GOP leader wants Letterman fired over Palin remark
Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb, R-Canandaigua, is wading into the fray over late-night comedian and host David Letterman’s comment Monday about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s daughter Willow. Kolb said in a statement that he sent a letter today to Leslie Moonves, president and CEO of the CBS Corp., urging him to fire Letterman for his “vulgar” remark.
Kolb said he will appear on “The Alan Colmes Show”, a syndicated radio program, at 10:15 tonight to talk about the issue.
Here’s the text of his letter:
As the proud father of a daughter, and as a husband, I write to call attention to a shockingly inappropriate comment recently made by one of your employees about the 14-year-old daughter of the Governor of Alaska. The employee is David Letterman, host of the CBS “Late Show” who, as I am sure you are aware, made a vulgar comment about Governor Sarah Palin’s daughter Willow during his show on Monday, June 8. Mr. Letterman’s comment has ignited a media firestorm from outraged parents like me. In speaking of Governor Palin and her family’s weekend visit to New York City, Mr. Letterman said the following during his monologue: “One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game, during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.” I am sure you would agree this was a completely inappropriate remark for someone to make about any young woman, let alone a 14-year-old. That an established media figure like Mr. Letterman would show such bad judgment, and attempt to make light of the serious crime of statutory rape, reflects poorly on the Tiffany Network. Seemingly not content to insult only Willow Palin, Mr. Letterman made the following comment about Governor Palin as part of his “Top Ten List” also on Monday night: “Bought makeup from Bloomingdale’s to update her ‘slutty flight attendant’ look.” Mr. Moonves, as a proud father and husband yourself, I ask you to consider what sort of message is sent when an employee of the corporation you lead is allowed to make such disrespectful remarks about women? Furthermore, how can women who work at CBS not be demoralized by the fact that such inappropriate comments are permitted in a corporate workplace? Mr. Letterman should be fired for what he said. It is worth noting that he still has not apologized to Willow Palin or Governor Palin for his crude comments. On behalf of parents across New York who are genuinely worried about a coarsening of our culture and are furious over Mr. Letterman’s rude behavior, I am calling on you take appropriate action and show that CBS will not tolerate demeaning and degrading comments about women being made by any of its employees, Mr. Letterman included.
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CBS should fire David Letterman about his comment about raping Sarah Palin’s 14 year old daughter.
What?
Republican debutante Sarah Palin wants David Letterman to apologize for making a sexual joke ALLEGEDLY about her 14-year-old daughter? (Even though, we all know it was about her 18-year-old daughter, who clearly has experienced sex, and whom Sarah Palin paraded around the campaign trail as an unmarried, pregnant teen, exposing her to the attention of late night comedy hosts.)
How about the Republicans disavowing NY State Senator Hiram Monserrate who ALLEGEDLY slashed his girlfriend’s face with a broken shot glass?
Or, at least, Sarah Palin could have noticed when the ally of her NY Republican friends, billionaire Tom Golisano, characterized the charges against Monserrate as “a personal issue.” A politician calls domestic violence charges a personal issue, and Sarah Palin is worrying about someone’s stand-up routine?
This is the typical Republican hypocrisy.
This time, the Democrats are half ignoring it. Because, darned, they really need Monserrate’s vote.
Wish there was someone to stand up for what is right, and truly care about women and women’s issues.
As offensive and asanine as LETTERMAN is – PALIN and all REPUBLICANTS should abandon this ongoing jihad. LETTERMAN did this for press and ratings – and that is what he got!!! PALIN is quite correct to be incensed – but she or her outrage at ‘LEFTY’ CBS+LETTERMAN will not NOT gain her any new converts to her political positions. Even now in ‘the SOCIALIST STATES OF AMERIKSA’ we do not fire anyone because of their opinions/views—- right MICHEAL RICHARDS, or ROSIE O’DONNELL, or DON IMUS???!!! Ha.
How about a viral cartoon showing guys dragging an underage girl into a Best Western, with a caption saying “UNDERAGE RAPE-WE DON’T JUST CONDONE IT, WE PROMOTE IT!”
If the “Joke” had been about “Big Brother Obama’s girls I wonder what the reaction would have been.
But, it seems anything goes with Sarah Palin, hack her e-mail OK, Hang her, OK, yes, thats the Letterman way as long as it gets laughs and ratings.
