Other Crap

Before I comment, I'd like to say that I like David Letterman, and I don't care for Sarah Palin at all. Having made that point, I have to be honest and say that Letterman really screwed the pooch with this "apology." The real problem is that his research staff screwed up. They thought Palin was in New York with her daughter Bristol, the one who had the baby, and so they made the usual tired jokes about her. In fact, Palin was in New York with a different daughter, her 14-year-old, Willow. Therefore, in context, all of Letterman's jokes were about a 9th grade girl, maybe a really innocent one, having sex with A-Rod and Eliot Spitzer.

Letterman simply needed to explain it as I just did now, and to apologize for his bad research, but he did not. He seemed to be pretending that his jokes were referring to Bristol, which was not possible, since they were specifically about a Yankee game which Sarah Palin attended with Willow. Letterman is too smart and too well informed not to be aware of how he screwed up, so I have to think that his current confusion is totally disingenuous.

Letterman just plain screwed up, and he should have said so.

As for the slutty stewardess joke, that is perfectly fine, in the sense that it is equivalent to all the jokes about Hillary Clinton and her flannel-shirt, sensible-shoe buddies: Albright, Shalala and Reno. Palin will need to have a thick skin about those jokes if she wants to be in the national spotlight. As ol' Harry Truman used to say, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."