What was the deal? On June 8, 2009, comedian David Letterman, host of the CBS late night talk show, The Late Show, made two on-air jokes about former vice-presidential candidate and Alaska governor Sarah Palin. One comment appeared on a "Top Ten List" of highlights from Palin's trip to New York City and compared Palin's appearance to that of a "slutty flight attendant." Also, during his monologue, Letterman joked that professional baseball player Alex Rodriguez "knocked up" one of Palin's daughters during a Yankees game. According to Palin, only 14-year-old daughter Willow accompanied her to the game. Letterman's comments led to immediate criticism from Palin and others in the media and general public, who viewed the jokes as sexist toward Palin and Willow while also making light of statutory rape. The controversy intensified during the following week with Palin supporters calling both for boycotts of Late Show advertisers and for CBS to fire the host. A protest rally in front of Letterman's theatre was also planned. In an effort to quiet the public uproar and secure his job, David Letterman addressed the controversy in on-air statements during his June 10 show.
How did he respond? Letterman's response, delivered three years ago today, can be found here.
How did he do? Comedy wise? Pretty well, I would say. Ending the controversy? Not so much. Letterman does explicitly deny that his bawdy jibes were aimed at 14-year-old Willow, and that's really the strongest part of the speech from an apologia perspective. He also uses a transcendence argument in placing this one incident in the context of his 30-year comedy career: "These are not jokes made about her 14-year-old daughter. I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl. I mean, look at my record. It has never happened. I don't think it's funny. I would never think it was funny. I wouldn't put it in a joke." This works in the sense that mentioning his longevity, along with the suggestion that no similar accusations have been leveled during that time, reinforces his primary strategy of denial.
Even in the few effective moments, however, the veteran host undermines his efforts with irony and snark. For example, Letterman comes close to expressing actual contrition before veering off into a punchline: "Do I regret having told them? Well, I think probably I do. But you know what? There are thousands of jokes I regret telling on this program."
More problematic is that Letterman doesn't actually seem interested in alleviating the controversy. Otherwise, he would not have spent several minutes of his statement repeating the disagreeable jokes verbatim and then analyzing why each one is not deserving of criticism. Or, in the case of the "Sarah Palin as slutty flight attendant" gag, respond with "Now, the only thing I can say about this is I kinda like that joke." Surely, Letterman knew this irreverent approach would only infuriate further the Palins and their supporters. He just didn't care.
Final call: Sinkhole. David Letterman was too busy mining the situation for comedy gold to engage in a serious apologia effort. As a result, the criticism intensified and the comedian had to address the issue again a mere five days later.
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