Palin v Letterman: a family affair


Perhaps we wrote off Sarah Palin a little too soon. Her public appearances have often struck a rum note. She has looked underbriefed, wooden, lacking in spontaneity. She has also earned an unwelcome reputation for cancelling engagements. She is in some trouble at home and is looked upon by more thoughtful Republicans in the rest of the USA as an irrelevance at best, at worst a liability. But her rise was to power in Alaska was no accident. And the last few days have shown that her political instincts - opportunism, low cunning and ability to occupy the moral high ground - are as sharp as ever.

The story, if you haven't been following it, is this. Palin was in New York recently carrying out a number of public engagements; one of her numerous brood, Willow, was in tow. The trip - which included a high-profile visit to a baseball game - inspired a comedic monologue delivered by talkshow host David Letterman on Monday night. Among other things, Letterman compared the governor to a "slutty flight attendant" - a remark that is of course deeply offensive to air hostesses everywhere. As everyone well knows they aren't in the least bit slutty. But it was a couple of one-liners about the Palin child that has got everyone - well, a few people over there anyway - riled up.

One went, "An awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game: during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez". (Alex Rodriguez, or A-Rod, is a popular baseball star.) The other implied that Palin's daughter might appeal to former New York governor Elliot Spitzer, whose taste for prostitutes forced his resignation early last year.

The reaction from the Palin camp has been one of carefully-calculated outrage. In a brief statement on Facebook (of all places), Todd Palin complained that "'jokes' about raping my 14-year-old are despicable. Alaskans know it and I believe the rest of the world knows it, too." Sarah herself, with all the tortured syntax her indignation could muster, made this statement.

Concerning Letterman's comments about my young daughter (and I doubt he'd ever dare make such comments about anyone else's daughter): 'Laughter incited by sexually-perverted comments made by a 62-year-old male celebrity aimed at a 14-year-old girl is not only disgusting, but it reminds us some Hollywood/NY entertainers have a long way to go in understanding what the rest of America understands - that acceptance of inappropriate sexual comments about an underage girl, who could be anyone's daughter, contributes to the atrociously high rate of sexual exploitation of minors by older men who use and abuse others.


Letterman responded a couple of days later with a considerably funnier routine, in which he protested that the target of the jokes had actually been the eighteen year-old Bristol, whose talent for getting knocked-up by sporting types is well-known. Bristol wasn't in New York, but the Palin sisters, despite the age gap, look remarkably similar, so I'm prepared to believe that explanation. In any case, it was the Palins who chose to literalise the remarks by highlighting Willow's actual age. Actually, I don't think that the joke was aimed at either Bristol or Willow, so much as at some generic Palin daughter - and, thus, not at the daughter at all but at the mother. Was the joke in bad taste? Yes. Did it imply that the Palin daughters were sluttish? Yes, and that probably did cross a line. Did it involve suggestions of child rape, as the Palins claim? No. I doubt the age of the girl in question even registered with Letterman's gag writer.

It was inappropriate, but the almost gleeful way Palin has milked her indignation goes well beyond a mother's desire to defend her middle daughter's reputation (such as it is). Interviewed on the Today Show, she repeatedly used the phrase "statutory rape" in condemning Letterman's routine. She said that people would have to be "extremely naive to believe that very convenient excuse" and called the affair "a sad commentary on where we are as a culture":

It was a degrading comment about a young woman and I would hope that people start rising up and deciding it's not acceptable. No wonder young girls have such low self-esteem when we think it's funny for a so-called comedian to get away with the remark that he made. This so-called humor, I don't find it humorous, I don't think that a lot of Americans would either...

I would like to see him apologise to young women across the country for contributing to that thread that is throughout our culture that makes us think that it's OK to talk about young girls in that way, it's cool and it's funny to talk about statutory rape. It's not cool it's not funny.


This isn't just an aggrieved mother talking. It's an extremely savvy politician turning a trivial incident into a neat little moral parable in America's culture wars, making the personal political. Note too how she appropriates the language of therapy - province of those despised liberals - to blame lecherous middle-aged comedians for teenagers' lack of self-esteem. She even remembered to express indignation on behalf of all America's besmirched flight attendants.

Palin has been prepared to exploit her elder daughter ever since news emerged of the pregnancy - as she knew it must when she accepted the Vice Presidential nomination. She could have insisted that it was a private matter and insisted the press keep out. Instead, Bristol was made to display public contrition for her fall. There was a mock engagement with boyfriend Levi, the principal purpose of which seems to have been to keep the Religious Right sweet. Bristol, her bump and her soon to be ex-fiancé were then paraded at the Republican convention in a nauseating display of togetherness. Then it was announced - hilariously - that Bristol was to become a national advocate for abstinence-only sex education, despite the fact that (as she herself admitted) the policy didn't work too well in her case.

