry about what he said or is he sorry that he lost advertisement for the network? Just wondering. . .
Um...no offense, but has Palin realized that no one gives a rat's ass about her anymore and it'd be in her best interest to keep her mouth shut and stay out of the limelight. I mean really, she is an almost vice president who didn't win...she's a governor again and should shut up. Especially because she's complaining about comedians. Is this the first time she's watched Letterman? He's a COMIC...this is what comedy is for! Letterman's made fun of probably a million people by now, and made FAR WORSE jokes about more important people than her (like the former actual president), and all these people usually don't complain, because Letterman is doing his JOB!!!
Jim, I am glad you finally bring up this topic.
Often time cheap comedians seem have to a free pass every time when their jokes are out of line. They just say "it is just a joke, so suck it up".
He said he meant for the 18 years old girl... So it is "better" to talk about have sex with an 18 years old girl than a girl in 14? Anyone with half a brain won't give this stupid excuse.
By the way, I REALLY hate the kind of "apology" with the altitude of "I don't think I did anything wrong. But if you feel bad about it, sorry." Both for him and Bloomberg.
It is not his first time by the way, this guy has been bashing Palin for a long time.
Um...no offense, Kevin, but did you miss the part where Mr Letterman APOLOGIZED to Governor Palin, both of her daughters, her entire family, and ANYONE that was offended by his joke about the Governor's daughter?
Top 5 was pretty funny, Jim.
Letterman making a joke, whether it be about an 18-year-old or a 25-year-old for that matter, is just disturbing! Girls in that range are too young to have sexual jokes made about them
Regardless of what I think of David Letterman's lack of judgement in editing one of his writers so-called jokes, and let’s not even bring the attention hound that is Ms. Palin into the discussion. Concerning A-Rod, to paraphrase Arthur Miller, clearly, sufficient attention has been paid in the recent past so it seems he prefers not to weigh in. Which brings me to my point, I thoroughly despise it when Anchormen, local or otherwise, make editorial comments on the air. That is not your job behind the Anchor desk! Save it for your Blog, that’s what they are for. I don't usually bother with "Blogging" but I felt I needed to say, can the self-righteous Crap or peddle your wares on FOX Cable News! Leave self-righteousness to the Sarah Palin's of the World, I thought you were above that!
Man alive! Why is everyone attacking me? Even Paul Schaeffer is on my ass; even my old hag of a mother is giving me grief. I mean, it's not like I was making fun of the retarded Palin daughter -- clearly, I was just going after the two slutty ones. Why, I wouldn't give my troubles to a monkey on a rock.
And, by the way, it was so sunny today in Central Park that I saw a squirrel rubbing suntan lotion on his nuts.
"And, by the way, it was so sunny today in Central Park that I saw a squirrel rubbing suntan lotion on his nuts."
As originally written by my Jewish writers, that joke was supposed to read,
"...It was so sunny today in Alaska that I saw A-Hole rubbing suntan lotion on Bristol Palin's breasts."
So don't say that ol' Dave is insincere in his apology. Now, hopefully, we can all finally put this matter behind us and get back to hating gays, blacks and Jews.
Once again, I'd like to offer my sincere apologies to Sarah Palin, daughters Bristol and Willow, and the entire Palin family for my beyond-flawed joke about their youngest child, Trig, being a "retarded daughter." As everyone knows, Trig is their retarded son, not daughter.
So, once more, I apologize to the entire Palin family and to any and all retards who may have been offended by my beyond-flawed remarks which, by the way, were written by my Jewish writers.
Jim, I hope you are right with your Top 5. It’s hard to tell when apologies are real or not but it’s easy to determine if any lessons were learned. You just need to watch him awhile and see who his brand of humor skewers next.
