Mark Sanford can't stop talking about his sex life. First he confessed to seeing Maria in Argentina (and overnight in New York) more times than he admitted in his original public confession.
Now the sex obsessed Republican Governor of South Carolina teases us with stories about more women:
He said that during the encounters with other women he "let his guard down" with some physical contact but "didn't cross the sex line." He wouldn't go into detail.
During an emotional interview at his Statehouse office with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Sanford said Chapur is his soul mate but he’s trying to fall back in love with his wife.
Stay tuned. The Governor will surely tell us more tomorrow.
Politico's Jeremy Mayer is all in a tither about the ambition of First Wives. Eleanor Roosevelt, Hillary Clinton, and now Michelle Obama just won't quit acting like women who have something to offer other than the traditional uncompensated wifely labor.
Washington insiders haven’t seen a first lady this ambitious since Hillary Clinton, without question the most powerful holder of that unofficial office.
Clinton put herself in charge of her husband’s plans to radically reform health care, and the nation is still paying the price for her mistakes.
Bullshit, the nation is still paying the price for not listening to Hillary.
Andrew Young also says that John Edwards promised to take care of him for life if only Young would lie and claim that he, not Edwards, was the father of Rielle Hunter's baby.
So there's still some humiliation left to drag Elizabeth through.
How long before the National Enquirer posts that sex tape at Youtube?
Pity the fools who supported and voted for John Edwards. Pity Elizabeth.
In an objectifying hit piece entitled: "It Came from Wasilla" -- one can almost feel Vanity Fair's sweaty Todd S. Purdum smacking his lips and salivating as he opines:
[Sarah Palin] is by far the best-looking woman ever to rise to such heights in national politics, the first indisputably fertile female to dare to dance with the big dogs.
Fertile female? Dancing with the dogs? Congrats to sweaty Todd S. Purdum for finding a novel way to call a woman a bitch. A bitch in heat, no less.
Todd S. Purdum's old school sexism includes a concern about women and ambition that has also been with us throughout the ages:
[N]o political principle or personal relationship is more sacred than [Sarah Palin's] own ambition.
While the Republican agenda always leaves me cold, I owe a profound debt to Sarah Palin for bringing so many loathsome sexists out in the open.
"I found in my experiences that it's not that men are consciously discriminating against promoting women, but I do believe as people we have self-images about what's good. And if you're a male who grew up professionally in a male-dominated profession then your image of what a good lawyer is is a male image."
FORT WORTH, TEXAS — In the photo to the left, about 150 to 200 people protest police brutality and old fashioned bigotry and harassment of gays by the manly Fort Worth Police Department. Police raided a gay bar and put one man in the intensive care unit. The raid was staged on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion.
Seven people were arrested and one - Chad Gibson - "is in in the intensive care unit at Fort Worth’s JPS Hospital with bleeding in his brain after officers threw him to the ground and used zip-ties to handcuff him."
Witnesses say the police showed up with a paddy wagon and began to roughly arrest men, focusing mainly on "effeminate men."
One bar patron, Chad Gibson, is in a local hospital with a fractured skull and brain hemorrhage after being "choked, pulled back, then slammed into a wall" by police during the raid. Police say he was resisting arrest and made "sexual advances to officers", a claim witnesses dismiss as outright lies. They say Gibson, who weighed "maybe 160 pounds soaking wet", did not resist and merely stumbled when police grabbed him by the arm.
"After more than a generation of progress, this action shows that there is still much work to be done to ensure that all Americans enjoy 'equal protection under the law.' It is tragic that lesbian and gay taxpayers are still abused by the very people who are paid by our taxes."
Joel Burns, Fort Worth city councilman, Tarrant County's first openly gay elected official
Cheri is about a romance between a pampered and weak young man and a strong and wise older woman. Starring Michelle Pfieffer, Kathy Bates and Rupert Friend, the women-centric film is in theaters now. Set in 1920s Paris, the film is based on novels (Cheri and The Last of Cheri) by French author Colette.
