I think David Letterman has been making some shoddy jokes about Sarah Palin and her family. The one about A-Rod knocking up her 14-year old daughter was particularly egregious. I think Letterman deserves some criticism for that, and I don’t think calling her a slutty flight attendant was very appropriate.
I definitely see some sexism in those jokes. But, I do wonder about one thing. How much of the outrage is about Palin not getting any respect? I remember Dan Quayle. And Dan Quayle got absolutely abused for years by late night comedians. Most of the jokes were probably unfair and they were almost all mean-spirited. But they were funny because Dan Quayle was so ridiculous. They were funny because Dan Quayle had no business being vice-president. Sarah Palin had no business being a vice-presidential candidate for the same reasons. She was ridiculously ignorant of world affairs and policy disputes.
When a joke is directly sexist, criticism is warranted. And Palin and her daughters have been on the receiving end of too many of those types of jokes. Still, by using two of her children as pro-life poster children while advocating for the effectiveness of abstinence, doesn’t she open herself up for some criticism? And, when she winks and flips her hair and plays the role of beauty queen (including, especially, during the vice-presidential debate) doesn’t she invite some gender-related commentary?
I think Palin and her family have been mistreated. But not all criticism and ridicule is sexist. She is a ridiculous person. Just like Dan Quayle.
I agree 100%. She held herself and her family out there as representatives of a certain set of values. When it turns out that in fact that they don’t practice the values they preach, then they are fair game for ridicule. It will be to the everlasting shame of this nation that Sarah Palin managed to get anywhere close to the Presidency.
It’s pretty simple to me. Minor children are completely off limits – no matter how much their parents throw them up into the spotlight. Over 18, if those children are private citizens, pretty much off limits. Over 18, out in the spotlight…fair game.
That said, the jokes were unfunny and sexist and it makes Letterman look like a pervert. I’ll take him at his word that he thought it was the 18 year old…but it still makes him look like a perv.
I agree. Minor children are off completely off limits.
In Illinois, Sarah’s daughter is not a minor by virtue of motherhood. I do think it was a cheap shot, but we are talking about a grown woman, not a child. Someone on the radio compared it with calling Obama’s daughters sluts. Not the same thing.
As for Sarah Palin herself. As a very wise man said, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” Another of his sayings was, “If you are looking for a friend in Washington, get a Spaniel dog.” I wonder if he was thinking about Nixon and Checkers?
And, when she winks and flips her hair and plays the role of beauty queen (including, especially, during the vice-presidential debate) doesn’t she invite some gender-related commentary?
From comedians? Anything is fair game but there is a fine line that can be crossed into sexism. And if they cross it, they should be called on it.
Or from so-called progressive bloggers? I would rather that progressive bloggers (especialy male ones) err on the side of deciding it is sexist and calling out the perceived sexism even if they are being too stringent or just stick to criticizing her substantive statements (or lack-of-substance statements). I have no patience with this “How far can I go with gender related commentary and not be called sexist” question. None.
I don’t think there was anything fine about the line Letterman crossed. It was distasteful.
I do wish the Palins would just stay in Alaska and leave the rest of us in peace, though.
oh he leaped across the line and wasn’t even close.
They aren’t going to stay in Alaska. And so lots of progressive bloggers are going to have to decide over the next few years how to deal with her.
My preference is that no gender stereotyping be deemed acceptable – even when I intensely dislike the woman being stereotyped. In the same way that no racial stereotyping should be acceptable.
And, when she winks and flips her hair and plays the role of beauty queen (including, especially, during the vice-presidential debate) doesn’t she invite some gender-related commentary?
No she doesn’t, at least not by political progressives. Substitute words that people use to stereotype actions by racial minorities and see how it comes out. A comedian might be able to play with a black politician who shows up on the public stage and looks like he is auditioning for Driving Miss Daisy – but a progressive blogger shouldn’t.
