Posted on 06/12/2009 12:38:29 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Credit where credit’s due.
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Comedians in search of a laugh should really know better than to snicker about men having sex with teenage girls (or young women) less than half their age.
The sexualization of girls and women in the media is reaching new lows these days — it is exploitative and has a negative effect on how all women and girls are perceived and how they view themselves. Letterman also joked about what he called Palin’s “slutty flight attendant look” — yet another example of how the media love to focus on a woman politician’s appearance, especially as it relates to her sexual appeal to men. Someone of Letterman’s stature, who appears on what used to be known as “the Tiffany Network” (CBS), should be above wallowing in the juvenile, sexist mud that other comedians and broadcasters seem to prefer.
On that point, it’s important to note that when Chelsea Clinton was 13 years old she was the target of numerous insults based on her appearance. Rush Limbaugh even referred to her as the “White House dog.” NOW hopes that all the conservatives who are fired up about sexism in the media lately will join us in calling out sexism when it is directed at women who aren’t professed conservatives.
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People on Twitter are grumbling about that last paragraph but (a) given how peeved the sisterhood will be that they’re defending Palin, surely you won’t begrudge NOW some sort of ass-covering knock on conservatives here, and (b) their point is, unfortunately, too often valid, as a scroll through righty blog comments about Michelle Obama or Hillary Clinton (at least before 2008) will attest. A compromise, then: The right will join in calling out sexism directed at liberal women when the left stops treating conservative women as “inauthentic” or traitors to their gender because they happen to be pro-life. Deal?
Meanwhile, Michael Steele hints at a boycott of Letterman’s show. Really? Even an awful joke is still a joke. I think the PR beating he’s taking is enough.
Update (Ed): Since NOW has been good enough to put principle above politics, then I can do the same by agreeing that conservative pundits should leave menstruation out of their criticisms of Sonia Sotomayor. If we complain about the belittling and sexualizing of conservative women in politics, then G. Gordon Liddy should stick to the substantive issues in the Sotomayor nomination. I hadn’t heard about that one until I clicked over to NOW’s site.
http://www.now.org/issues/media/hall-of-shame/
Astounding.
More Breaking News.....The 2010 Winter Olympic Games will be moved to Hell, where it has just froze over....
There's a huge difference between saying that a girl is homely; and saying that she wants to be raped (statutory, or otherwise). This absurd “moral equivalence” is a blatant attempt to diminish Letterman's offense.
I give NOW very little credit for this because I see them as acting ONLY (and belatedly at that) because they were shamed into doing so by days of hectoring from conservatives and a few more-conscientious liberals.
Here is the contact information you need to take immediate action:
Leslie Moonves
CBS President and CEO
(323) 575-2345
Rob Burnett
Executive Producer, The Late Show
(212)975-5300
Without question it is “open season” on conservatives, and unless we respond with unwavering force in every instance, these kinds of disgusting and cowardly attacks will escalate.
—from: Media Research Center
Now he’s got something in common with Rush.
I’m glad to see this. Maybe it’s finally happening with NOW,people do change.
As for the Rush comment, I think it is apples to oranges.
However; I also think they make a point, some humor is just wrong.
Damn. I got exactly what I asked for. Now I have to write to them and congratulate them.
Damn. I hate when people I don’t like do the right thing when I tell them to.
Oh, well. I’ll also have to agree with them about the Chelsea Clinton business—I always thought it was irrelevant and out of line, anyway. Truth is, if we take all the appearance issues out of women’s politics, it helps us more than them on balance, since our women are vastly better on merit and intellectual integrity than theirs are.
New bumper sticker: “OUR WOMEN CAN DEBATE THE CRAP OUT OF YOUR WOMEN!”
well even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.
There is a contact link a NOW’s website.....it will pack much more punch coming from NOW!
Letterman should be happy he didn't get so much as a "shame on you" from the National Organization of Ugly Women.
Yeah, I thought the menstruation comment was pretty dumb, personally. I don’t like seeing the sexist comments from our side, too. It belittles us and undermines our real issues with policy and character. However, I do reserve the right to comment on bad plastic surgery, too much grooming by men, or hair plugs.
Might as well. The Games have as much business being there as on the beach in Southern Russia. :-))
LOL. NOW only issued this statement because conservatives pressured them through e-mails and phone calls.
“Let's hope that the key conferences aren't when she's menstruating or something, or just before she's going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then.”
Please don't equate Liddy’s joke that plays off of the words of an adult woman seeking a lifetime appointment with the slur of a fourteen year old because of her mother's ideology.
I agree there is a tremendous difference, but I disagreed with Rush when he made unkind comments about Chelsea and I still disagree. Children should be off limits.
NOW was slow off the mark, but kudos to them for putting aside politics and realizing that our youngsters are increasingly at risk, girls AND boys by pedophiles and perps of every stripe.
Letterman is completely and utterly vile.
” Children should be off limits.”
Agreed!!
Leslie Moonves
CBS President and CEO
(323) 575-2345
Rob Burnett (212)975-5300
***Without question it is “open season” on conservatives, and unless we respond with unwavering force in every instance, these kinds of disgusting and cowardly attacks will escalate.***
While you are at it, please contact Mrs. Pelosi about her determination to have the Abu Ghraib photos released around the world to appease her base, the Anti-Americans.
