What’s really wrong with David Letterman

David Letterman is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern left


Late night host David Letterman is under fire, at least in some circles for telling jokes about Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Letterman “joked” that Palin bought makeup at Bloomingdale’s to get that “# flight attendant look”. This attempt at humor was far from being the most offensive; all cops are racists, all lawyers are crooks and all flight attendants are #. At least it was aimed at a group and not an individual.

But the low point was hit when Letterman “joked” about what happened when Todd and Sarah Palin attended a New York Yankees game in New York with their 14-year-old daughter, Willow. Letterman joked that Alex Rodriguez "knocked up" Palin’s daughter during the 7th inning of that game. This joke about a 14-year-old having sex with an adult male provoked outrage. To begin with, to blame David Letterman for that joke is like blaming Barack Obama for what comes out of his teleprompter. Like the president, the late night host is simply a reader. The worst thing about the joke is that it simply wasn’t funny. As columnist Michael Coren opined in his Sun Media piece, Letterman’s gravest sin as a comedian is that he’s not funny. But Dave doesn’t seem to get that or even care. Letterman defended himself by saying that he wasn’t referring to 14-year-old Willow but to 18-year-old Bristol as if a joke about an 18 year old being taken advantage of in the 7th inning of a baseball game is okay. What is really amazing is that it took Letterman about two whole days to come up with that defense. Most pervs have the ability to come up with that excuse instantaneously–“Gee officer, she told me she was 18”. No doubt Letterman needed a couple of days to huddle with his writers and gophers to come up with that one. It’s hard to believe Letterman is capable of doing anything on his own. Jokes about someone who ran for the vice president of the United States constitute political satire. To constitute political satire the material must be based upon fact and Letterman’s wasn’t. What is somewhat shocking is that Letterman doesn’t seem to know this or particularly care. It was the 14-year-old daughter who went to Yankee Stadium, not the 18-year-old. Therefore it would have been physically impossible for A Rod to have had sex with her during the 7th inning of the game. That being the case, the joke was not simply in bad taste but it made no sense. He might as well have said that A Rod had sex during the game with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Like Bristol Palin, Ahmadinejad wasn’t at Yankee Stadium either. The joke made no sense. But that didn’t stop Letterman from trying to say that he meant Bristol and not Willow and probably not Mahmoud. Letterman of course has his supporters, most notably on the rival NBC network. Both Matt Lauer and Alex (half) Witt supported his illogical defense that he was joking about the daughter who wasn’t even there. Perhaps the greatest defense was given to Keith Olbermann by Margaret Carlson, who indicated that the joke was really Sarah Palin’s fault for putting her kids out front and centre during last year’s campaign. In other words, Sarah Palin and presumably her 14-year-old daughter had asked for it. Olbermann’s comments, not surprisingly, consisted of some well timed “uh huh’s”. Letterman is a professional comedian who has readily admitted that he has no pride in his profession. The fact that the joke was totally devoid of humor and made no sense didn’t seem to register with him. Along with having no pride, he has no shame. He boldly states that he meant that A Rod knocked up the daughter who wasn’t there and not the daughter who was, admitting that he didn’t know or didn’t care about the factual support of his jokes. Instead of castigating the talk show host, statues of Letterman should be erected everywhere, especially in airports where they can be seen by all of those # flight attendants. David Letterman is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern left. He is a constant reminder of society’s and the media’s double standard when it comes to the left and women, underage sex and other issues. Perhaps, with enough reminders of Letterman as the poster boy for the obnoxious left things might actually change. Even NOW, the National Organization for Women, have added Letterman to their Media Hall of Shame along with Glenn Beck, G. Gordon Liddy and other conservatives. Perhaps it’s not too late.

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Arthur Weinreb——

Arthur Weinreb is an author, columnist and Associate Editor of Canada Free Press. Arthur’s latest book, Ford Nation: Why hundreds of thousands of Torontonians supported their conservative crack-smoking mayor is available at Amazon. Racism and the Death of Trayvon Martin is also available at Smashwords. His work has appeared on Newsmax.com,  Drudge Report, Foxnews.com.

Older articles (2007) by Arthur Weinreb