I might have been as guilty as the next in talking about her last year – and if so I should have been called on it. That’s the one thing that I realized by the end of the 2008 elections. And it has been confirmed for me during the Sotomayor nomination.
I agree with you for the most part. I don’t think Tina Fey did anything out of line (unlike Letterman) but it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to make the same jokes that Fey used.
Besides, there’s plenty there to ridicule (ala Danny Qualye) without having to delve into those areas at all. Remember what Trudeau did to Danny boy using only a feather?
I agree with most of this, but her girly eye-batting act during the VP debate made me – and the other women in the bar where I was watching – a bit naseous. She undermined 50 years of women’s rights by acting like a cheerleader instead of a serious political figure. It was really embarrassing and detrimental, and she deserves ridicule for flauting her sex appeal, absolutely.
Sorry, but I have to call bullshit on that one. If male bloggers were to err on the side of caution regarding issues of sexism, there would be no way for me to call you out on that particularly egregious example, to say nothing of the fact that the behavior you are demanding would be condescendingly sexist if any male blogger exhibited it.
Much that has been said about Sarah Palin is appallingly sexist, Letterman’s jokes included. However that may be, there is no reason that any observer, irrespective of their gender, cannot legitimately call her out for pandering to sexist stereotypes in order to win elections. To suggest otherwise, much less to insist that all males be held to a more stringent standard of behavior with respect to gender issues, is to cross the line from opposing sexism to promoting it. The implication there, which is that women have a privileged perspective and that the burden of proof lies on all men to disprove a presumption of sexism, is a giant part of the reason that political feminism has been pushed to the edge of irrelevance, to the detriment of women everywhere.
Maybe. So long as you recognize that Poles can tell Polish jokes, Italians can tell Italian jokes, Jews can tell Jewish jokes, and rednecks can tell redneck jokes, in a way that would be offensive if an out-group person told the same joke.
Some people object to that double standard but I think it is a solid one.
I just don’t think there is any doubt that it isn’t funny when a gentile makes generalizations about Jews, while it can be hilarious when a Jew makes the same jokes. This is true of all minority groups and it’s pretty much true with women, too.
There is no need to analyze the phenomenon too deeply. It’s just true.
Up to a point, sure, that’s absolutely true. In Letterman’s case, however, I don’t think that what he said would have been less unacceptable if a female comic had said it. On the other hand, I don’t think Letterman’s maleness made his remarks more unacceptable.
There is a certain class of ethnic/sexist jokes that are never used in an in-group context because they are so patently demeaning that only an out-group bigot would find them funny. That’s the line that some of Letterman’s jokes crossed.
I think Randi Rhodes crossed that line with her calling Hillary Clinton a f*ing b*tch, or whatever she called her. That’s not a joke, it’s an insult.
But a woman wouldn’t have received the same grief for the slutty flight attendant crack. Ellen could have made that joke. My problem with it is that its unfortunate that someone would be nominated for vee-pee whom that joke would resonate about. In any case, there’s a difference between the two jokes in question. The one about her daughter was out of line because it was about her daughter. It doesn’t matter who tells it.
I completely disagree with you.
If there is gender related commentary that dwells on hair touching and winking etc. and there is a question as to whether or not that commentary is sexist then I want to see progressive bloggers err on the side of calling it sexist. I don’t want them to err on the side of looking the other way.
If there is racially related commentary that dwells on the way that a person looks or uses his or her body and there is a question as to whether that commentary is racist then I want to see progressive bloggers err on the side of calling it racist I don’t want them to err on the side of looking the other way.
The fact that you disagree isn’t surprising. It’s the way of the world when it comes to evaluating commentary about women for most people to think that they should just keep their mouths shut, not rock the boat and laugh along with the jokesters.
This time, you’re saying “progressive bloggers”. Last time, you were saying “progressive bloggers (especialy male ones)”.
That’s the difference.