If you'd like to contact Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, here's the contact information that you'll need:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi
http://speaker.house.gov/contact or
http://www.speaker.gov/contact
If the web contact form doesn't work, use this email address:
AmericanVoices@mail.house.gov
Office of the Speaker
H-232, US Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-0100
From the O'Reilly web site......"Posted by Bill O'Reilly.com Staff at 4:46 PM"
Even so, to attack Chelsea was out of line and unwarranted and I am surprised he did it.
McCain was the worst, his joke was made public...”Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly, because Janet Reno is her father”...forced him to call Bill Clinton and as for forgiveness.
Don’t touch kids, they do not deserve this.
OTOH, I can't downvote the reddit folks fast enough.
Everybody, please check out this page. You don't have to leave a comment if you don't want to, but down-vote the bad comments:
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/8s0g2/palins_continuing_vendetta_against_letterman/
Agreed. See my #22 to pepperdog.
The best they could come up with was a comment from a live radio show from 12-16 years ago?
Oh, and Letterman’s funny was written for him, and passed through several filters before he approved it himself.
There is no comparison.
Rush's comment was lowbrow, mean-spirited, and unfunny. Letterman's was all that — and creepy and perverted as well. The comments weren't morally equivalent — Letterman's was orders-of-magnitude worse than Rush's. That doesn't excuse Rush -- but, it reveals something about NOW's collective mindset.
No disagreement here.
This is the same network that got slapped for the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction during the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004. So they have a history of peddling smut and perversion.
Do you know what comment they're referring to? NOW didn't seem to bother citing what the comment they were referring to was about, except to use Rush as an excuse to excuse Letterman's outrageous demeaning comments.
“I suggested Jenna be waterboarded and then she could talk about whether or not she thought it was torture.” — Stephen King
Did you see his so-called apology? It was one long-running joke. He repeated his original jokes (to laughter no less, what are his brain-dead audience thinking?). The worst part was when he invited them to appear on his show, or Sarah could come on without her husband with a leer at the camera (again audience laughter). Smarmy to the nth degree! I'll bet he was reading Playboy's Hate**** List until it got taken down for the slime it was.
Related thread:
Letterman is the right’s new public enemy (RINOs advising us not to get mad)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2270662/posts
See post #91 for Letterman’s sponsors contact information..
I wonder if the PUMAs had anything to do with NOW finally standing up for Palin’s children? and Sarah herself, for that matter.
You beat me to it. I was going to say the same thing. NOW would never had commented if they hadn’t been ridiculed and their obvious left wing bias exposed by others. If they were sincere they wouldn’t have waited several days and after the second incident(the so called apology) had occurred.
Plus that was what, 20 years ago, and Rush long since apologized?
I didn't listen to Rush when Clinton was in office. At that time, I was a registered independent. It wasn't until after 9/11 that I became a republican, mainly because of the disgust I felt for the democrat's tactics. I did not know he had ever done this. It is NOT acceptable. A child of 13 years (boy or girl) has enough agonizing on their plate. Did he apologize for this or do a Letterman non-apology? As for NOW wanting us to call out sexism when it wasn't directed at conservatives, where were they when Clinton was the Sexual-Harraser in Chief?
...Rush when he made unkind comments about Chelsea... Be specific,what were the comments?
A FReeper told me just two days ago that this story was wrong. So I did a little research. It seems Al Franken was the first to claim that Rush said it. But what did happen was not in the form of a spoken remark and it was on his TV program not his radio program.
The following is what actually happened:
On his TV show in 1992, a few days after the Presidential election, Rush Limbaugh was reviewing In/Out lists (a popular fad at the time):
In today’s New York Daily News right here… it’s the obligatory in-out list. Every time there’s a massive change somewhere, people are in, people are out. I’m now out. It says about me on here, Rush Limbaugh, loud-mouthed conservative and Bush favorite. He’s out.
Rush commented that most of the other things on the days’ list were not funny, but that “one of them in particular” was. Rush quoted from the David Hinckley article
“In: A cute kid in the White House. Out: Cute dog in the White House.”Could– could we see the cute kid? Let’s take a look at– see who is the cute kid in the White House.
A picture of the “cute dog” (Millie) appeared on the screen instead of the “cute kid” (Chelsea).
Rush immediately said
No, no, no. That’s not the kid.
Then a picture of Chelsea Clinton came on the screen and Rush said
That’s– that’s the kid.
A good deal more explanation of the whole thing is at the link. I was told the other day that Rush fired that technician but that isn't in this article. For those who prefer to believe a version Al Franken created 17 years ago may prefer not to go to the link.
Where were they when the media was trashing Sarah Palin? How many people left NOW along with their dues? Their reputation since the election is shot and they’ve been exposed not as a champion of women’s right but as just another left-wing organization that pushes a socialist agenda. This is simply a CYA exercise.
I never heard him sat that.
Letterman is a pig.
But most men are not.
If I understand things correctly now, what NOW was referring to was a 17 year old technical error on Rush's TV show; and not a spoken, deliberate insult. Or, more precisely, they were referring to the misrepresentation of the event, as propagated by Franken. Still, NOW had to find something to blame conservatives for; before they could bring themselves to criticize a Letterman. Pathetic.
All I can say is that the lyingliar.com story above fits what I know of both Rush and Franken.
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