In the letter to CBS chief Les Moonves, [New York State Assemblyman
Brian] Kolb(R) said he took Letterman to task for the "shockingly inappropriate"
jokes.
“As the proud father of a daughter, and as a husband, I wanted Mr.
Moonves to hear from me directly about Mr. Letterman’s disparaging remarks,"
Kolb said in a written statement. “Firing Mr. Letterman would send a clear message that CBS will not tolerate any of its employees — even an established media figure like Mr. Letterman — making demeaning and degrading comments about women.”
I am full of all different kinds of anger. There are stupid little things that will flip me out in half a second. There are things of actual real life consequence that also make me mad. Of course there are also huge things that happen and I say, "Meh." But one major thing that without reservation makes me furious is a self righteous asshole who blows a situation out of proportion due to political correctness. I despise any decision or comment that finds it's base in a PC philosophy. In the society that we live in: the society that others around the world are envious of because of rights afforded to us, there are those who champion those rights... sometimes. But not all the time. Because you should be allowed to say whatever you want. Whenever you want. Unless of course your comments might hurt someones feelings or offend their delicate sensibilities. Because it makes sense to have freedom of speech as long as you don't say anything that could make someone else mad.
David Letterman is a comedian. A comedian, for the record, is a professional entertainer who amuses by relating anecdotes, acting out comical situations, engaging in humorous repartee, etc. (Thank you dictionary.com) As it turns out Letterman made a "joke" on his late night "comedy" program. I believe he said something about Bristol Palin deserving to be ridiculed and physically assaulted for championing a cause that would seem to be something she doesn't quite believe in herself. That or he implied she got impregnated by a popular professional athlete with a penchant for using steroids. One of those.
Of course the Palin camp decided to do the smart thing and drag a throwaway joke in a late night broadcast out into the public for about a week. You see, that was the way to put a potentially embarrassing situation for your daughter behind you and allow her to just get on with her life. Well, actually it's the exact opposite of that. By the Palin family commenting on the story and Assemblyman Kolb calling for Letterman to be fired the story became national news instead of a three second sound bite.
Of course I had to wake up this morning and listen to the Fox and Friends crew lament the fact that Don Imus got fired for his infamous (and incidentally hilarious) characterization of the Rutgers University Women's Basketball team as "nappy headed hoes." Well if Imus was fired, they wondered aloud, why not Letterman? I wish, I really really do, that the reason Letterman was not and will not be disciplined is because in retrospect the Imus situation was also blown way out of proportion and his firing was really a knee jerk reaction to PC douchebags who need a cause to get behind (of which there were TWO! African Americans AND women. Bonus!!) and that it was really unwarranted. But that's not the case.
Letterman is safe for a few different reasons. First, he made fun of the daughter of an extremely conservative white politician. If there is anyone you can make fun of without reproach it's a white conservative. Second, he's finally in a battle for late night television ratings that he can actually win occasionally. Third, since it's a high profile white kid who he mocked you don't have the faux indignation of corporate sponsors pulling precious ad dollars out of CBS's pockets that you would have if he had made a racially or sexually inappropriate comment. And forth, you aren't going to see the general public outrage that would have caused that withdraw of advertising funds.
No one is really right in this situation. Should Letterman have made fun of Bristol? Eh, it probably wasn't necessary because it frankly wasn't really that funny. That's where my delicate sensibilities lie. Where comedy shows aren't funny. Was the Palin family right to drag the incident into the media? Nope. They weren't right either. But how else was Sarah Palin going to keep herself relevant for a few weeks as she tries desperately to stay on the national stage until 2012? And Assemblyman Kolb, oh Assemblyman Kolb, was the letter and call for termination really necessary? At least you could have made a better argument than that the joke was demeaning to women. Unless of course you also wrote the same letter a year or two ago when Letterman basically called Paris Hilton a retarded whore on his show. Not that I disagree with Letterman or anything, it just seems like kind of a double standard.
So now we can wait for another few weeks until some jackass in front of a camera says something else to piss off a random person who can make headlines by just opening their mouth or sending out a press release. Odds that it's the rich white man cabal taking Keith Olberman to task for making ludicrous accusations of rich conservative men? Yeah, I didn't think so either.
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