I was right.
A crowd of 15 protesters upset with the late night comic held signs and occasionally shouted as they stood across the street from Letterman’s studio.
But they were often hidden from view by the more than 35 members of the media there to cover the protest, and out-shouted by a few very vocal counter-protesters.
What I said two days ago:
1. The rally will be poorly attended.
2. CBS will not fire David Letterman. Letterman is worth millions, probably billions to CBS. While TV networks don’t like cranky pants protestors outside, what they like more than that is MONEY.
UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds notes that Letterman is “feeling the heat”. Bwahahahahahaha!
Jesus Christ, Oliver, you made that prediction before Letterman practically got down on his knees and begged forgiveness. And before Palin accepted his apology and pretty much ended it.
Why would Letterman have done that if he wasn’t feeling the heat?
Inexplicable gloating from you.
“Why would Letterman have done that if he wasn’t feeling the heat?”
Because he agreed he crossed a line?
as for his Apology, claiming he got down on his knees and begged forgiveness is not even close to what I saw.
I can’t believe the overblown hysteria over this non-issue; the amount of bad taste jokes directed at Obama and Hilary during the election were endless, and yes, Palin received her fair share as well. There’s no question Letterman’s joke was in poor taste, but Palin is the one who attempted to turn it into an assault, and succeeded only in turning it into a national waste of time. For the record, Monday’s apology by Letterman was the 2nd public apology he issued on this, albeit a more protracted one. The Right will no doubt claim this is because of the pressure applied by Palin, and they may well be right, but it doesn’t validate the ridiculous amount of news coverage this has produced, as a direct result of Palin’s unfathomable desire to thrust her youngest daughter into the role formerly held by her eldest daughter; that of stage prop for her vacuous political ambitions. I don’t recall this level of outrage from the Right when Bloat Limbaugh called Chelsea Clinton the White House dog, but even then who would dare to castigate the leader of the GOP?
Pathetically premeditated media attention from Palin has become her MO; maybe she should just concentrate on doing her fucking job while she still has one.
Rat_bastard, I said practically got down on his knees. He had already supposedly made an apology, right? Immediately upon the first sponsor cancelling advertising on CBS as a result of protesters, he waves the white flag.
If that’s not the actions of a man feeling the heat, just exactly what is it?
Lettermen remains a highly successful television personality.
Palin remains a has-been.
Remember what I said two days ago?
Letterman will laugh all the way to the bank.
It’s a gift. I can’t explain how I knew.
And yet… Some disagreed. I laugh in their general direction.
Republican comedian Jay Leno made the same joke that David Letterman did, except that Letterman was talking about an 18 year old woman and Jay Leno made the joke about Palin’s then 17 year old daughter:
“Governor Palin announced over the weekend that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is five months pregnant. And you thought John Edwards was in trouble before! Now he has really done it.”
“The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” 9/2/08
Right wing deceivers like “Dennis” didn’t have a problem with a Republican comedian making that joke because it’s IOKIYAR: It’s OK If You’re A Republican.
Republican John McCain and Republican leader Rush Limbaugh also made similar attacks on an underage girl:
http://google.com/search?q=John+McCain+Chelsea
http://google.com/search?q=Rush+Limbaugh+Chelsea
Republican Rule Number One: Rules Are For Other People.
to news reference. Good point. Wonder why she chose Letterman and now? Think it’s just about Sarahpac looking for a fundraising springboard?
News Ref: Conclusive proof this whole thing has been a farce, unless the Gov hadn’t heard about the Leno joke.
They were not the same joke … Were Edwards and Palin’s daughter in the same place the day that joke was told?
Did Leno have a track record of dumping on Palin?
This whole comparison thing is nonsense.
If Letterman learned from this not to wear his Republican / conservative / Palin hatred on his sleeve , then he has been appropriately humbled .
I hope all the unoriginal comedians who think that taking a shot at Bush or Palin is bold “speaking truth to Power” get new writers.
What’s next? This was a wrap in my opinion after the first apology.
