Taking potshots at celebrities and government officials is what late night comedians do best. Politicians, especially Conservative ones, must grow thick skin in order not to get offended by the attacks and insults.
Last week, David Letterman crossed the line when he started talking about Sarah Palin. Sarah is a big girl and not easily rattled, so when Letterman put out a top ten list that accused her among other things of updating her "slutty flight attendant look" and making a coat out of rat pelts, it was in poor taste, but not too scandalous. But then he went on to imply that Alex Rodriguez knocked up Palin's 14-year old daughter during their trip to a Yankees game. If that wasn't bad enough, he followed up with a "joke" that accused john, Eliot Spitzer, was being serviced by Willow.
After the backlash, Letterman tried to make light of it and explain it as he meant to direct the joke towards Palin's older daughter - as if that made it less disgusting. It was this non-apology that put me over the edge. Rape of a child is never funny. But the fact that CBS has not said one peep or punished Letterman in any public way disturbed me greatly. The network has a responsibility to keep its talent in check when they go too far.
For the first time in my life I wrote a letter to a network demanding action. I followed this up with letters to advertisers and my local affiliate. I will not watch any CBS programming until very public action is taken to punish or remove Letterman from the network. I know this sounds extreme, but this Conservative bashing has gone way too far in this case. If Imus gets fired for his Rutgers girl's basketball team remark, Letterman must go. After all, Letterman is not live TV. They wrote the jokes, rehearsed them and still had an opportunity to edit the material before broadcast, but they chose not to do this.
Letterman's very long 15 minutes is finally over!
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