New York Assembly Minority Leader (and Republican, as you will clearly see by the end of this blog) Brian Kolb is now calling for comedian David Letterman to be fired because remarkably thin-skinned Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was supposedly offended by his over-publicized, albeit inappropriate joke about her daughter. It makes me start to question just how offended she really is by this whole Letterman joke thing and if the level to which she is offended eclipsed only by the publicity she seems to be relishing in right now? Fox News now has joined the discussion and poured a little gasoline on the fire to get it going a little more.
Here is part of a Fox News story:
New York State Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb, a Republican, is calling on the CEO of CBS to fire David Letterman for crude comments he made about Sarah Palin and her daughter.
In the letter to CBS chief Les Moonves, Kolb 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.”
Brian, simmer down.
Fox example, Sen. John McCain shouldn’t have had to step down wen he made nasty comments about Chelsea Clinton years ago. We also shouldn’t have tried to have even crazy Rush Limbaugh resign for the vicious attack he made on young Chelsea Clinton. I have no use for Rush Limbaugh, but I would not think a person should be fired for making a joke like that (disciplined in some way … yes, but not fired).
Why is it degrading to women? He talked about two people engaged in sex … one is a man and the other is a girl? So, how is it degrading to women? The joke was inappropriate because he unreasonably targeted a young teenager in a joke that really wasn’t funny, frankly. Calling for Letterman to be fired is just a hysterical and politically-motivated call. Letterman is a comedian. Comedians make jokes. Some times people find them funny and some times they do not find them quite so funny. Letterman was over the line, but now Palin seems to be going over the line in an effort to keep herself in the media spotlight as she positions herself for the 2012 presidential election (she has virtually no shot of even getting her party’s nomination). I think that is the motivation behind her media tour.
The thing about Letterman is he fairly quickly realized he was wrong and apologized for his actions and clarified what he feels were some misinterpretations from people who tried to make his comments out to be more sinister than they were. Comics have a long history of making fun of people and oftentimes pushing it too far. Letterman stepped over the line and he has apologized.
These right wingers are exploiting this episode too much (for political gain) and it could backfire on them.
