HoodaThunk?

Letterman response to Palin joke better on the 2nd take

As the nation knows late-night host David Letterman told an exceedingly tasteless joke about the Governor Sarah Palin and one of her daughters last week. He followed it up with a classic non-apology apology that managed to do nothing more than make things worse and make himself appear even more of an ass than telling the joke in the first place did. Well, tonight’s broadcast will feature what the apology should have looked like:

Well, my responsibility – I take full blame for that. I told a bad joke. I told a joke that was beyond flawed, and my intent is completely meaningless compared to the perception. And since it was a joke I told, I feel that I need to do the right thing here and apologize for having told that joke. It’s not your fault that it was misunderstood, it’s my fault. That it was misunderstood.” (audience applauds) “Thank you. So I would like to apologize, especially to the two daughters involved, Bristol and Willow, and also to the governor and her family and everybody else who was outraged by the joke. I’m sorry about it and I’ll try to do better in the future.

Now I think he gets it. And, unless there’s a reason to think he’s lying when he says this, I think we should accept the apology and let him (ahem) move on. I certainly hope that he and all the other late-night shows extend to the Palin family the same courtesy they’re giving to the Obama family and leave the kids out of it.

June 15th, 2009 Posted by ricjames | Politics, The Media | no comments