A Rant on the Letterman Incident

Now that the Letterman/Palin Incident has finally, maybe been resolved (There are still people lining up protests to have Letterman fired, even though Palin accepted his apology), there are a couple of points I would like to make.

1) I think conservatives need to be careful about how they express outrage when somebody says something stupid. Letterman needed to have his feet held to the fire, or whatever the expression is, when the joke was made about Willow. Which it was, because of its setup, even if that wasn't the intention. But when the excuses were made that Letterman meant Bristol, "Oh, and that makes it better?" was a poor argument. Like it or not, she's the child of a public figure who is legally an adult. That makes her a legitimate target.

I'm not saying it's right to go after her, and I'm not excusing crude comments to be made about her, but it's the reality of the situation.

Further, I don't think it's such a hot idea to try to dictate what jokes people can and can't make about adults. Then you get into being politically correct, and conservatives are supposed to hate that. It's like this: we get cheesed when we're not allowed to criticize Democrats. So we try to keep liberals from attacking Republicans. Instead, the better angle would probably be to criticize liberals and tell them to stick it when they tell us we can't say certain things. Which brings me to my next point.

2) People tried to silence Letterman and missed a golden opportunity to teach moderates and undecideds a valuable lesson: liberalism doesn't exist without double standards.

People made the argument, "Well, if a comedian said those things about the Obama girls, there'd be hell to pay!" It's true, but why talk hypotheticals when there's plenty of evidence to point to that shows the left's hypocrisy?

For example, I have a liberal friend who posted this to her Facebook. Some of her comrades joined in her outrage.

But did she make a peep about Letterman? No. Did she say anything when Playboy published the rape article about conservative women recently? Nope. Did she offer anything on what's happened to Carrie Prejean? Only silence. But make a joke about Queen Obama, and the alarms sound!

Step one is to point out supposedly liberal causes, such as tolerance and equality, and then use these exhibits to demonstrate liberals only care about them when it comes to other liberals. Step two is to say Rusty DePass was only making a joke. It's humor, you can't hold him accountable to it. When someone calls b.s., then you point out Letterman's first excuse, Jamie Foxx's excuse, anything Bill Maher would say if he had anything remotely resembling a conscience, etc.

Sure it's a b.s. excuse. Look who's always spouting it!

Conservatives need to quit lowering themselves to liberal "standards" by trying to play their games. You don't promote freedom by telling people what they can't say. You can't fight the left's fire with fire without burning yourself. Liberals are wily that way. Instead, it's better to point out their hypocrisy, win people to your side, and then hit them where it hurts the most: the ballot box.



As far as Letterman, like I said: if you're making jokes about minors or advocating rape, then you deserve to have your butt handed to you on it. But when he calls someone a slut, don't try to shut him up. If he thinks that, he should have the freedom to say so. I should also exercise my freedom to call him an idiot, point out how tacky he is, and watch something else. If enough people do the latter, he'll either change or we won't have to put up with him anymore.