Chéri, the novel by Colette tells a story of the end of a six-year affair between an aging retired courtesan, Léa, and a pampered young man, Chéri. Turning stereotypes upside-down, it is Chéri who wears silk pajamas and Léa's pearls, and who is the object of gaze. And in the end Léa demonstrates all the survival skills which Colette associates with femininity. (The story continued in The Last of Chéri (1926), which contrasts Léa's strength and Chéri's fragility and decline).
How long before we call him King Obama? As Rachel Maddow points out in the video clip below, Obama condemns all things Bush in one breath and strives to emulate Bush in the next.
Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war.
Obama's latest scheme is "one of the most radical proposals for defying the Constitution that we have ever heard made to the American people," says Rachel Maddow.
Glen Greenwald warns: "There has now emerged a very clear -- and very disturbing -- pattern whereby Obama is willing to use legal mechanisms and recognize the authority of other branches only if he's assured that he'll get the outcome he wants. If he can't get what he wants from those processes, he'll just assert Bush-like unilateral powers to bypass those processes and do what he wants anyway."
". . . [A]s I've written many times, the area in which Obama is replicating Bush abuses most egregiously is his embrace of Bush's secrecy obsessions. Jon Stewart last night had much to say on that topic. That Obama is adopting approaches similar to Bush's in these areas is a view that is obviously spreading -- even among Obama supporters -- and is becoming increasingly difficult to deny."
TPM:"the latest installment in the Obama administration's tendency to mimic the Bushies on war on terror tactics."
And from Big Tent Dem:"What Obama is reported to be contemplating is simply outrageous and unacceptable. It is Bushism on steroids. It would be unconstitutional. It would be struck down by the Supreme Court."
The MSNBC media boyz are squabbling again. Joe Scarborough defends his Family Values friend Mark Sanford by taking a low shot at his MSNBC colleagues -- presumably Olbermann and Schulz. Scarborough seems to suggest that he has some dirt on the cable news boyz. I wonder if revealing e-mails will soon be released. And some of these people judging last night, you know, you could call them the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker of cable news. I would not be making judgements were I these people.
So when Jenny Sanford first discovered that Governor Sanford was a liar and a cheater, it wasn't because the Family Values Governor was sorry and decided to do the honorable thing and fess up.
It was because Jenny Sanford found a letter that her cheatin' husband wrote to his lover in Argentina. Maybe that was the letter which first revealed that the Governor has a thing for Argentinean tan lines and hips.
"I said absolutely not. It's one thing to forgive adultery; it's another thing to condone it."
When permission was denied, the Hypocritical Family Values Governor responded by booking a ten day junket to Argentina. Jenny Sanford says she was shocked to discover that her hypocritical husband ran off to Argentina to be with his paramour, María Belén Chapur. And now the New York Times reports that it was likely an old boyfriend of Ms. Chapur's who hacked into her e-mail account and sent the revealing e-mails to the media.
(AP) South Carolina first lady Jenny Sanford says she discovered her husband's affair in January when she found a letter to the governor from his mistress. Jenny Sanford told The Associated Press on Friday she told him to end the affair and was shocked this week when she found out he'd gone to Argentina to see his mistress. She says she believed Gov. Mark Sanford had gone somewhere to work on writing a book.
She wept as she displayed her boys' stellar report cards and said she most worries about how they're being affected by the scandal. Jenny Sanford says she plans to take them out of the state for the weekend. Meanwhile, Sanford was back at work today, telling his state agency chiefs that he's sorry for keeping them in the dark when he went to see Argentina to see his mistress.
"Just another politician with a conservative mind and a liberal penis."
"My heart…my mind… are broken. I loved Michael with all my soul and I can’t imagine life without him. We had so much in common and we had such loving fun together. I was packing up my clothes to go to London for his opening when I heard the news. I still can’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it. It can’t be so. He will live in my heart forever but it’s not enough. My life feels so empty. I don’t think anyone knew how much we loved each other. The purest most giving love I’ve ever known. Oh God! I’m going to miss him. I can’t yet imagine life with out him. But I guess with God’s help... I’ll learn. I keep looking at the photo he gave me of himself, which says, 'To my true love Elizabeth, I love you forever.' And, I will love HIM forever."
