Palin v Letterman

Years ago, I used to watch David Letterman frequently, and by "frequently" I mean "every night." This was back in the days when Letterman was considered by the masses to be a comic genius, when his hair was still more Afro than tight shave, and before Jay Leno was Johnny Carson's replacement.

Much has changed in the past 15+ years. To be honest, I haven't watched a full Letterman show since the early 1990s, and can't even remember the last time I tuned in for even a portion of the show. Most of this is due more to changes in my life than in Letterman's approach to his audience.

Every once in a while, though, I scan the Internet to check out a Top 10 list. And every once in a while, a Letterman story makes its way to the point where I actually, you know, read it and ponder what the heck is happening.

Last week, such a story captured the front pages of those newspapers that are still around to publish in hard-copy format. In case you missed it - and since I don't watch Letterman, I am among those individuals - last Tuesday (June 9), Letterman made some tongue-in-check comments about the former GOP VP candidate and her daughter during their visit to NYC. One of the jokes hinted that the most difficult part of Sarah Palin's trip was "keeping Elliot Spitzer away from her daughter," a second dealt with the concept that Palin's daughter was "knocked up" by Yankees star Alex Rodriguez, and a third focused on Palin going to Bloomingdale's "to update her 'slutty flight attendant' look."

OK, like many of Letterman's jokes (and, to be honest, like most every other late-night host's jokes), this is not high-brow humor. And it would have passed as such, except ... the Palin family took exception and fired back, full guns a-blazing, accusing Letterman of making sexually-perverted rape jokes about 14-year-old Willow Palin.

Now, whether you believe Letterman's eventual apology or not - the apology where he claimed he was referencing 18-year-old Bristol Palin (whose announced pregnancy during the presidential campaign was a conversational topic), not her 14-year-old sister - the irony is that most of American (myself included) would have never had a clue about Letterman's comments, because most of American doesn't watch Letterman. According to David Bauder of the Internet site Town Hall, Letterman's ratings could reach their highest mark in years because of the attention given to what many perceive as a regular set of late-night television throwaway comments.

Additionally, some pundits believe Palin & Co. are jumping on the Letterman commentary not so much due to a sense of personal outrage, but to keep her name front and center in the minds of Americans for the upcoming 2012 presidential campaign.

It's easy to blame "the media" for so many things today. This is not new, or unique, and has included pointing fingers at movie scenes and music lyrics as the reason for an alleged decline in America's moral values. Palin v Letterman follows in this grand tradition, which has included (among other things) a lawsuit against rock band Judas Priest and deletion of a scene in the 1993 football movie The Program. (In 1990, JP was unsuccessfully sued over allegations backward masking of lyrics led to a suicide pact between two Nevada teens. In The Program, a scene depicting high school football players lying down in the middle of a busy road as a way of proving their manhood; the scene was later cut from the film after several children were injured trying to re-create the stunt.)

I'm not saying there aren't problems in the media, or that the media are always responsible. Nor am I saying that Palin's outrage isn't without some merit; at face value, it does take a "cheap shot" (or three) at her and her daughter(s). However, all too often, it seems, what happens in "the media" is blown so far out of proportion with reality, it magnifies the alleged "problem" or "incident" to absurd proportions. Seriously, what is the impact of Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" on Middle East relations or the alleged importance of Adam Lambert's sexual orientation on the world economy? The irony here is that because the Palins aren't talking about the "flight attendant' joke, the comment has barely (if at all) been mentioned in followup stories the past week.

Letterman apologized to the Palins late last week, but the apology was viewed as half-hearted at best by some individuals calling for the talk show host's head (or, at the very least, his job). Today, Letterman issued a more direct apology (shown below); no reaction yet from the Palin camp. Or from Spitzer, Rodriguez, or flight attendants, none of whom have commented on the fracas the past week, to the best of my knowledge.