A sponsor who didn’t advertise on Letterman cancelled a few of their web ads. Letterman beat Conan for a couple of nights. I’m sure he was ROCKED by the controversy. He apologized for the joke – a poorly constructed joke, at worst. But I was ridiculing the idea that he would be fired or resign, an idea I’m still ridiculing now in the latest carny show from the right wing in America.
This whole comparison thing is nonsense.
If Letterman learned from this not to wear his Republican / conservative / Palin hatred on his sleeve , then he has been appropriately humbled .
Wait wait wait. I thought you were all saying that the reason you were upset was because he was talking about child rape. But the real reason you’re upset is because Letterman has made fun of Palin a lot? How is making fun of Palin against the rules?
Frankly Palin should be happy for the controversy. If it weren’t for people making fun of her no one would think about her at all.
And yet, Republicans rallied to the defense of Imus after he called an entire team of college b-ball players “nappy-headed ho’s.”
Slick Sally should get over herself and accept the fact that she raised a SLUT.
But I was ridiculing the idea that he would be fired or resign, an idea I’m still ridiculing now in the latest carny show from the right wing in America. Oliver Willis
And I’m saying that may be an idea worth ridiculing, but not one worth boasting about predicting wouldn’t materialize. I have yet to read one article that seriously thought that would ever happen. Even the people who organized the protest, who were largely protesting the the offensive remarks he made against women and children, an offense scant few here recognize as even being offensive. One day you will, Oliver. Right now it’s all about you.
Duplicitous “Dennis” typifies the right wing’s double standards: One standard for their opponents and another for their allies.
Letterman himself has repeatedly apologized for the joke(s) and he himself accepted that the jokes were over the line.
But when Republican leader Limbaugh attacked an underage girl he never apologized, when Republican Senator McCain attacked an underage girl the Republican Party went on to make him their Presidential Candidate, and when Republican Jay Leno made the same joke (except then it was specifically about an underage girl) it was ignored.
Right winger deceiver’s like “Dennis” always have a convenient double standard for their outrage.
Right Winger’s First Rule: Rules Are For Other People.
Duplicitous “Dennis” typifies the right wing’s double standards: One standard for their opponents and another for their allies.—”Left-Wing Canard References”
“News Reference”, there are quite a few points here that you are just plain wrong about. The first one, is just who the hell are you to make the judgment for another mother and father as to just when and to what degree they should stand up and say “Fuck you, you perverted moron, enough is enough.”? Like Oliver, you obviously don’t have children to even havethe first inkling of what it is you speak of, but did you even ever have a little sister that you felt you needed to speak out against someone older than her who might’ve been bullying her, or questioning her honor? Leno’s joke pales in comparison; it’s not even close to what Letterman said. He didn’t say the words ‘knocked up’, he wasn’t wishy-washy about which daughter he was talking about, his joke wasn’t even as clear-cut as Letterman’s and he didn’t make the reference just moments before that Willow’s daughter dressed like a slutty flight attendant. Still, it’s not for you to determine when and under what circumstances a parent feels it’s right to speak out against something as foul as what Letterman said, something he has now gone to great lengths to admit. That this even needs to be explained to you is a testament to your mind-numbing stupidity.
When you claim repeatedly, that “when Republican leader Limbaugh attacked an underage girl he never apologized”, that is absolutely false. I have no idea just how old you were in 1992 or what level of awareness you had for current events, but the details on that occurrence are sketchy at best, and what controversy there even was over it didn’t surface until well after the fact, which mostly came from Al Franken’s book many years later. You know all about Al Franken right? The comedy writer from SNL back in those days. The same comedy show that made several mean-spirited jokes about Chelsea Clinton. The ones Al Franken so gallantly protested about… oh wait, no he didn’t.
You would do well to read the particulars of that incident that is so often falsely portrayed by the media and repeated by left-wings blogs as if it were fact. At the very least, it proves you are a lying liar who tells lies when you say Rush never apologized. He did. Several times.
Franken’s Rush/Chelsea lie
‘“News Reference”, there are quite a few points here that you are just plain wrong about. The first one, is just who the hell are you to make the judgment for another mother and father as to just when and to what degree they should stand up and say “Fuck you, you perverted moron, enough is enough.”?’