The ACLU reports that the Supreme Court did something right. All the men on the High Court, except for Clarence Thomas, listened to Justice Ginsberg, and at long last, Savana Redding has been vindicated.
Justice Souter wrote that the drugs in question - Ibuprofen! - did not justify an “embarrassing, frightening and humiliating search.” School officials ordered then 13-year-old Savana Redding "to strip to her bra and underpants and to pull them away from her body, exposing her breasts and pelvic area." This is the kind of crap that makes parents home-school their kids!
The Court ruled - 8 to 1 - that the strip search violated the 13-year-old girl's constitutional rights. The ACLU is calling this the biggest win for students' rights in 20 years, and it's because Savana Redding had the courage and patience to pursue justice. Today, Savana is a 19-year-old college student.
WaPo: The court's virtual unanimity was in contrast to the intense oral argument that seemed to exasperate the court's only female member, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She later said her male colleagues seemed not to appreciate the trauma such a search would have on a developing adolescent.
"They have never been a 13-year-old girl," she told USA Today when asked about her colleagues' comments during the arguments. "It's a very sensitive age for a girl. I didn't think that my colleagues, some of them, quite understood."
Oh for the days when we thought our leaders were better than this. In these cynical times, it seems the best we can hope for is that our invariably male 'leaders' are at least good for some laughs.
It's hard to believe that Chris Brown would have gotten off with probation if he'd beaten up anybody but a girl. Probation seems to be the standard punishment for beating up a girl. Despite the crazy rumors, it appears that Rihanna is smarter than people say -- she is no longer the girlfriend of a thuggish brute. That loss, along with the public shaming, is surely the harshest punishment of all for Chris Brown the Brute. In the video clip below, TMZ caught Chris Brown the Brute and Rihanna in the courtroom:
Chris Brown has pleaded guilty to the serious charge of felony assault against his one-time girlfriend Rihanna. The charges came after an altercation in February left Rihanna battered and bruised. While Brown will not serve any jail time, he has been assigned to six months of community service in his home state of Virginia. He will serve five years on supervised probation with quarterly California court visits and complete a domestic violence counseling program.
Brown has been ordered to stay at least 50 yards away from Rihanna at all times with the exception of music industry events they are both attending. At such times, her zone of privacy is limited to 10 yards.
Well there goes another potential GOP presidential candidate. After confessing in prime time to having an affair in Argentina -- instead of hiking on the Appalachian trial -- things can only get worse for South Carolina's Governor Mark Sanford.
And did you see the 2 laughing women standing behind Sanford during his press conference? Maybe that will teach somebody about the wisdom of putting women as props behind cheating men. I guess they couldn't get Sanford's wife to stand behind him so they ordered some state employees to stand in for her. Sanford was invoking God and sobbing with humiliation and confessing his "sin" against the sanctimony of marriage while the 2 young women stole the show by smirking and texting to goddess-knows-who.
Mark Sanford should quit his day job and go into the country music writing business. Between his heady line about "crying in Argentina" and e-mails to his lover about "magnificent gentle kisses," the homophobic governor may have talent.
Already Governor Sanford's love letters or love e-mails to his lover in Argentina have been published in his local newspaper. The paper has been sitting on them since December:
E-mail from Gov. Mark Sanford to Maria in Argentina -- You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light - but hey, that would be going into sexual details ...
I wish we didn't care to know about the private sex lives of politicos. And I wish Mark Sanford wasn't a sanctimonious homophobe who voted to impeach Bill Clinton. It's hard to disagree with Michelle Malkin: I mean What kind of man leaves his wife and kids alone on Fathers' Day so that he can rendezvous with his lover in Argentina? It's too bad Sanford's wife and kids have to pay for his mistakes. At least his wife doesn't have cancer.