The original statement was blatantly sexist; your second statement is not, and there’s nothing about the second statement that I disagree with. I’m sure that this is an honest blind spot, not a case of a convenient Limbaugh-esque retreat to a more defensible position, but blind spot or not, it’s wrong.
Letterman was out of line. Grossly, in my opinion. But the degree to which he was out of line had zilch to do with his gender. His jokes would have been just as reprehensible if they’d come out of the mouth of Phyllis Schlafly or Anne Coulter and not one iota more or less.
Should people in general err on the side of caution with respect to potential bigotry — or, for that matter, any kind of unkind treatment of innocent people? Absolutely. Should they be more or less careful based on their group affiliations? No, of course not. Bigotry cannot compensate for bigotry, it can only compound it.
I stand by my original statement. But I will explain the parenthetical and maybe you will see what I am saying:
I would rather that progressive bloggers (especialy male ones) err on the side of deciding it is sexist and calling out the perceived sexism even if they are being too stringent or just stick to criticizing her substantive statements (or lack-of-substance statements).
I was using “rather” in the sense of “prefer” – and, yes, I would especially prefer that male progressive bloggers err on the side of being too stringent. Why? Because we already have lots of female bloggers who do it and we don’t have many male bloggers who do it. That was made clear in 2008. I’m looking to bring male progressive bloggers to the same level as many female progressive bloggers. Also, sad to say, when only female progressive bloggers call it out a lot of people write it off as “just those women” – if progressive bloggers as a whole call it out then it means something. But over the last year I’ve not seen a significant number of male progressive bloggers regularly calling it out. I’m calling them out over that.
But the degree to which he was out of line had zilch to do with his gender. His jokes would have been just as reprehensible if they’d come out of the mouth of Phyllis Schlafly or Anne Coulter and not one iota more or less.
I don’t disagree with that. In fact, I don’t think there is anything in any statement I’ve made that even implies I disagree with it. I want to see progressive bloggers (but at this point especially male progressive bloggers) call it out whoever says it. For instance, I disagree with Booman’s statement that Ellen could make a “slutty flight attendant” joke about Palin. I think it should be called out if Ellen makes it.
Why? Is it fair to hardworking female flight attendents that people are allowed to stereotype them this way? Should ELLEN be promoting this stereotype? No.
Couple of issues.
Saying that Palin has a repressed librarian look isn’t an insult to librarians. Is it?
I don’t think Letterman insulted hard-working flight attendants. He insulted women, particularly women that have careers or enter politics.
My problem is with the word ‘slutty’, which I just think is a loaded word that is over the top.
In that sense, I don’t disagree that Ellen could be criticized for the same joke. I just don’t think she would be to anywhere the same degree. I also think there is a legitimate double standard in comedy. IOKIYA a member of the group being joked about. Up to a point, of course.
This is my problem with you. Instead of just taking a stand you want to find out what kind of insults that MIGHT be demeaning to women (or to women in a particular kind of profession) could be OK because they are just insulting but not sexist.
My point about Ellen isn’t about Ellen – it’s about you and your blogging buddies. If Ellen did it, YOU should call her on it. Even if the rest of society gives her a pass. My point is not about comedians – it’s about men who blog and who call themselves progressive but won’t stand shoulder to shoulder with women progressives in calling stuff out but instead try to think of reasons why it really isn’t sexist or it’s not THAT sexist. All in the name of not wading into the fray.
Call everybody on it.
You’ve figured out a way to do it with race. Why can’t you figure out a way to do it with sexism?
you seem to be suggesting that there is no distinction between something that is sexist and something that is merely insulting. And, you seem to be saying that even if there were a distinction, I shouldn’t make it, and should leap to accuse people of sexism.
Let me ask you a question. If Letterman had used ‘come-hither’ rather than ‘slutty’ would it have been insulting to women?