Kevin, you are wrong, a lot of people care about Sarah Palin. If they didn’t, politicians, “comedians”, bloggers, and others wouldn’t still be talking about her. She made a huge impact and still does because others, not her, keep her name alive. Also, she didn’t lose the election, her running mate did. You vote for the presidential candidate, not the vice president. She is not “a governor again”, she was Governor before her VP candidacy, during her candidacy, and she still is. By the way, she has been the top rated governor for a long time. Next, she isn’t complaining about comedians, she is defending her daughter. She didn’t ask for this, she got smacked in the face with it. It doesn’t matter whether Letterman meant the 18 year old or the 14 year old . . . the remark was insensitive, demeaning, and cruel. Governor Palin would not be much of a mother if she didn’t fight back in support of her child. Remember, the “joke” was about the young girl, not the mom. If you think the former President wouldn’t respond to this kind of “joke” about either Jenna or Barbara, you’ve been eating some wacky mushrooms. If you have this kind of an attitude about women you probably have no respect for women. The four most important people in my life are my mother, wife, daughter and grandmother. They are all women. Unless you are some kind of blobby being, I’ll bet your mother is a woman, too. Try some respect! Last, he wasn’t doing “his job”. His job is entertaining, not making sexual jokes about young girls.
I hope those remarks were not really written by David Letterman---how do we know? If they are I will not watch him again. I always liked Dave and Love NY--but felt his joke was beyond bad taste and insensitive. NO jokes about sex and teenage girls are acceptable ! Since he did apologize--and if these new remarks are not his--that should end it . To be honest I always thought Jay Leno was best overall--still do--hope he does well at 10 PM !
Jim,I enjoyed your blog.
To the person impersonating David Letterman. Her youngest child is a boy and he was born with Down syndrome. Perhaps his extra chromosome is one that you are missing.
Bristol had a child at 18 and obviously had sex at 17, so how is she too young to have these sexual jokes made about he
I am pretty sure the "David Letterman" is just someone who has too much time on his hand.
What I am sure is, not only Letterman, but many people here also love to bash Palin and do personal attack.
What's worse is, they see no problem attacking her family also, which is lower than low.
Sure, crucify poor ol' Dave Letterman for telling a very tasteless joke -- A JOKE -- at least the guy eventually realized his error and apologized.
Yet you hypocrites have absolutely no problem buying R. Kelly CDs and putting millions of dollars into that child molestor's pockets. You hypocrites have absolutely no qualms about buying tickets to basketball games and putting millions of dollars into Kobe Bryant's pockets -- at best he's an adulterer; at worst he's a rapist.
So remember, you hypocritical, judgmental, self-righteous a-holes: when you point a finger at poor ol' Dave, three other fingers are pointing right back at YOU!
Yes, KC (or is it KraZy?), people here love to "bash Palin and do personal attack."
And why not? Palin is a Republican, and the Republicans have gotten "personal attack" down to an art.
Remember what they did to John Kerry, a real war hero? He's just one example. They tried the same s#!t on Obama, too, but it didn't work this time.
Palin, McCain, Bush, Bush Jr., Rumsfeld, Huckabee, Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Paul Wolfowitz, Charles Lindberg, Neal Shapiro, Walter Kronkite, Mel Gibson, Rupert Murdoch, Walt Disney, and the rest of the lying, thieving, bloodsucking, racist Republican Party should burn in hell for all eternity.
Chris Brown, too -- keep buying his CDs and keep making that talentless, violent, criminal dirtbag rich, you hypocrites, while bashing pool ol' Dave for telling a freakin' joke. A JOKE.
O.J. Simpson, too, not to mention Jayson Williams, who shot a guy with a shotgun and then lied about it -- why don't you condemn those two brutal murderers? No, you don't say a word about them, yet you condemn poor ol' Dave Letterman.
Phooey on you, you dirty bunch of brainless hyprocites! Get your priorities straight!
Nikki, you make absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Poor ol' Dave has already apologized for his mistake in identifying the youngest Palin child as a daughter -- didn't you read the posting? So please quit attacking the man. He made a simple mistake -- he's human. Get real. Get over it. Get off his case. Get a life.
And the second part of your message -- huh??? WTF are you trying to say? What's your point? Are you trying to attack poor ol' Dave Letterman again, or defend him?
I thought according to President Obama that politicians families are off limits. Maybe David Letterman was listening.