Riiiight….but it’s ok for YOU to decide that this joke in poor taste is the end of civilization as we know it?
Get real.
‘Leno’s joke pales in comparison; it’s not even close to what Letterman said.’
You’ve got to be kidding; WHAT’S THE FUCKING DIFFERENCE?
Well, having seen both programs before I’m guessing that the Leno joke was poorly delivered and not funny.
WHAT’S THE FUCKING DIFFERENCE? -jrfunk
I listed four reasons, for starters. Five, actually, in that it was a timing thing. If Sarah and Todd Palin, or Sarah’s handlers, didn’t choose to speak out about every cruel joke made about Bristol at that point in the campaign, it doesn’t mean they give up their right to speak out against anything else even remotely similar said about her later on. If she decided the circumstances were something she needed to speak up about in this case, or angered her to that point, then that is her right. And like I said, it was her child Willow that she said Letterman was referring to, and if she wants to say, ‘hold on here a minute, bud’, I think she gets the pass.
And jrfunk, regarding the comparison to Leno’s joke, I asked News Reference what it is in his experiences that gives him some insight into just exactly Sarah Palin should be and should not be vocal about when it comes to her daughters and things idiot comedians say about them. If you want to answer that too, please be my guest.
Maybe these protesters should turn their attention to a different target… hey, Oliver, has Brit Hume been fired yet?
Not forgiving Dave’s jokes, but methinks Palin and her minions may have some misplaced priorities.
Exhibit A: A skit on SNL jokingly suggesting incest in the Palin family in Sept., 2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRXQ2ZueP5c
Exhibit B: Palin’s appearance on SNL one month later.
Letterman practically got down on his knees and begged forgiveness.
Of course he did.
You know all about Al Franken right? The comedy writer from SNL back in those days. The same comedy show that made several mean-spirited jokes about Chelsea Clinton. The ones Al Franken so gallantly protested about… oh wait, no he didn’t.
Those are some really detailed links there
August j. Pollack, I kinda figured you’d take a hiatus from this place after your mentor wigged out again and said Barack Obama needs to resign.
The ‘rotten monster, terrible leader’ Barack Obama.
“Obama is cute. He is charming. But there is something rotten inside him. Unlike the Republicans who backed George W. Bush, I won’t follow a terrible leader just because I voted for him. Obama has revealed himself. He is a monster, and he should remove himself from power”–Tedd Rall
Tell me, did you and he get together to laugh at all the comments from lefty bloggers said about him over that little tirade?
If the link I provided regarding News Reference’s lie that El Rushbo ‘never apologized’ wasn’t detailed enough for you, do you care to offer any refutation? Because so far, News Ref hasn’t bothered to. Since you were all of 13 years old at the time, and I’m sure the political equivalent of Doogie Howser at that point in your life, do you care to share with us your version of the Limbaugh/Chelsea incident and how you felt then, and whether or not he was contrite enough for the offense?
Sarah Palin: “Say anything you want about me.
“Please.
“I’ll work with you on the material.”
Barack Obama: “Let me be as clear as possible, I think people’s families are off-limits, and people’s children are especially off-limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin’s performance as governor or her potential performance as a vice president.”
It’s startling to me, Redneck Rider, how so many of the admirable things this guy says are completely ignored by the still-unhinged liberal fanatics who post on blogs. They can dig up the most arcane, irrelevant tidbits, quotes, and canards now taken as fact from events long since past, but they disregard common sense and praiseworthy counsel from their current leader.
Republican leader Rush Limbaugh attacked a 13 year old girl and Republicans made Limbaugh their hero.
http://google.com/search?q=Rush+Limbaugh+Chelsea
Republican leader John McCain attacked an underage girl and Republicans made McCain their presidential candidate.
http://google.com/search?q=John+McCain+Chelsea
Republican comedian Jay Leno attacked an underage girl and Republicans changed the subject.
http://alan.com/2009/06/13/leno-told-the-same-joke-as-letterman
It’s startling to me, Redneck Rider, how so many of the admirable things this guy says are completely ignored by the still-unhinged liberal fanatics who post on blogs.