I recognize the inherent problem with objectifying women, but a woman that plays on her looks should expect people to comment and even joke about it. My problem is with the loaded ‘slut’ word and with bringing people’s children up for ridicule.
you seem to be suggesting that there is no distinction between something that is sexist and something that is merely insulting. And, you seem to be saying that even if there were a distinction, I shouldn’t make it, and should leap to accuse people of sexism.
No I’m not suggesting there is no distinction. I’m saying that if there is a QUESTION as to whether something is just insulting or whether it is also sexist, you should err on the side of assuming it is sexist. You may end up being wrong – but imo its better for someone who believes it is part of his job to push progressive policies to err in that direction than to err by tending to ignoring borderline behavior.
All these questions – you seem to want to hammer out EXACTLY where the line is. That’s impossible because there are too many variables. Bright line tests are what the Roberts/Thomas/Scalia/Alito faction on the supreme court always demands. I’m more like Kennedy and O’Connor and the other swing judges – there is a problem, most people will know it when they see it and they should take appropriate action.
I’ll stick with trying not to err at all.
I think that policy is what has proven detrimental to you and your fellow male bloggers over the last year or two.
Because trying not to err generally means acting conservatively and that means NOT calling something out unless you are absolutely sure.
That’s what people who won’t recognize dog whistles do when it comes to race issues. They aren’t racist. But they try not to err and they don’t recognize all dog whistles so they err on the side of caution. And don’t call out things they should call out.
I don’t mean to pick on you particularly. I think the vast majority of male bloggers have this problem when it comes to sexism issues.
But ‘slutty’ isn’t a dog whistle, it’s a sledgehammer.
And I did call Letterman out for it.
What I have confessed to is ignoring sexist attacks against Hillary that came from the mainstream press during the primaries. I didn’t ignore them here on the site, but I didn’t protest the way she was treated by people like Chris Matthews. I should have.
I don’t think I have anything else to apologize for when it comes to women’s rights and combating sexism.
OF course slutty is a sledgehammer.
I’m not talking about slutty. If you hadn’t called out slutty I would have really wondered about you.
Don’t get all defensive – I said I wasn’t particularly picking on you. I’m picking on ALL of you.
I’m sure many male bloggers could make the exact same statement you just did – other than Hillary you have nothing to apologize for. There’s a difference between thinking you have nothing to apologize for and thinking you are doing a great job.
The vast majority of male bloggers could do a better job on women’s rights and combatting sexism. I’m pushing you to do more. Not to apologize for anything.
This is pretty much the core of what I find objectionable — actually, insulting — about what you’re saying.
I could, if I felt like granting legitimacy to the implicit argument, defend myself by producing a long and detailed post about the number of years of my life I’ve spent helping the (largely female) victims of child sexual abuse, or pushing to get more women and minorities hired and promoted within the places I’ve worked, or writing letters to congressmen and newspapers and school boards over gender issues, or the care I’ve taken in raising my daughter to be an independent and self-respecting individual who challenges injustice when she sees it. But I shouldn’t have to, so I’m going to leave it at that.
I’m not “ALL men”. I am a specific person, answerable only for my own successes and failures. I don’t need credit from you or anyone else about how I lead my life; my thoughts and deeds stand or fall on their own merits. But I will not be silent when the target of your broad brush is all men, any more than I was silent — and I most certainly was not — when Kos was brushing off objections to that horrid pie advert as being the chatter of the “women’s studies crowd”.
Do a lot of [insert group here] need to do better? Almost certainly. But call them out as individuals. Judging a group for the misdeeds of individuals is not a particularly compelling way to argue that groups should not be judged for the misdeeds of individuals.
All of you = men with political blogs. A and B list bloggers. Not you. (Unless you are an A or B List blogger in disguise.)
And truthfully I would think you could have figured that out from the tenor of my comments. I continually used the word “blogger”.
I don’t consider commenters “bloggers”. Mostly because I consider commenting a pointless exercise that is useful only for entertainment and to relieve boredom.
Thanks for the entertainment today.