Marc Ambinder found the Fierce Advocate's plan and alludes to the real news behind the much hallowed news about the federal benefits crumbs that Obama is planning to bestow upon gays and lesbians. The very same benefits are already in place at a number of federal agencies! Hillary Rodham Clinton implemented the policy at State a couple of weeks ago. More on this below.
The President will reportedly say tonight that he opposes DOMA. He's not going to oppose the law however, he's going to keep defending it in court. But in his heart he opposes it. Aw thanks.
The answer is "yes." I just asked OPM Director John Berry, on a White House media conference call, whether in fact federal agencies already have the right to give these benefits to gay employees. The answer, "yes." So what's new about tonight? Obama is going to "tell" the agencies to give the benefits - as if any agency in the Obama administration would dare tell a gay employee no to a request for time off to attend their partner's funeral?
President Obama Betrays the Gay Community: The president would like us to believe that he's awfully busy being president, and if we only wait a little while longer, we'll get our rights. Of course, the president isn't too busy to stab the community in the back by continuing the military discharges, defending DOMA, and comparing us to pedophiles. (On Wednesday, White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs was given a chance to repudiate the DOMA brief's language about incest and pedophilia and would not.) . . . Many of us were willing to cut our new president some slack. Not anymore.
This afternoon at 5:45 EST, Obama will present The Memo to expand minor benefits for LGBT federal employees. The pre-memo fact sheet is an exercise in low expectations. It tells us that Obama is not going to make change by changing any laws. In fact, the fact sheet states twice that Obama has been scrounging for crumbs for us with the stipulation that they are already... within the confines of existing laws and statutes.
Tired of being screwed by the Obama Administration, a number of high profile gay politicos are pulling out of next week's DNC $1,000 a person gay fundraiser.
It's over, folks. A lot of us have been saying that if Marty Rouse, the Human Rights Campaign's National Field Director, were to pull his attendance from next week's DNC $1,000 a person gay fundraiser, then the fundraiser would effectively be dead. Well, HRC official Marty Rouse just pulled out as a result of the White House's homophobic DOMA brief in which they equated gay marriage to incest. . .
Rouse's departure ups to four the number of high profile gay politicos who have now dropped out of the event following the Justice Department's filing of a homophobic brief defending the Defense of Marriage Act last week. The other three people to pull out of the fundraiser are famous "friend of Bill Clinton" David Mixner, Alan Van Capelle (Executive Director of New York's largest gay group, the Empire State Pride Agenda), and top gay blogger Andy Towle. I've also just been told by former top Clinton aide Richard Socarides that he today informed the DNC that he will no longer be attending either.
The Obama Team is scrambling to offer some bribes -- which look more like pathetic bones of appeasement -- before the LGBT ATM machine shuts down altogether.
“Of course it’s accepted on behalf of young women, like my daughters, who hope men who ‘joke’ about public displays of sexual exploitation of girls will soon evolve.”
“Letterman certainly has the right to ‘joke’ about whatever he wants to, and thankfully we have the right to express our reaction. This is all thanks to our U.S. Military women and men putting their lives on the line for us to secure America's Right to Free Speech - in this case, may that right be used to promote equality and respect.”
CNN couldn't find a woman to comment, so as a public service Wolf Blitzer and 2 other men provided prime time examples of men who need to evolve. The men stood around and seriously discussed how the woman needs to move on to the news and issues of the day that areactually important!
On a related note, an encouraging sign is that the conservative Concerned Women for America and the liberal National Organization for Women actually agree that the rampant sexist media bias against women and girls IS an important issue of the day.
"Letterman's very poor view of women and minor girls is very disturbing, and he certainly needs to do more to change his own attitudes and then prove that his attitude has changed."
-- Concerned Women for America
"The sexualization of girls and women in the media is reaching new lows these days — it is exploitative and has a negative effect on how all women and girls are perceived and how they view themselves."
And if the Fierce Advocate won't issue that Executive Order?
Then Harry is waiting for Nancy Pelosi to do something. Obama is, of course, on record with the plan of waiting for Harry and Nancy to take care of it.
