Letterman, shuster, Imus, & free speech
In light of the recent David Letterman fiasco, in which he joked about Sarah Palin’s 14 year old daughter being “knocked-up” by Yankee Alex Rodriguez, I’m reminded of what happened last year to a very liberal MSNBC anchor.
On February 8th of 2008, MSNBC’s David Schuster was suspended for saying the following: “Doesn’t it seem like Chelsea’s sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?”
Schuster, who looks like a character out of a Peanuts Cartoon with his bulbous head and a thin horizontal line for a mouth, made the mistake of using the word “pimped” in the same sentence as Chelsea Clinton. Schuster was haplessly trying to either sound funny or cool, when he questioned Chelsea’s early role in her mother’s (Hillary’s) primary campaign. The bosses at NBC and the rest of the mainstream media quickly jumped all over Shuster, and to the defense of the poor helpless 28 year old Chelsea! Hillary Clinton herself, made a huge production out of the statement by threatening to boycott the network, and demanded that MSNBC apologize.
Let’s see now; somehow it’s valiant for Hillary to defend her 28 year old daughter, but Sarah Palin is being an over-sensitive crybaby when she takes offense at a vile joke about her 14 year old daughter. How twisted and sick the Liberal mindset is!
Schuster was lucky he wasn’t fired, (NBC News brass was actually considering it) and he eventually came back on the air after several public apologies. Yesterday, I spoke to what happened to Don Imus for making a dumb but relatively harmless remark about the Rutgers Women’s Basketball Team. The problem that Imus ran into was that the remark was “racially tinged.” It’s one of those phrases that you can only utter if you are of a specific race. Don Imus naively misunderstood the boundaries by parroting a phrase he often heard others use. As we painfully remember, Imus had to go on a whirlwind apology tour that featured his kissing Al Sharpton’s rotund backside.
David Letterman certainly broke new ground the other day with his twisted joke about Sarah Palin’s 14 year old daughter Willow. As I previously stated, it was up to Letterman and his staff to know who was with Sarah Palin at the Yankee game. If as he claims, the joke was about 18 year old Bristol, the joke didn’t make any sense because the fact of the matter is that she (Bristol) wasn’t there! The fact is that Willow was there, and therefore, logic dictates that the joke was about her!
Letterman’s “apology” yesterday, was in a fact, not an apology at all, but rather a feeble attempt at an explanation. At the very least, Letterman should be forced by CBS to properly apologize to the Palin family and to Willow Palin in particular. If he so chooses, Letterman can still wiggle his way out of it by at least apologizing for the sloppy work of his staff and writers. Someone at CBS needs to take responsibility and answer for this incident!
Think of this for a moment; in this country and around the world, we have thousands if not millions of sick perverts who get off on sexually exploiting children. The laws for such exploitation in the United States are broad and they are strict! Anyone who has ever watched an episode of NBC’s To Catch a Predator with Chris Hansen, knows about the thin line between “fantasy” and years in prison when knowingly dealing with underage children. The excuse that most of the sickos on the show use, is that they were not aware that the child was a minor. Letterman is basically using the same excuse by claiming that he didn’t know that 14 year old Willow was with Sarah Palin instead of 18 year old Bristol. If one of those predators from the TV show, wrote in a chat-room message to a 14 year old, that his fantasy was for her to have sex in Yankee Stadium with Alex Rodriguez, the sick bastard would rightfully be arrested and charged with a crime!
Again, CBS needs to take responsibility for the actions of their employees and deal with this issue!
I know that there are some hard-core Libertarians out there who would ask me if I was a supporter of the first amendment. The answer is that I am wholeheartedly for free speech; even if it’s offensive, and even if I disagree with it! I believe that freedom of political speech is most important, and is what our founders had in mind when they drafted the amendment. However, I also believe in an equal playing field. Even though the Bill of Rights has been in effect since 1791, all people in this country still didn’t have an equal playing field until 1964. What I don’t believe in, is arbitrary freedom of speech which is decided upon by the media and pop culture.