Let’s try this again. The instructions were:
And you said:
We’ll ignore for the moment the slippery rhetorical retreat here from the original phrasing — “ALL men” — and see what happens when we insert the key phrase into the template:
Holy shit! Not only does it make grammatical sense, but the point is still logically valid!
See, a bigot is someone who transfers a judgment about individuals into a generalization about a group, irrationally assigning to all its members the (purported) properties of a few. There are lots of context-dependent names for this — sexism, racism, homophobia, classism, and so on — but if I may be so bold as to make a generalization about ideas, all bigotry is bad, even if you can only bother to work up a sweat about one or two particular kinds.
You’re quite welcome. I’ll pass that along to Dave.
“I don’t think Letterman insulted hard-working flight attendants.“
He didn’t, nor was he referring to all flight attendants. He was referring to a particular subset of flight attendants – i.e. “slutty” ones. I suppose there are slutty flight attendants just as there are slutty computer programmers, slutty doctors, slutty attorneys, slutty waitresses, slutty politicians……..well, you get the point.
“He insulted women, particularly women that have careers or enter politics.“
You have completely lost me here. I can sort of see how some people might feel that such a remark is an insult to women, though as a woman I do not feel in the least insulted by what he said because in no aspect does it apply to me. But how did he insult women who have careers or who enter politics? As a woman with a career I certainly do not feel his comment insulted me in the least. I can see why a female – OR a male – flight attendant might take umbrage at a remark that COULD be taken as meaning flight attendants in general are slutty, but why on earth should women with other careers feel at all touched by a remark about an alleged subset of members of a specific profession?
It’s hard to provide a concise answer to your question.
Why would a woman be offended by seeing another women savaged for her ‘looks’ or her sexualized behavior?
Mainly because those attacks happen to women all the time when they don’t deserve it. How often do people use a man’s unattractiveness against him as a political argument? How often is a man criticized for being either hypersexualized or desexualized?
Under ordinary circumstances, it should be enough to criticize Palin for her inexperience and bad policies.
People are sick of seeing women attacked for peripheral matters.
I pretty much agree with you.
And you know, it bothers me not at all when someone makes sexist jokes about Sarah Palin because she has royally set herself up for it in more ways than one. Not so in the case of Sotomayor, however. She has behaved with great dignity whenever I have seen her or heard her speak.
Sarah Palin’s children, however, should be off limits, including the 18 year old. They have done nothing to deserve negative attention outside of being Sarah Palin’s daughter, which, after all, they did not choose and cannot help. The fact that their mother has used them shamelessly to promote herself is not their fault.
Except Bristol Palin went ‘on tour’ to support abstinence, even though she did not practice it.
In other words, she took a public political position.
If you want to be on the cover of People Mag, and go on all the talk shows and be a spokesperson for a political position that has been shown not to work, after you yourself rejected that position in your personal life,
Then don’t be surprised you become the butt of a few off color jokes.
nalbar
yeah, she kind of did open herself up when she did that, and she’s technically an adult now so even if it was her mother pushing her to do it, she could stand on her own two feet and tell mom to manage her own PR and leave her out of it.
Well, to be fair, she is eighteen and while, yes, that does make her a legal adult in the United States, it’s not exactly anomalous for an eighteen-year-old to be confused, exhibit poor judgment, or be easily manipulated, especially by her parents, and especially when she is a teenage single mother with those parents.
The pro-abstinence stance she has taken is risible of course, but making her the target — in contradistinction to her opinions — of a 62-year-old multimillionaire with a nightly national audience isn’t a very fair match, in my opinion.
Of course, it’s not the end of the world or one of the more notable crimes against humanity, either. However, it is worth considering that the reaction from the left might be a little different if, instead of David Letterman making off-color remarks about Bristol Palin, it was Rush Limbaugh making off-color remarks about Chelsea Clinton — which he was, back in the day, to universal condemnation from the left.