How long we are expected to wait? To what end do we support the Administration without knowing anything of its plan (and worse, its lack of action)? Do we wait until after the 2010 midterms to 'protect our majority'? Do we wait until the end of 2012 after he is reelected? Or do we wait until the 2014 midterms to keep Congress? Perhaps we are expected to wait until year 7 of his administration (assuming he hasn't tossed aside so many supporters that he loses). Perhaps they will ask us to hold off until 2017, because, after all, we don't want to lose the White House.
Let's look at exactly what we are asking for:
1. DADT: Repeal of a law that Congress passed and the President signed to shaft gays. 2. DOMA: Repeal of a law that Congress passed and the President signed to shaft gays. 3. ENDA: Job protections that leave us without protection from housing, lending or public accommodation discrimination.
No doubt that Obama is (was?) better than the alternative, however it was simply not necessary to submit to the Court what is the most harmful (and hurtful) governmental attack on us as a people that I have seen in my lifetime, without an explanation. The government, THE government, of Barack Obama has entered heinous arguments supporting DOMA forever in the legal records of the United States of America. Thanks for that...
In the video clip below, Joy Behar comes out in support of Sarah Palin. This is an amazing switch from her position on last week's show when she was actually defending Letterman. This week most of the women are rallying behind Sarah. I like Whoopee, but she doesn't get the significance of Letterman's remarks. Still this show is quite an improvement from last week. And the one reason for the improvement is the fact that Sarah Palin refused to sit down and shut up about it!
If it can happen to the late night institution that David Letterman is, it can happen to anyone. Comedians and cable news talkers should pay attention. They should think twice before spewing forth with their usual sexist garbage.
CBS has lost at least one sponsor because of Dave's sexism. Embassy Suites, part of the Hilton Hotels Corp. has canceled their CBS advertising. No word on whether or not the "Fire David Letterman" campaign will be appeased by the apology. They have a protest planned for outside the CBS studios tomorrow.
Letterman is offering a full throated apology for his sexist "joke" about Sarah Palin's daughter. Apparently, he's okay with his reference to the Governor as looking "slutty."
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.
Once again, the Republicans Neanderthals have embarrassed the entire state of Tennessee. Sherri Goforth, a legislative staffer for Tennessee GOP state Senator Diane Black (R-Gallatin), sent out a racist (and embarrassingly testosterone laden - does this country have a male fetish, or what?) image of all the presidents.
When Nashville Is Talking asked Goforth about the email, Goforth explained that she sent the racist image to the wrong list!
When I asked her if she understood the controversial nature of the photo, Goforth would only say she felt very bad about accidentally sending it to the wrong list. When I gave her a second chance to address the controversial nature of the email, she again repeated that she only felt bad about sending it to the wrong list of people.
“I went on the wrong email and I inadvertently hit the wrong button,” Goforth told NIT. “I’m very sick about it, and it’s one of those things I can’t change or take back.”
On a related note, that South Carolina Republican has apologized for his "joke" about Michelle Obama being related to a gorilla. Gawd.
Update: Apparently Tennessee blogger Newscoma broke this story.
In the sickening video clip below, MSNBC's Ed Schultz and Donny Deutsch open their alpha male mouths and reveal that they 'get' nothing. The men illustrate exactly why this country ranks so dismally low -- behind some 70 nations -- in the number of women in elected office.
The self-absorbed boys tell us that Sarah Palin is a bad mother. Obscenely sexist jokes about your daughters are simply what you get if you are a bad mother who dares to participate in politics and bring children with you. Politics is not a family affair. The men have wives who keep their children at home. The wives do it so well that the men can forget that they have children. Those are the rules.
And if Sarah Palin doesn't like to be described as a slutty bitch, she should stay home too. Like a good wife. Because, like adolescent boys in the backseat of a car, pundits and comedians just can't control themselves.
This is how the boys play politics. Why should they change the rules? They already had to cool it with the racist insults. Why should they have to clean up the sexist crap too?
The only way we are ever going to get anything approaching equal representation for women in this sick misogyny-infested boy-dominated cowboy country is by changing the wild west frat house rules so that finally politics is fit for women and children, and sane men.
