~ But, But, But She …

Strange how it continues to happen, time after time. He does bad (American Girl in Italy has a great piece  here), but the guns turn on her.  Why?  Because she’s fair game.

Yes, it’s all her fault.

Not only is the media actively working overtime to shrug off, ignore or try to explain away his verbal attacks on a young girl, but then they turn all their outraged disapproval on the girl’s Mother. Why?  Because some how, some way she’s responsible.

They were his words.

But does any one in the media take him to the woodshed?  (See pm317’s excellent article and video here.)  Does anyone directly hold him to account for verbally denigrating a young girl not once, but twice on a pre recorded national television show.  And he did it not just one night, but two nights in a row. And then on a third night he continues the attacks by joking them off “as in questionable taste.” And all the media can muster against him is a half hearted finger wag – if that.

But oh, the Mother. Yes, that woman. She’s the cause. She gets their blood boiling. They’ve got plenty to say about her.

But I can’t help wondering why?

What really and truly is this Mother’s great sin? Joe Scarborough tried to ask that on his show this morning, but no way.  Those guns just had to swing back around and point at the Mother. So I’m left with the only person I’ve come across who is willing to address this question – Kathleen Parker, Washington Post Writers Group Columnist, in her June 10 article Will Sarah Palin’s Undisciplined Operation Cost Her? shares a writers group discussion:

Washington, D.C.: I would like you to address what it is about Gov. Palin that incites such vehement hatred in the left. Sarah Silverman had a “comedy” routine about Palin being raped by black gangsters; David Letterman calls her a slut and “jokes” about her 14-year-old daughter becoming pregnant by a baseball player. All of this is greeted with yuks by so-called liberals. I can just imagine the umbrage if somebody substituted “Michelle Obama” for Sarah Palin’s name or “Sasha Obama” for Willow’s. And let’s not even discuss the loathsome comments about her that you can find on this very newpaper’s web site. To me, Palin’s disorganized staff and her feuds with GOP staffers aren’t the issues; it’s the hatred she brings out in otherwise reasonably sane people. Your thoughts?

Kathleen Parker: I may not be much help here because I don’t get it either. Then again, I don’t get the hatred directed at me from the right when I criticize Palin. It’s a pretty nasty world out there.

Nah. Not buying it.  Saying “it goes with the territory” is an excuse. Not a reason.

Re: Letterman: Listen, Letterman is a comedian. Comedians that don’t go over the line are not funny. If you said she looks slutty, that’s over the line. If I say it, it’s over the line. Why wouldn’t Letterman say it – have you been on a plane?

What? It’s his job? So it’s a comedian’s job is to verbally attack 14 year old girls? Let’s try again.

Kathleen Parker: I don’t have a problem with raunchy humor, but time and place are everything. In a nightclub, fine. But Letterman is sort of an American institution. It just seems to me that when a woman is running for public office, we should avoid sexualizing her.

Okay, I censored myself before so I’ll say it now. I also think it’s out of line for a woman to sexualize her candidacy, which Palin did. Just ask Rich Lowry, who wrote that he had to sit up a little straighter when she winked during the vp debate. So, maybe when you play the flirt and invite males to see starbursts bouncing off the walls (Lowry again), then maybe you invite the sexual punchline. I’m wobbling here.

So there it is. The daughter is fair game, because the Mother has a wink that can make a man see starbursts. Get that, it’s all about “the wink.” Wow.  A wink!

No misogyny there. Nope. None.

The feminist media can stand proud and tall.

Yes, we’ve come a long way baby!

But just for the record Letterman, in a just world, you would (and should) have been fired the first night you uttered those words against a 14 year old girl.

____