David Letterman jokes about Sarah Palin’s 14-year-old daughter getting “knocked up” by Alex Rodriguez during a Yankee game. Har har har. (Via Instapundit.)
POSTSCRIPT: Mass Backwards says that the New York Times whitewashed this bit out of the monologue transcript. (Via Hot Air.)
UPDATE: Apparently it was CBS, not the NYT, that edited the joke out of the monologue. Also, the NYT says they would have deleted it if CBS hadn’t. Their printing of monologues are routinely edited for taste, so they aren’t supposed to be transcripts. Fair enough; the NYT is cleared of the whitewashing charge, this time. (Via Tim Blair, via Riehl World View, via Instapundit.)
CBS is on the hook, though. Someone at CBS recognized that there was a problem enough to edit the transcript, but (if Letterman is to be believed — a big if) no one told Letterman there was a problem until days later. Letterman, for his part, refused to apologize, and said that the joke was intended to refer to Palin’s 18-year-old daughter, rather than her 14-year-old daughter, and was not intended to imply a rape, statutory or otherwise.
That doesn’t really make sense, since the older daughter wasn’t at the game, but suppose we take him at his word. This joke is still in appalling taste. David Letterman apparently feels that it’s fair to tar Bristol Palin as a slut because she had a child out of wedlock, and did so without her even being in the news. In fact, in another joke, Letterman went so far as to call her a prostitute. (Via Hot Air.) If Letterman hates Sarah Palin, that’s fine, but he should leave her children out of it unless her children are actually in the news.
We’re seeing an amazing double standard here. People have been drummed off the air for far less than this. But when it comes to Sarah Palin, it seems you can say literally anything.
UPDATE (6/15): Letterman apologizes.
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