Feminist trailblazers like Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton lead the way. We are fortunate to have them because, face it, most of us simply don't have the stomach to go there. Until the boys are forced to control themselves, most women will simply abstain from politics.
In this episode of Smart Girls At the Party, Amy Poehler interviews Ruby, 7 year old feminist, skateboarder and author. More girls who do presentations on feminism for their kindergarten classes, please!
Smart Girls at the Party features girls who are changing the world by being themselves.
Before Joan Walsh appeared on The O'Reilly Factor to battle it out with Bill “Tiller the baby killer” O'Reilly on abortion rights and Dr. George Tiller's murder, O'Reilly's producers told her, "He wants to have a conversation! It'll be fine!" And after the show? Joan Walsh writes: "Well, it was so not fine. I think the high or low point was when he shrieked at me, "You have blood on your hands!"
Speaking of men you should keep your daughters away from, the pompous and sick sexist pig Keith Olbermann attacks Sarah Palin as "Tracey Flick," again, and defends Letterman's sexism. All in the video clip below. This is all Sarah Palin's fault, says Keith. The "power-crazed" woman is "exploiting" her daughters by defending them. She should just shut up. The woman is asking for it by putting her children on the national stage. If she'd kept her children (and herself) at home where women and children obviously belong, none of this would have happened, says the man who wanted to take Hillary into a room and beat the crap out of her until she shut up and got off the national stage.
I know Keith Olbermann is nauseating to watch, but you really have to see this beyond-the-pale sexist crap to believe it. Besides, there are lots of clips of Sarah Palin defending all of womankind just like a feminist would. The nerve of the woman! How dare she take up space on the national stage!
"It was a degrading comment about a young woman. I would hope that people really start rising up and deciding it's not acceptable. No wonder young girls have such low self-esteem in America, when we think it's funny for a so-called comedian to get away with such a remark as he did. I don't think that's acceptable."
"I would like to see him apologize to young women across the country for contributing to that thread throughout our culture that makes it OK to talk about young girls in that way — where it's OK, accepted and funny to talk about statutory rape. It's not cool. It's not funny."
It seems like only yesterday when Barack Obama, Fierce Advocate for the rights of lesbians and gays, said "we need to fully repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)."
And over at Americablog, they've come full circle. Former fiercely loyal Obot, John Aravosis has a round-up and lots more posts about the Obama Administration's defense of the Defense of Marriage Act. And, no, a President Hillary Rodham Clinton would never in a million years have committed this betrayal.
This is a President who said he is a "fierce advocate" for our rights. This doesn't look much like an advocate, it looks more like an enemy pulling the pin on the grenade and tossing it at us. While this may not be the perfect test case for DOMA, the Obama administration, in its defense of the Act, has filed a brief that is a roadmap for every fundnut anti-gay argument against the right of same-sex couples to marry.... Friends, is this is the watershed mark, the line in the sand, the utter moral betrayal of this administration in black and white? Does this mean that we are not only expendable to this Administration, but that it has decided we can also be vilified as a constituency at will and not receive any blowback? That's balls. A brief with language like this could have been written by Liberty Counsel it's so homophobic; that it's written in legalese doesn't blunt the arguments being made here. It will be used to cause lasting damage to future civil rights gains.
[T]o file an actual brief re-stating some of the worst and most denigrating arguments against gay civil equality is just bizarre. They could have argued for a narrow ruling or kept the "reasonable" arguments to a minimum. What they did - without any heads up to any of their gay supporters and allies - is unconscionable. Citing incest precedents? Calling gay couples free-loaders? Arguing that our civil rights are not impinged because we can marry someone of the opposite sex? Who on earth decided that that was a great idea? Marc is right that this will be simply incomprehensible to most gay people. To have unloaded it after refusing to do anything on DADT, after failing to lift the HIV travel ban, after punting on even pure symbolism like hate crimes - well, it's no way to treat those who worked their butts off to elect you, as all the major groups have now said.... I'm baffled by this, I really am. The content of this brief is a massive political error from an administration that is making it impossible for its gay supporters to stay supportive. What's next? A Clintonian political ad boasting of these arguments?
