Okay, so I'm trying to whip up some strawberry shortcake and I pull up the TV Guide website to see what supposed to be on TV in this brave new digital world, where everything is crystal clear and there is still nothing worth watching. Anyway, top of the page is a story headlined "Letterman Offers Full Apology to the Palins". I think to myself, hey, thats great. Letterman really made a crappy, cruel, coarse joke about Bristol Palin and he should apologize. The joke sucked, it was beneath him, it was nasty and foul and its taken too long but at least he is finally getting with the program and going to give a full blown apology.Then I read what he said and now all I can say is that Letterman is a putz. Here's the most relevant bit:
"Well, my responsibility — I take full blame for that. I told a bad joke. I told a joke that was beyond flawed, and my intent is completely meaningless compared to the perception. And since it was a joke I told, I feel that I need to do the right thing here and apologize for having told that joke. It's not your fault that it was misunderstood, it's my fault. That it was misunderstood.[emphasis mine]" (Audience applauds.) "Thank you. So I would like to apologize, especially to the two daughters involved, Bristol and Willow, and also to the Governor and her family and everybody else who was outraged by the joke. I'm sorry about it and I'll try to do better in the future. Thank you very much."
The man is a putz, I kid you not. I was misunderstood? Are you kidding me? You weren't misunderstood Mr. Letterman, you were understood all too well to be making a foul joke at the expense of variously, a 14 year old and then an 18 year old girl. The girls really are not fair game, not for that kind of coarse joke. His "apology" basically assumes that it was okay to say something so nasty about Bristol, its just that people misunderstood him, didn't get the joke.
We got the joke, we just thought it was a crap joke to make about an 18 year old girl. We thought it was a crap joke to make about the Palin daughters, whichever one you thought you were talking about.
Acccrding to TV Guide, Embassy Suites pulled some ads from the CBS website. I actually think that kind of activity should continue until the guy gives an unqualified apology that clearly acknowledges that it was a foul thing to say, point blank, period.