VJ Machiavelli
NO MORE SCHUMER
NO MORE PELOSI
NO MORE RANGEL
NO MORE ENGEL AND HIS MILLION DOLLAR HOME IN MARYLAND
What a ridiculous campaign. You right-wing nutz are only boosting Letterman’s ratings and not helping Sarah’s cause at all. In fact, you make Sarah look more idiotic.
The Federal government and the Congress, should be more concerned that American women are raped for the small fee of five thousand dollars.
Under the VAWA, a court will seal all evidence of a rape and “legally” the rape never happened.
for the cost of five thousand dollars, that is all it takes to have a felony sealed.
Thousands upon thousands of women are raped in America
all Federally funded by the VAWA
If the Congress can subsidize felony rape for white collar professionals,
Congress has no complaint about Letterman’s crass remark.
It should be against the law to rape women in public
What is the Congress going to do about that???
Basically, they cap Corporate Liabilities
Refuse to prosecute rapists
and fund it with tax payer dollars
http://www.alan.com/2009/06/13/leno-told-the-same-joke-as-letterman
Guess the Palins are bigger Leno fans…
Letterman’s ultimate goal, and that of Moonves, it goes without saying, is to increase viewership, thus profits . Anything and anyone who can help them to do that is welcome to adversely comment, write irate letters, alert the media, or propose legislative limitations on abusive commentary. Letterman gains, Moonves gains, CBS stockholders gain, and people like Kolb gain within their constituency. Everyone else (everyone) who joins this controversy and keeps it rolling is the fool. I have just admitted myself a fool for posting here, but it is the best interests of the reader to realize exactly how insidious is this chicanery, and our ignorance.
I am a conservative guy and I watched as Letterman made the jokes and I thought he was referring to Bristol, because Bristol was the one in the news about being pregnant. I don’t believe for a second he meant the 14 year old. I am so sick of the extreme ways of taking these things. I don’t believe Obama was calling Palin a pig with his lipstick comment and I don’t believe McCain would have been a G.W. Bush 3rd term. If people jump on the extreme on either side, it makes them as unbelievable as those that started it. If you cannot see the reasoning of the other side and shut off to anything but the vile reason the extreme right or left has detailed, you are blind or a bully, just needing to be right. Everyone needs to take it down a notch. The partisan stuff is getting worst daily that each side is making up their own answers and insisting it is what the other side is doing. Disagreeing is one thing, what is going on now is over the top. Fire Letterman? He has reflected the news in his jokes for 30 years (I have watched him for all 30), not attacking untouched minors. He also has told more jokes at the expense of Bill and Hillary Clinton than at the expense of anyone else over the years. It is not like being a pedophile and it is not like making up something about other children. Bristol was in the news and the liberals attacked Palin’s platform with a pregnant child. Stop putting your hands over your ears and insisting that Letterman followed her itinerary and focused a premeditated attack on the 14 your old. The more you insist on it, doesn’t make it more true.
you are not incorrect in your analysis.but whether he
was talking about the older daughter or not..children
should be off limits…
Kimberly Wilder’s response is incredible, just unbelievable.
First off she states that “everyone knows he meant the 18-year old” as if that is OK. Rape jokes about 18-year-old children of politicians are excellent to progressives I guess. I’m unclear on why but I guess it’s true.
Second, for the record, we certainly do NOT know that, since the 18 year old was in Alaska and the 14-year-old was in Yankee Stadium. Not that it matters which CHILD he was making rape jokes about.
Then she changes the subject to some completely irrelevant issue that has nothing to do with making rape jokes about 14-year olds or 18-year olds, as if one can make rape jokes about children anytime you feel like it because we are on earth and therefore there will always be some unrelated issue you can raise in oder to feel good about making rape jokes about 14-year olds or 18-year olds. WOW, stunning.
Then she goes on to wish someone would care about women’s issues. Holy cow, beyond stunning almost incredible, but then a TV personality making rape jokes about children was once incredible and that has fallen to the wayside.
Frankly I never for one moment understood the extreme hatred some women have for Sarah Palin in the first place. It’s clearly this hatred that allows them to justify rape jokes about her children.
