Sarah Palin Calls for Uprising Against Letterman for Joke About Her Daughter

ABC News' David Chalian reports: Gov. Sarah Palin called on the public to rise up in opposition to David Letterman's distasteful jokes about her daughter this week. In a morning television interview on NBC's “Today” show, Gov. Palin described her controversy with the late night comedian as a “sad commentary on where we are as a culture, as a society, to chuckle and laugh through comments such as he had made the other night, I think is quite unfortunate.”

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Mr. Letterman's explanation that he was referring to her 18 year old daughter, Bristol, instead of her 14 year old daughter, Willow, who accompanied her recently to New York was met with derision by Gov. Palin. She called it a “very convenient excuse” that took him a couple of days to present.

“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 especially have such low self esteem in America when we think it's funny for a so-called comedian to get away with being able to make such a remark as he did and to think that that's acceptable,” Palin said.

Gov. Palin was apparently pleased to see women organizations speaking out against the comments and then proceeded to read from her BlackBerry an email she received from someone she described as not a typical feminist. “Every male organization. . . should rise up and shout in defense of their daughters, their sisters, their mothers,” Palin read to NBC's Matt Lauer.

When Lauer pressed Palin on her spokeswoman's response stating “it would be wise to keep Willow away from David Letterman,” Palin said that was not in bad taste.

“I connect the dots to a degrading statement made about young women and that does contribute to some acceptance of abuse of young women,” Palin said in defense of that statement before going on to explain that it can be interpreted in many ways.

“Take it however you want to take it. It is a comment that came from the heart that Willow, no doubt, would want to stay away after he made such a comment,” she said.

Gov. Palin also decried what she sees as a double standard being applied to her and her family both politically and in a broader social sense.

“First, remember in the campaign, Barack Obama said, 'Family's off limits. You don't talk about my family.'”

“And the candidate who must be obeyed, everybody adhered to that and they did leave his family alone. They haven't done that on the other side of the ticket and it has continued to this day so that's a political double standard.”

Gov. Palin went on to describe a second double standard as the “acceptance of a celebrity being able to get away with a disparaging comment that does erode a young girl's self esteem and does contribute to some of the problems we have in society.”

Asked if Letterman owes her an apology, Gov. Palin said no.

“He doesn't have to apologize to me. I would like to see him apologize to young women across the country for contributing to that thread that is throughout our culture that makes it sound like it's ok to talk about young girls that way.”

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Tags: About, against, calls, Daughter, Joke, Letterman, Palin, Sarah, Uprising

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