So Obama says that this stuff shouldn’t be part of our politics, meaning, of course, his campaign’s use of such material. And you don’t get that his orders to his staff have no effect on the First Amendment rights of everyone else. I think everyone agrees that Letterman’s joke was tasteless and that he has sufficiently atoned for all but the most fanatical haters.
BTW, it’s REPACK Rider, and if you care to understand the origin of my handle, I just got some good press that explains it.
I’m the guy on the left.
News Reference, please tell me, just who is your target audience when you name yourself that? Can anyone here honestly tell me they would refer to you for any ‘news’?
I’m calling you a liar for stating that the Maha Rushdie never apologized for the Chelsea picture malfunction. Do you understand that, Newsie, I am saying you lied about that. Do you have anything at all that your target audience can refer to as news proof that you were not lying when you made that up?
how so many of the admirable things this guy says are completely ignored by the still-unhinged liberal fanatics who post on blogs.
Is David Letterman running for something? No? STFU. Take your false equivalence and go home.
I think everyone agrees that Letterman’s joke was tasteless and that he has sufficiently atoned for all but the most fanatical haters. RR
I agree that he has sufficently atoned. Sarah Palin has accepted his apology, but that hasn’t silenced her fanatical haters here.
I know your handle and I’m happy for the good press you received. I admire what you do and in many ways I’m envious that you were able to make a career out of something you were so passionate about. That and I’m really terrible about moving heavy, unwieldy furniture around and couldn’t imagine moving an expensive, heavy piano one foot, much less out of and into another house. What I don’t find particularly admirable are your challenges to fight people, or your taunts of ‘chickenhawk’, to those you disagree with, and I think it’s beneath you. I mean that in a constructive way. Honestly.
Is David Letterman running for something? No? STFU. Take your false equivalence and go home. Duros62
“They always talk who never think.”
—Matthew Prior
I’m calling you a liar for stating that the Maha Rushdie never apologized for the Chelsea picture malfunction.
Newsie never said that. he said the right made him a hero.
Get your own fucking blog, you are tiresome.
You’re misspelling “Ted” now? That seems kind of desperate
Everytime Palin gets all whiny and starts complaining about the treatment she gets from the media just makes her look that much more not-ready-for-primetime.
If a late night tv show person makes a joke about you, don’t respond to it. Just let it go, it comes with the turf.
How many horrible things were said about Hillary Clinton for years and years and not once did she ever throw some hissy fit the way Palin did. you don’t dignify something by responding to it, you should just ignore it.
Palin tries to have it both ways, she thrusts her family out there like stage props, then acts shocked when they make jokes about her.
Like CBS is going to fire Letterman, yea right.
You’re misspelling “Ted” now? That seems kind of desperate.
Saw that after I posted it. I’m taking the ‘no preview comments’ defense on that one.
Your mentor’s Obama meltdown/wig-out, Pollack.
Are you with him or agin’ him on that?
Bill Maher has said much worse.
And besides, Bristol is now the face of the abstinence movement (except for that one time), which makes her a public figure.
Game on.
Newsie never said that. he said the right made him a hero. Duros62
He said exactly that, Duros. Go back to 7:11 am.
You should really e-mail him if you’re so obsessed with him, Dennis. He can answer questions about himself much better than I can.
uh Repack,
That was great publicity but you didn’t invent mountain bike riding. When you were in Nam we were doing something we called gulley whomping. My little sister’s bike was perfect, big soft tires for suspension, the right size to throw around. I remember my surprise when the pedals started dragging on the ground. I tried tieing 1 wheel to a tree and the other to a come a long tied to another tree to pull the frame back to normal, didn’t work. And we didn’t invent it either. It was just the normal evolution of little boys and Stingray bikes back in the old days when kids played outside in the woods unsupervised.
He’s a despicable human being, Polack. I’m more just curious as to why you hitched your wagon to his, and how that squares with the comments you make here. And I doubt seriously he’d respond to my emails now when he never has before.