So she is opposed to abortion, more than half the country is. Her daughter got pregnant and kept the baby, so what? How does that become your concern? She had a baby with a birth defect and kept the baby, so what? Where does this hatred stem from? Why do people feel it’s OK to hate anyone just for being themselves? I thought we were trying to eliminate that from society? At any rate I thought the “progressives” were trying to do so.
If someone gets pregnant and wishes to keep the baby is that now no longer allowed in the “progressive circle”?
Ms. Palin is not hypocritical, she kept a baby that had a birth defect, her daughter kept a baby out of wedlock so what? Why does that cause people who pretend to be “progressive” to be so full of hatred and venom of women who don’t share their extreme views? What happened to peace, love, live and let live?
Sarah Palin NEVER called domestic violence a “personal issue”. That some other person 7000 miles away did or did not has nothing to do with Sarah Palin, unless, I guess, you call yourself a “progressive”.
All women have a right to their own opinions, they are not required to follow anyone’s party line. like it or not. That is not open season to hate.
Ms Palin has a right and frankly an obligation to expect that her children are not made the targets of her political opponents. Just as the President expects this to be so for his children. even as he “parades them around”.
By the way, of course I don’t accept that loony line “parades their children around” this is a line parroted by idiots. Politicians have children, you don’t hide them in the trunk of your car even if “progressives” want you to. So her daughter made a mistake and became pregnant, that does not infer open season for child rape jokes. Unless, I guess you call yourself a progressive these days.
Why is hatred OK for “progressives”? You don’t agree with Palin? OK, fine. You don’t think she is intellectual? OK, fine. But hatred is simply wrong, always was, always will be.
When I was young “progressives” were kind of peacenics, love, happiness that sort of thing.
Man-o-man have they become haters of the very worse sort. Too bad. I wonder why they are so damn angry, they seem to have won on every front but that has caused them to hate more, not less. Odd crew in my opinion.
OK, we’ll fire Letterman for crude commentary.
Then, we’ll fire Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and rush Limbaugh for all their crude comments about Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and every other Democrat they villify. It’s OKL when the right-wing criticizes Democrats, but when someone pokes around a CONSERVATIVE, well man thass fightin’ words!
Letterman went too far and should apologize…but fat chnace the right-wing talk-a-thon, including Michael Savage and 10,000 maniacs will apologize for their snotty words.
Let’s face it: we’re a Country Divided. You hate us, and we hate you. If we keep it up, we’ll have the Second Civil War. We lived through 8 years of George W. Bush – and you’re freakin’ out out after 5 months of Obama and the Dems in charge. Commentators go on and on about socialism, socialism – how ‘bout Bush’s right-wing usurpation of authority. It’s this my-way-or-the-hgihway politics that lerads to over-the-top comments.
Its obvious to me Republicans don’t want civil discourse. They want power back, to things THEIR WAY.
I’m sure all Republicans are duly chastised by the above comments. Other than the “we hate you,” part, we have all been re-educated in the ways and means of “civil discourse.”
DonkeyDarling, I would like to see the exact quotes about Pelosi’s family, Chelsea Clinton, Democrat children that you refer to that equals: “One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game,” Letterman said, “during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.”
I am serious-please post them
“Donkey Darling
June 15th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
OK, we’ll fire Letterman for crude commentary.
Then, we’ll fire Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and rush Limbaugh for all their crude comments about Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and every other Democrat they villify. It’s OKL when the right-wing criticizes Democrats, but when someone pokes around a CONSERVATIVE, well man thass fightin’ words!
Letterman went too far and should apologize…but fat chnace the right-wing talk-a-thon, including Michael Savage and 10,000 maniacs will apologize for their snotty words.”
Sadly, the proclaimed “Consultant” is actually right. Wrong on every other issue, especially foreign policy where is incredibly ignorant but the fact is Letterman should stay away from jokes about a politician’s child.
And to all the other posters, no one is firing Letterman. He was just forced to issue an apology for a tasteless and uncalled for joke.
Who cares?
networktv
June 15th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Who cares?
You know what – I care. I am sick and tired of people saying Republicans/Conservatives have said “things” without a whole quote to back up the charges.
If you want to make an accusation against the Republicans/Conservatives saying nasty stuff – back it up with actual quotes – not interpretations of quotes
Dude, I know you are not the kind of individual that really cares being called dude, but dude! I adore your blog. meta tag fundamentals