I have, for some time now, been mocking Fox News over its "slobbering love affair with all things Sarah Palin". [For unaware readers, this is an inside joke; Bernard Goldberg, a Fox News commentator, wrote a recent suitably-titled best-selling book over the liberal media's "slobbering love affair" with Barack Obama.] I've given a number of examples; in fact, I do not think I've seen or heard a single negative story on Sarah Palin over the past year on Fox--not even the fact she was constantly hyping a false line that she had opposed the Bridge to Nowhere and told Congress to keep its money. The fact is, Palin supported the bridge during her election campaign and in fact Alaska spent all the allocated federal earmark money: millions on a related road and the remainder onother projects, which the Congress had allowed. Did you know this from "fair and balanced" Fox News? NO!
Sarah Palin has routinely given Fox News privileged access. For example, after her botched performance in the infamous Couric interviews (which, to this date, Sarah Palin alternatively blames on her McCain campaign handlers and the liberal media, failing to take responsibility for her own performance), realizing that her rambling, evasive response to Couric's question on how Palin keeps up on current events (i.e., the newspapers and magazines she reads) was a problem, she got a do-over with Fox News' Carl Cameron, which I did not find convincing; she paranoidally suggested that Couric, in asking the question, had a hidden agenda of perpetuating an Alaskan stereotype (i.e., that Alaskans are out of touch). I've also pointed out Bill O'Reilly's relentless, frivolous personal attacks on McCain's allegedly unchivalrous post-election behavior towards Palin, Sean Hannity's gushing, uncritical exclusive interviews, and Greta Van Susteren's home visit softball interviews.
This morning I saw a brief interview with Megyn Kelly, a former practicing attoney and one-time editor of Albany Law Review, and Brent Bozell of Media Matters, which not only undermines Fox News' pretentious claim of being the only "fair and balanced" media outlet but I think puts into question the professionalism of Ms. Kelly and exposes the hypocrisy of Mr. Bozell, which directly reflects on the credibility and integrity of his own organization.
It should be noted, from the get-go, this whole segment was poorly conceived and executed. You might expect, for instance, that, for instance, you might actually have comedians as guests (e.g., regular O'Reilly contributor, SNL alumnus Dennis Miller, and/or The View's liberal comediennes Joy Behair or Sherri Shepherd), a spokesman for Letterman, etc.
This segment was, by any objective analysis, little more than a Megyn Kelly rant on David Letterman, fully accepting at face value Sarah Palin's ludicrous framing of an ill-conceived Alex Rodriguez sex joke, saying that he might use the seventh-inning stretch to impregnate Sarah Palin's daughter. The daughter was not identified in the joke. Sarah Palin's unmarried 18-year-old daughter Bristol got considerable attention last year for being pregnant during the campaign (a high school boyfriend is responsible) and gave birth in late December to Sarah's first grandchild, a boy named Tripp. Bristol Palin has recently been involved in a widely-publicized lecture tour promoting abstinence, a popular socially conservative position. People can reasonably argue that Bristol Palin, who is of-age (i.e., her parents are no longer required to support her), by taking part in a politically-relevant tour, has put herself into the public arena.
The problem is that Letterman must have made an assumption that the daughter whom attended a recent Yankees home game with Sarah Palin was Bristol. In fact, it was 14-year-old Willow, whom resembles her big sister.
Sarah Palin (and, in this context, Megyn Kelly) has intentionally seized on Letterman's obviously mistaken identity of her daughter at the game to ludicrously claim that Letterman intentionally created a statutory rape joke aimed at her largely unknown 14-year-old daughter, Willow. This is an unreasonable reading of the joke. David Letterman has had a 30-year career as a comic; he does not have a history of making sexually-suggestive jokes involving under-age girls. Bristol's pregnancy is a matter of public record; I'm not suggesting making jokes about the sex lives of teenage girls are in good taste; even in the case of Bristol, implying a girl who is publicly advocating abstinence is herself promiscuous and thus hypocritical is insensitive and requires a public apology.
Megyn Kelly never seriously addresses, but simply accepts at face value, that David Letterman intentionally created a joke that makes Alex Rodriguez out to be a statutory rapist. During Letterman's extraordinary discussion of the issue Wednesday night, he purposely asks staffers during the clip whether they've heard from Alex Rodriguez' people yet. Alex Rodriguez' sex life rumors seem to focus on past relationships with pop singer Madonna and an exotic dancer--not with under-age girls. Megyn Kelly, as a fellow New York resident, should know with even minimal background research, but apparently she doesn't do any better fact-checking or due diligence than David Letterman did; is it too much to expect a reasonably competent lawyer and journalist to spend more time researching a prepared topic than David Letterman does in making one 10-second joke in the middle of his monologue?
The conversation between Megyn Kelly and Brent Bozell focused in part on David Letterman's extraordinary response and a subsequent segment of The View. Megyn essentially echoes Sarah Palin's characterization of Letterman's explanation that he was referring to Bristol, not Willow, as lame and pathetic--to paraphrase Sarah Palin's disingenuous response, is that the best Letterman can come up with after 2 days of thinking about it? The fact is that the show aired Monday, Palin's reaction surfaced Wednesday, and Letterman addressed the Willow allegation on his Wednesday show--hardly two days. Let's review the indisputable facts: Letterman makes a joke about a pregnant Palin daughter; only one of Palin's daughters has been pregnant. Only one of the daughters has been in the news recently (i.e., the abstinence tour). Most people barely know about the other Palin children.
The discussion about The View seemed to focus on Megyn's amazement that the two comediennes on the panel (Joy and Sherri) had a more nuanced response than Barbara Walters (whom has a zero-tolerance policy over celebrity children), with Bozell saying little more than how much he hates Joy Behair and agreeing with the thrust of Megyn's liberal media bashing.
Being Fair and Balanced: Other Reactions in the Aftermath of Palin's Rant on The Today Show
I have read other viewer comments on websites. Here are a few I've found today posted on an entertainment website following Sarah Palin's assault on Letterman on The Today Show this morning (they are not written by me, but I think they're spot on):
- I didn't know [Sarah Palin] had a 14 year-old daughter until she started talking about her. A-rod and Spitzer were the butt of the jokes more than Bristol was.
- If [Sarah Palin] would have just made a statement in the beginning saying that she was offended, she would have come out as the one in the right. Now she's brought it to a level where she is the bad guy. Implying that Letterman is [joking about rape] is going a bit far. I can't believe people want her in any kind of office let alone the highest office in the land. At this point I think the public sympathy is shifting towards Letterman now and she has handled the situation just terribly."
- Bristol was just on the cover of People saying "Hey I had my baby AND got my degree!" So she put herself back in the public eye.
- But for the last frakkin' time it was about your hypocritically abstinence promoting daughter Bristol, not your cute as a bug daughter Willow. I don't think most of America realized you had another daughter until you brought her into this mess.
- Letterman wasn’t talking about her 14 year old daughter. Anyone with half a brain knows that he was referring to the older daughter Bristol, the one that had a nationally covered pregnancy during a election cycle!
- Is A Rod known for "knocking up" 14 year olds?
- It is obvious that Mrs Palin is gunning for blood. She wants the head of David Letterman on the wall...
- Everyone with a brain knows the original context of the line...Letterman is an icon and his 30 years of credibility make her rape insinuations ridiculous to any thinking person.
- Palin, your fifteen minutes are up.
- It was a joke, people. Everyone take a deep breath... and exhale.
