In Defense of Dave

It Sucks When People with Thick Skin and little concern for others try to take advantage of good people such as late-night TV show host David Letterman. Mr. Letterman’s good heart, earnest intellect, and genuine curiosity have been on regular display for the last 25 years or so, for those of us eager to enjoy the antics that those traits engender after the kids have gone to bed.

On the Other Hand, the latest Republican vice-presidential candidate and current governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, appeared on the scene recently and has made clear her ambitions to continue parlaying her looks and pretense of self-confidence into higher political office—or whatever else she can manage to get by exploiting these superficial traits.

It Is All a Bunch of Hooie, as they say. No one in American politics has made so brazen an exploitation of her own children for political gain as Ms. Palin has. Where everyone else strives to keep their kids out of the limelight as much as possible, Ms. Palin thrust hers out in front, almost as a kind of a shield.

And Now, with the Unfortunate Opportunity of an unfunny joke, in dubious taste, of a pitched ball served up by Dave, Ms. Palin has done her best to hit the ball out of the park.

As in All Things Political, most of us saw the curve ball fall far short, well into foul-ball territory, while a few of those sitting resentful in far-Right field swear that the ball sailed fair over the outfield fence.

Whatever.

David Letterman's Choice of a Joke taking aim at the lame political candidate was unfortunate. And likely it stuck in his craw to have to apologize to someone who so clearly has sought to exploit Dave's gaffe for some political purpose—as if Ms. Palin truly can't differentiate between Mr. Letterman and actual political competitors, or between herself and professional entertainers.

Meanwhile, Mr. Letterman Seems to Have Made the Best of the unfortunate situation, publicly offering credence to Ms. Palin's pretence that she misunderstood the target of the joke (Palin herself, and not really either of her daughters); that this one, particular, bad Letterman joke, a degenerate makes (degeneracy is in the eye of the beholder); and that Ms. Palin gives a flip about our men and women in military service fighting for the right to have the failure of “abstinence” as a birth-control method not be held against those of us who have been given the God-given right to freedom of speech, or the right to bear children. Or....whatever.

I Hope That Mr. Letterman Knows Better than to take this experience too much to heart. For that would be a real shame.

On the One Hand, This Incident has probably ruined any chance Mr. Letterman has for a successful vice-presidential run in the foreseeable future.

On the Other Hand, That Job May Have Been Irrevocably Tainted by one recent competitor for that office. Not to mention a few who have gone before.

God Bless America for the willingness of Joe Biden to step into the oft-sullied U.S. Veep job and try to make something respectable of the position.)

Oh: and God Bless and Keep Sarah Palin and her family......far away from us.