Unless, hey, can you put in a good word for me?
Stooping to racial slurs against commenters, now, Denny? At long last, have you no sense of decency, sir?
Dennis, if you want to whine obsessively about something else, please get your own blog. I have no idea what your obsession with me and/or Ted Rall has to do with David Letterman.
It’s purely misdirection, August. he reminds of Gob from Arrested Development.
“It’s the final countdoooooowwwwwn!”
Stooping to racial slurs against commenters, now, Denny? At long last, have you no sense of decency, sir? Duros62
No f’ing idea what you’re talking about, Duros. It’s rare that I do, though. Clarity is not something you’re known for.
Right. Polack was just a typo.
Right. Polack was just a typo
Oh brother. Good Lord, Duros. First spelling ‘Ted’ with two D’s is an act of desperation according to Pollack, then misspelling Pollack with one L instead of two is somehow racist to you, even though Poland isn’t a race.
Please go back and reread that quote about thinking and speaking. Maybe make a copy of it and paste it up on your bathroom mirror. It’s simple, yet poignant.
Republican leader Rush Limbaugh attacked a 13 year old girl and right wing dittohead “Dennis” is making excuses for Limbaugh.
After Limbaugh got called out on attacking a 13 year old girl he did NOT apologize but rather Limbaugh made up excuses for his attack.
http://google.com/search?q=Rush+Limbaugh+Chelsea
Right winger “Dennis” is either too stupid to understand that or is himself a liar.
I’ll concede that right winger “Dennis” could be both: Stupid AND a Liar.
Especially since he still can’t address why Republicans decided to make their Republican Presidential Candidate a man who not only attacked a teenage girl but also called his own wife the C*** word in public and laughed when one of his supporters called Hillary the B**** word.
then misspelling Pollack with one L instead of two is somehow racist to you, even though Poland isn’t a race.
We know how you roll, denny. PERHAPS Polack isn’t a racial slur, but it is a slur nonetheless. Your excuses about misspelling is fail. You hardly ever misspell people’s names, yet you go out of your way to make little swipes.
And I was wrong about the Limbaugh apology, I freely admit it. When will you admit to being wrong about anything?
I’ll concede that the whole incident may have been embellished or paraphrased by Molly Ivins. However, there are plenty of ,a href=http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1895>other incidents.
Whoops.
After Limbaugh got called out on attacking a 13 year old girl he did NOT apologize but rather Limbaugh made up excuses for his attack. –News Liar
“News Reference”, I’m not sure what planet you are from, but here on this planet that we call Earth, when someone says, “I’m sorry” several times, we tend to consider that an apology, and we say that he ‘made an apology’.
We tend NOT to say “He made no apologies” after he says “I’m sorry” several times.
Again, in the link I posted earlier from the Baltimore Sun, Franken’s Rush/Chelsea lie, the author provides transcripts he got from Lexis/Nexis and you can read for yourself:
…Rush apologized several times and told a story about how he had learned early in his career the importance of not making fun of someone’s appearance. He then apologized again and said
“All right. We’re sorry. We didn’t intend to hurt her feelings.”….
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry. Let me tell you very quickly what happened last Friday night. “…
“I’m– I hope you will forgive me.”
You can dispute the details of exactly how it happened, even accept Franken’s and Ivin’s accounts of it as Gospel truths, and here’s a lengthy discussion of it from Wikipedia, but you cannot deny that he didn’t apologize, or even ‘never apologized’ as your repeat over and over.
That is, unless you dispute the transcript, or just simply choose to go on lying about it.
Dennis, simply saying the words “I’m sorry” do not constitute an apology.
For example, if someone writes: “That Quaker in a Basement guy is a moral reprobate, an ethical fraud, and has a bad haircut. Oh, I’m sorry. No really, I shouldn’t have said that. He has a perfectly nice haircut,” that is not an apology.
Quaker, you are correct. All kinds of things enter into whether or not one deems the words ‘I’m sorry’ to be an apology.