Frankly, Bristol’s race-baiting moose-killer redneck beauty queen mother is such a cornucopia of comedy that Letterman should be able to get an entire season of monologues out of her alone without resorting to beating up her clueless offspring.
I more or less agree with you. However, one huge difference between Bristol Palin and Chelsea Clinton is that Chelsea did nothing – NOTHING – to put herself into the spotlight in either a positive or a negative way, and neither did her parents. In fact, they kept her as much out of the spotlight as they could. Not that this justifies the comments and jokes about Bristol, but her parents, and then she herself did put a spotlight onto the part of her life that is most subject to this sort of thing.
Letterman, IMO, was out of order and Palin is so hopelessly unfit to be vice-president (or president for that matter) that I am tempted to say a pox on both your houses. My wish is that Letterman lighten up on the Plain + children jokes and that the Governor of Alaska stick to being governor of Alaska. I can dream can’t I.
Sarah Palin is unfit to be PTA president, let alone anything to do with US national politics.
The republicans just spend two decades removing all lines of common decency in our political discourse. Now they complain about what a comedian said? To bad.
The A-Rod line was not even about the Palin’s, it was about what a slut A-Rod is.
And it was funny if you allow for it to be about the 18 year old.
nalbar
I hadn’t even considered that A-Rod angle. Shows how far removed I am from NY these days.
I am trying to figure out why anyone would think it was about the 14 year old when the first thing that came to my mind was the 18 year old with the baby when I saw the snippet of the joke on YouTube.
The A-Rod part was a given too.
What person that has followed politics during the election would be thinking about the 14 year old? Unless there are rumors out there that I haven’t heard about, yet?
Hell, Booman…he pinned her whole act with that one.
I’ve seen a hundred of them.”Fly United”, indeed. Flirty little winky-wink acts that you just know are totally insincere if you haven’t already got your head all the way up your ass from too much alcohol. Palin’s is just a little more ready for prime time than is theirs. Her uniform is more expensive. She fools the same 19% or so of middle class male assholes that go gah-gah over the flight attendants’ moves.
I don’t normally pay much attention to Letterman…I mean, if you wanted someone to speak of insincerity from a practiced point of view, he’d probably be the best choice in all of American media, but this?
He pinned it.
AG
P.S. Now…if he really wanted to be sexist, wouldn’t he have called her a stewardess?
“Sexist”?
Palin herself is one of the most “sexist” caricatures of a woman ever to flounce across the airwaves.
How do you demean what is already a sick, sexist joke?
Give me a BREAK!!!
This is clomp-clomp-clomping, mid-’90s PC bullshit of the worst kind. Call a spade a spade. And call a ho’ a ho’.
She demeans women by her very presence on the (supposedly) serious national political scene.
What a crock of shit.
AG
The A-Rod joke I think was too personal. I understand that he didn’t realize she went to the game with her 14-year old daughter, but I think we should leave children out of things.
There’s something fucked up about calling a vice-presidential candidate ‘slutty.’ I recognize that Palin plays on her sexuality and demeans women who take politics (and their careers) seriously, but I’m not comfortable with that kind of attack.
I definitely understand anyone who takes that personally as an attack against women in politics.
Neither joke was in good taste, not that jokes need to be in good taste. The one about her daughter was far worse though, because she didn’t decide to run for office.
There something even more fucked up in selecting a “slutty” Vice-presidential candidate.
Remember all that Republican crap about “the grown-ups” being in charge? That’s only true if your idea of grown-ups are frat boys & their sorority counter-parts.
Remember Rich Lowry’s little excursion into sexual fantasyland?
I’m glad the people showed the good sense to roundly reject these immature a-holes.It’s about time they were shown up for what they are, on both sides of the sexual fence.
You know, I wrote a lot about Palin and I can’t vouch for what I said at different times (especially in comments) but I am almost 100% sure that I never said anything as nasty as Letterman did.