[W]hether or not it was appropriate to defend DOMA, the DOJ did so with extraordinary zeal, making arguments that could only make Pat Robertson smile. (If you're looking for a bright side, at least the legal brief didn't compare same-sex marriage to bestiality.)
Wow. Look who's doing feminism's dirty work. Look who's fighting the sexism. A conservative woman steps up to the plate. Sarah Palin takes on David Letterman's sexism (see video clip) and argues (on the Today Show) that Letterman should offer a genuine apology to the women of America! Go, Sarah!
In David Letterman's previous (and lame) apology, he argued that he would never make a sexist joke about a 14-year-old girl. His defense was that he was making a sexist joke about Sarah Palin's 18-year-old daughter! Obviously (to most everyone except Letterman), it doesn't matter if Letterman was joking about a 14-year-old girl or an 18- year-old girl.
Jokes about old men having sex with teenage girls told on mainstream television are just one more indication that the misogyny in this culture is dangerously out of control.
The women of the view discuss David Letterman's sexist joke about an old man having sex with a teenage girl -- specifically Sarah Palin's daughter. Some of the liberal women make some very offensive arguments justifying the cultural misogyny, like it's Sarah Palin's fault for letting us know that she has children! Also they mostly confine the discussion to the subject of keeping children off limits, when they should be addressing the problem of misogyny-gone-wild in America.
The U.S. Department of Justice Thursday night filed a motion to dismiss a legal challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal law that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman. . . To read the brief as an LGBT person is to be disheartened. John Aravosis at Americablog has a nice point-by-point breakdown of the arguments. But chief among them are two that strike at heart of the gay marriage dilemma:
1) In terms of federal benefits, LGBT people are not deemed a protected class of citizen and, as such, are undeserving of the same level of considerations that other minorities might get. . .
2) As it pertains to same-sex marriage, Justice argues that it's completely constitutional for Congress to take a “go-slow” approach to recognizing certain kinds of marriages, thereby excluding certain people from the federal rights that others enjoy.
NOW's Media Hall of Shame was created in response to the tsunami of misogyny directed at Hillary Rodham Clinton for the gender crime of almost taking the prize of the presidency away from the boyz. It's true that NOW's defense of Hillary was too late and woefully too weak, but moving on . . finally, NOW seems to have heard the deafening sound of women criticizing the feminist organization for its failure to take a stand against sexism when it is directed at conservative women.
Sexism hurts all women and all girls and sexism is rampant in this ugly misogyny infested culture. A National Organization for Women that actually does battle with the misogyny run wild in this culture could make some major progress in making the world a little safer for girls and women everywhere.
The Offense: Late night TV host David Letterman "joked" that during their recent trip to New York, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter "was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez" during a Yankees baseball game. The next night Letterman said that the hardest part of Palin's trip was "keeping Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter."
NOW Analysis: After two nights of "jokes" at the expense of Palin and her family, Letterman tried to explain himself and offer something of an apology. On his June 10 show, Letterman said he was referring to Palin's 18-year-old daughter, Bristol -- not the 14-year-old daughter who actually accompanied Palin on her New York trip. Letterman said "I recognize that these are ugly" jokes. NOW agrees. Comedians in search of a laugh should really know better than to snicker about men having sex with teenage girls (or young women) less than half their age.
The sexualization of girls and women in the media is reaching new lows these days -- it is exploitative and has a negative effect on how all women and girls are perceived and how they view themselves. Letterman also joked about what he called Palin's "slutty flight attendant look" -- . . . Take Action: Write to CBS and tell them what you think. Read more . . .
Gee, I wonder if Keith Olbermann will induct NOW into his hall of Worst Persons. KO gave the Worst Person award to Elton John and Katie Couric for the crime of naming the sexism. Currently the sexist jackass is attacking Sarah Palin for the crime of defending her daughters from Letterman's attack!