As for Willow, it must be very unpleasant to have a talkshow host insinuate that she might take after her sister - if that, indeed, is what Letterman was insinuating. But the whole incident would surely have been forgotten much more quickly had not the Palins weighed in. She must be hoping the whole thing will go away. But as a Palin she'll be used to being part of the message.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Does this sound anywhere near Blear's grovelling apology?
valdemar said…
Indeed, wasn't it Obama who said Bristol's little indiscretion should be off limits in the campaign? He was invited by a friendly press corps to take a pop, and showed grace and nous by saying no. Clever guy, but also - I suspect - genuinely concerned that innocent children shouldn't suffer for their parents' ambitions. Quite a contrast with Ma Palin. And poor Willow. From Buffy's sidekick to this.
Sarah Palin is not exactly my cup of tea but the Letterman Show really was beyond the pale. It is hard enough just being 14 without being made fun of on national TV. The sins of the mother should not be visited upon her children. And the fact that Palin herself does not protect her children but carelessly exploits them does not excuse others from doing the same. Poor kid with a mother like that is bad enough, no need to make it any worse.

If, for example, Jonathan Ross had done something like that then I would be leading the charge to sack him from the BBC.
Anonymous said…
If you saw letterman's response it seems he was referring to the 18 year old daughter.
Somewhat different dont you think.
valdemar said…
Ah, but woolly, Jonathan Ross is paid out of a poll tax that many of us resent. Letterman is a product of good ol' American free enterprise culture, and Sarah Palin should be the first to celebrate that. She put her family life into the political arena and then cried foul. Well, yeah, but she committed it against her own flesh and blood.

That's the only downside of her otherwise amusing political career. If she were to be the GOP candidate in 2012 her kids would get even more stick because she would keep parading them in front of the cameras. She's selfish and callous, and it's that which will make her kids' lives miserable, not some guy on TV.
Anonymous said…
At the first anonymous
Why do you think 4 years age difference is so significant? There is no major transition between 17 and 364days and 18 that makes children into women and therefore fair game.
So far as the elder Palin goes, never letting someone off the hook for mistakes they have made, and in her case, obviously regret, as the reason to describe her as some sort of slut or idiot forever is spiteful. As pointed out above, Palin jr did not ask to be in the public eye. Letterman can find more worthwhile targets for satire surely?
Benjamin Jacobs said…
Is it me or does dave look more and more like Jed Clampett..

http://www.unclejedcountry.com/images/jed.jpg

If anybody implied that my wife and daughter was slutty i'd smack em! end of story. Time for dave to retire.
asquith said…
My humblest apologies for going off topic, but are we going to get a post about the Iran situation?

I am a bit disappointed by few in Britain seem to be responding at all. I've got some analysis through Andrew Sullivan from Iranians & Middle East experts. But not really enough to solidify my opinion, though I have got a bit going round in my head.
John Thomas said…
Remember that Sarah Palin came to us pre-demonised. The US mainstream media (MSM) did that as part of its campaign to get Obammanation elected, and then when it came over here, it perfectly fitted the natural bias of the "liberal" MSM over here (eg, the Brazenly Biased Corporation). Thus, we know nothing about Palin that has not been put through this "liberal" sieve. Personally, I always give the benefit of any doubt to people demonised by the MSM.
Heresiarch said…
I was actually very pro-Palin in the early days. But her performances during the campaign were genuinely embarrassing. You're wrong to suggest that no information is available about her (or anyone else) that hasn't been "sieved" by the liberal media. There's this thing called the Internet, you may have heard of it.

I agree that the mainstream media outlets were pro-Obama to an absurd degree (just as, in Britain at present, they are anti-Brown to an absurd degree). But that doesn't necessarily mean that they're wrong. Though they often are.
John Thomas said... Remember that Sarah Palin came to us pre-demonised. The US mainstream media (MSM) did that as part of its campaign to get Obammanation elected, and then when it came over here, it perfectly fitted the natural bias of the "liberal" MSM over here (eg, the Brazenly Biased Corporation). Thus, we know nothing about Palin that has not been put through this "liberal" sieve. Personally, I always give the benefit of any doubt to people demonised by the MSM.

The problem with Palin is not that she was (quite correctly) 'pre-demonised' it was that when she opened her mouth the world learned to its amazement that reports were not in the least exaggerated and that, like Dan Quayle, she was actually even worse than portrayed!

We do pay reporters to research and report you know, so we would expect them to highlight the fact that a Vice-Presidential candidate is a few sandwiches short of a picnic. When its done accurately we like to call this 'journalism', 'reporting' and 'factual'.

But none of this excuses Letterman, whether Palin's daughter is 14, 18 or 28 she is still a non-combatant and should not be made fun of in public just because her mother is a blithering idiot.

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