I don’t know if you are agreeing with News Reference or not, but I don’t see how you can read that transcript and claim definitively and repeatedly that Limbaugh did not offer an apology such as that which News Reference is doing. You would have to be watching Limbaugh on video tape to make the charge that his words were not sincere and only excuses, and News Reference has not said how and under what circumstances he makes that claim; he just states that he never made an apology. Not to mention that an apology was never demanded because it never rose to the point of a newsworthy controversy; it appears to have arisen many years later when Molly Ivins wrote about it, and then later again by Franken, and even then, much of what they wrote is disputable.
If News Reference has evidence that support that the apologies given from the transcript I provided were not sincere and only excuses, he won’t offer it. Neither does anyone else.
uh Repack,
That was great publicity but you didn’t invent mountain bike riding.
Of course not. The bikes were invented in a lot of places and a lot of times, including about 1955 in France. But no one before us ever commercialized the product or turned riding them into an organized sport.
All my buddies and I did was start organized offroad racing in 1976 and design bikes for that racing and open a business called MountainBikes, where we built these things from scratch in a rented garage and sold them for $1300, and then a big company bought four of them and had them copied in Japan, followed immediately by every other bike company and then for about four years every bike company in the world just copied our design and used the name of our business to describe the result.
In 1983 I wrote some rules for racing, which became the Olympic and international mountain bike racing rules. The sport became an Olympic event 13 years later and is now the most popular varsity sport in the high school in my town.
So if you opened a shop before 1979 to build and sell these bikes and the sport took its name from you instead of our business, and you wrote the competition rules still in use, then you beat me to it. Why don’t you get the credit?
‘Well, having seen both programs before I’m guessing that the Leno joke was poorly delivered and not funny.’
LOL! Touche.
‘I listed four reasons, for starters….’
What you listed was a series of semantics; BOTH jokes were in poor taste but with the same underlying theme.
The fact you refuse to recognize that only further demonstrates your utter lack of credibility.
‘And jrfunk, regarding the comparison to Leno’s joke, I asked News Reference what it is in his experiences that gives him some insight into just exactly Sarah Palin should be and should not be vocal about when it comes to her daughters and things idiot comedians say about them. If you want to answer that too, please be my guest.’
As I noted before, it doesn’t seem to limit YOU from voicing your views on what is and isn’t fit for Palin to criticize; why does everyone BUT you have to justify their opinions?
‘No f’ing idea what you’re talking about, Duros. It’s rare that I do, though. Clarity is not something you’re known for.’
Look who’s talking.
Hey Repack,
You’re a little touchy about your legacy. Did you make it all the way through my post?
“And we didn’t invent it either. It was just the normal evolution of little boys and Stingray bikes back in the old days when kids played outside in the woods unsupervised.”
It was a way to emulate motocross bikes when you were a kid. By 1979 it was way old school. In 1970 kids were fooling around trying to hack suspensions onto little beater bikes. Congratulations on making up some rules and having a few good years before your ideas swept the industry. And congratulations on your Olympic endeavers.
A gradeschool buddy of mine basically invented freestyle bump skiing. They owned the tour for a few years and one of them is the national coach.
I’m sure as adults your skillsets produced bikes that were much more sophisticated than the homebuilt hackjobs that kids made in my neck of the woods. But welding was taught in 8th grade metal shop and one kid scratch built a motorcycle. It wasn’t very sophisticated but it had a full suspension. The forks were salvaged.
A good idea doesn’t care who has it.
A good idea doesn’t care who has it.
What the hell would YOU know about good ideas?
“News Reference”, I’m not sure what planet you are from, but here on this planet that we call Earth, when someone says, “I’m sorry” several times, we tend to consider that an apology, and we say that he ‘made an apology’.
We tend NOT to say “He made no apologies” after he says “I’m sorry” several times.
So if I say, “Dennis, I’m sorry you’re destroying America”, that’s fine?
Instead of your usual showing up late for the meeting and saying something really stupid about a prior discussion you missed, this time you do it a full four days later.
You’re far more a regressive than a progressive.
Zython,
Sometimes timing is everything, yours is exquisite.