I thought Tina Fey nailed her beauty contestant antics and her general vacuousness. But she didn’t call her a slut. I think you can get to the root of the problem without going that far. Maybe it is more respect for the office and respect for other women in politics than respect for Palin personally, but I think some restraint is called for.
I also think commentators, analysts, and activists should keep a higher standard than comedians.
“Maybe it is more respect for the office…“
“Respect for the office”? What a nonsensical concept. That has always gotten on my nerves. What the hell does that even MEAN? So, no matter how disrespectable and downright clownish is the person who holds the office, we must treat them with respect out of respect for……..the office?! Come on! No candidate for any office has been more worthy of ridicule on every level, and less worthy of respect on any basis than Sarah Palin, “the office” be damned.
Agreed. My initial position long was: I will respect the office to the extent that I respect its occupant.
For whatever it’s worth, as I’ve aged I’ve gravitated more toward: I will respect the office to the extent that its occupant does.
Seriously, does anybody think that Sarah respects the office of Governor of Alaska, to say nothing of Vice President of the US?
Or that Georgie W. respected the office of the presidency?
In short, I’ve gone from “What does it mean to respect an office” to “I’ll respect it when you, the person who occupies it and asks me to respect it, do.”
I’m not sure the results are any different.
first of all, does anyone have any evidence beyond a scurrilous rumor that Sarah Palin is promiscuous? Because, if she’s not, then calling her a slut isn’t accurate. Does she act like she’s available to every man she meets? Yes. That’s why the joke kind of works. She’s creating little starbursts all over the place.
But when I say respecting the office I do not mean people should be above criticism. Given my behavior over the last five years, I don’t know how you could even begin to think that is what I meant.
I mean that you shouldn’t go around calling people a slut if they aren’t sleeping around. If they haven’t actually committed a war crime, you shouldn’t call them a war criminal. You know, if they have, then have at it.
But Letterman did not call her a slut at all or even imply she is a slut. He was clearly referring to her “look”, which is not at all the same thing. I had a colleague once whose “look” was definitely slutty/hoochie mama, and people used to comment on how she dressed as compared to her actual behaviour. She was actually quite a decent married woman and mother, and no one ever suggested she actually was a slut.
Frankly I was rather surprised to see you repeating that “respecting the office” nonsense. It’s completely illogical. “The office” is a concept, not an entity that one respects or disrespects.
I should say “the office” is a concept and a set of responsibilities. It is illogical to suggest that such a thing is subject to respect or disrespect.
It’s not illogical. If I choose to have some reverence for our political institutions, that’s my choice. If I think it is unseemly to cast nasty aspersions on people who hold or run for high office then that is just what I feel. Now, the truth of the matter is that I cast aspersions on these people all the time. But I try to be factual. And I keep people’s families out of it. Did you ever see me make fun of Jenna and Barbara? Have you seen me say one thing about Meghan McCain, even though she’s been writing columns and tweeting all over the place? Criticizing people for their policies and their values is fair-game. Pointing out moral hypocrisy is fair game. I just don’t see how calling someone slutty-looking is fair-game.
Yep, it is your choice, but that doesn’t mean it makes any sense. :o}
I think it’s clear that we are in agreement about keeping people’s families – especially their minor children – out of it, and I certainly have never suggested you have stooped to that, so I am not sure why you brought that up.
I think if someone looks like a slut and acts like a slut it is fair-game to point that out. The thing is, as low as my opinion is of Sarah Palin in almost every way, I do not think her look is “slutty [fill in the occupation]” at all, nor would I say her behaviour, however reprehensible, is in any way that of a slut. So, based on that I don’t see any reason for using that or any related term. Now, if he had referred to her “over-the-hill beauty contest runner-up look” or something like that I could have gone with that.
I mean that you shouldn’t go around calling people a slut if they aren’t sleeping around. … You know, if they have, then have at it.
But if the person is, for instance a woman politician, have at it ONLY if you regularly call male politicians who sleep around “sluts”. If you call them something else (i.e. “promiscuous”) then that’s how you should refer to the female politician.
I say this because “slut” generally tends to be used in reference to women and not men and tends to imply that there is something WORSE about what she is doing than what the men who are sleeping around are doing.
If you are, however, someone who refers to all PEOPLE who sleep around as sluts, then have at it.
yeah, I didn’t really mean to suggest that people should make a habit of calling people sluts. That was not my point.
Incidentally, Letterman’s other joke followed your format.
““slut” generally tends to be used in reference to women and not men“
Actually, the term is used by and in reference to gay men quite a bit more than it is used in reference to women.
PS Given that a large percentage of male flight attendants are gay…………
I can’t believe that I am on a blog defending this asshole late night talk show trivializer.
But I am.
Letterman didn’t “call her a slut”. He said that she sported a “slutty flight attendant look.”
Lord, Booman.
Loosen up a little.
AG
PS Respect for other women in politics does not necessitate showing respect for women in or out of politics who deserve none. By her demeanor Sotomayor has earned respect whether you agree with her or not. Hillary Clinton has earned respect on many levels whether you like her personality, positions, and approach, or not. Sarah Palin, on the other hand, deserves just about anything anyone can hurl at her.
But her children do not deserve to be dragged through the mud along with their mother.
That, to me, depends on the actions of the parent. When parents intentionally keep their children out of campaigns – like the Carters did with Amy and the Clintons did with Chelsea (in the 90’s) – then I’d agree. When the parents point to their family as a reason to vote for them – even something as benign as putting a wife’s favorite pecan pie recipe on the campaign website – then said family member has joined the fray and is no longer a noncombatant. If a candidate believes that posting “Barbara Jean makes the best pie” on their website will help them to win votes then Barbara Jean has entered the fray.
Palin pointed to her family as a reason to vote for her so her family is fair game.
Now as to good taste? That’s debatable, but I’d be willing to concede that Letterman’s joke was in somewhat poor taste (inasmuch as it was actually the 14 year old who was with Palin), but no way no how was it out of bounds IMO.
I mainly disagree. The decision to use her family as a prop was still her decision, not her kids. I think she made a poor decision and should take ownership of a lot of what occurred as a result, but that doesn’t let everyone else off the hook.
The kids should not be made to be double victims just because their mother chose to use them for her own self-aggrandizement. Go after her as much and in any way that you want, but her kids deserve to be treated with care and tenderness. After all, it’s bad enough having her as a mother.
“There’s something fucked up about calling a vice-presidential candidate ‘slutty.’“
That comes dangerously close to the ludicrous nonsense that we cannot speak ill of a President because we have to “respect the office”. If a vice-presidential candidate behaves in a slutty way then she deserves to be called slutty, and Sarah Palin came pretty close.
Ain’t NOBODY saying that shit about Golda Meir, Hillary Clinton, Madeline Albright or any of our female Senators, just to pull a few female pols out of the hat.
If the fuck me pump fits, let Palin stand accused of wearing it.
AG
people made plenty of sexist remarks about Hillary Clinton. They didn’t call her a slut, that’s true. But they called her a ballbuster and a shrew and frigid and every other stereotype about a woman that seeks power in a man’s world.
Nietzsche said many wise things, but he also said this.
Men have been saying the same ever since. About education, about career, about politics.
It had to happen sooner or later, AG. You finally said something I can agree with!
The joke was definitely about Arod and he is all over the tabloids with different women. The latest is a hook up with Kate Hudson. Letterman was clearly talking about the 18 year old Palin daughter and indirectly mocking her for being in NY talking about abstinence.
So in less than a week, it is taboo to write an article using the term hate fuck because it somehow now means rape and a slutty joke is too obscene as well?
This whole Letterman outrage is stupid.
Palin certainly offers more than enough material by herself without going to the unfortunate lengths of bringing in her children.
Ratings must be down. They all do the same things. Shock us with something that gets attention.