I have deeply mixed feelings about this whole Letterman thing. If you’re unfamiliar, Letterman basically made a joke about Sarah Palin’s daughter being raped by a New York Yankee. And then followed it up with another joke implying that another of Palin’s daughters was a prostitute having something to do with Eliot Spitzer. The first joke appeared to have been made about Palin’s 14 yr old daughter, but rather than apologize when called on it, Letterman basically said he got the daughters mixed up, and that people should be able to take a joke.

The National Organization of Women gives their roundup and condemnation here.

That has caused at least one former-liberal turned conservative, Cynthia Yockey, to call for conservatives to get über-organized, and engage in an intense letter writing campaign to get Letterman fired. After all, that’s what liberals do, and having just switched sides, she views Republicans as giving up too easily:

Sebastian says it will take 30 days of daily letter-writing to CBS and Letterman’s advertisers. That’s because for the first two or three weeks, they’ll just wait for the tempest to blow over. Not only do we have to keep it up, we have to make it build. This is our line in the sand. Letterman MUST BE FIRED NOW!!

Yockey goes on to list the address of the companies who advertise with Letterman, attempting to start a campaign to take him down.

On the one hand, I do admire the fighting spirit, and I do believe that Republicans can use more of it. Republican legislators in particular have a way of negotiating with themselves before going to negotiate with Democrats, and once they’ve done that, there’s very often little left to support. It’s this fact that has supporters demoralized, particularly after eight years of Bush (more here).

But on the other hand, this type of tactic has long bothered me, and is, in a sense, the very tactic used by Letterman himself against the Palins. The tactic I’m talking about is social ostracization. By turning people who hold particular viewpoints into social pariahs, the Left hopes to end debate on subjects where they will lose. For democracy to work properly, we need to be able to debate everything, come to some conclusions, and then move on. And in our country’s history we’ve openly debated things that today we would consider absurd to debate, things such as whether we should own slaves, whether blacks should have citizenship rights, whether women should be allowed to vote, whether alcohol should be legal, and many more. And in each instance, we reached a societal conclusion and moved on.

But far too often, the Left today seeks to stifle debate, whether it be by organizing protesters to shout down conservative speakers on college campuses, or by turning those who disagree with them into laughing stocks and social pariahs. They’re not debating anything, they’re shutting off debate. And as a result, issues that need to be resolved by debate just fester, and often become uncivil.

I’m reminded of a time when Rush Limbaugh was a spokesman for Pizza Hut. It was in the mid-1990′s, and I guess I thought nothing of a fat guy hocking pizza on TV. But when I was over a gay friend’s house that I saw a gay newspaper instructing its readers to write to the executives of Pizza Hut saying how offended they were, how they wouldn’t frequent the joint, etc. I was pretty appalled. I mean, granted, Limbaugh is a political figure, he’s pretty much in the mainstream of conservative political thought. He’s certainly not a bigot or anything. So what the heck? Should Pizza Hut not advertise to conservatives? Were these gay people really big Pizza Hut fans in the first place? I mean, seriously…

Years later, I was working at LoJack, and the CEO of the company at the time was an old tight-fisted yankee type. I was friends with the #2 guy in marketing while I was there. LoJack advertised almost exclusively on radio at the time, because they found that people weren’t thinking of car accessories unless they were in their car. And of course, the biggest show we advertised on was the Howard Stern show. Of course, the Howard Stern show was despised by religious types, who were attempting the same social pariah tactics that the Left often uses, and they sent countless letters complaining. But the marketing department had to run a conspiracy within the company to keep those letters from reaching the CEO’s desk, because if they did reach his desk, and if he was made aware of what went on on the Howard Stern Show, he would have certainly pulled the advertising, something that would have had a seriously deleterious effect on the company’s marketing efforts.

Which I guess brings me to my next point, that these tactics are rarely effective, and when they are, they aren’t. The Howard Stern show would have survived without LoJack, and Rush Limbaugh is rich beyond most people’s wildest dreams without the endorsement of Pizza Hut. So really, what exactly are you trying to accomplish here?

Finally, these kinds of tactics amount to little more than bullying. It’s schoolyard stuff that we should have long since grown out of, but some of us just don’t. Rosslyn Smith has a great piece up today on this point, and I would strongly encourage you to read the whole thing:

For years now much of our comedy has gotten increasingly mean. It laughs less and less at the contradictions inherent in the human condition and increasingly picks out and personalizes targets to demean and humiliate. In the world of the comedian-cum-bully, wit has been replaced with name calling and the wry irony of the nerdish observer with the swagger of the schoolyard bully who decides who is among the in group and who are “them”, the outcasts to be made the butt of every mean spirited politically correct joke. Name calling is the stock in trade of the bully. So is telling the target who protests, “What’s a matter, can’t you take a joke?”

There’s a great Family Guy clip illustrating this point, but I’ll have to wait until I get home to find it as they block video at work.

But to be fair, Smith does think that some sort of reaction is warranted:

Allowing the bullies to go unmolested has hurt the party among other voters, too. One lesson I learned when I moved to rural America is that while blowing your own horn doesn’t cut it here, defending one’s honor does. The reticence of party insiders to challenge the elitist liberal media culture has been a huge source of dissatisfaction with the Republican brand among the rank and file outside the major urban areas. Nowhere has it been more apparent than with the media scorn heaped on Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber and the me-too echo of certain party insiders anxious to keep their credentials on the Sunday news show circuit

I agree that some sort of reaction is warranted, I’m not sure exactly what it is. But I’m not sure getting Letterman fired is it, or will amount to much if successful, We need to be able to speak freely to each other in this country, to debate and resolve political issues with our intellects. I think that it’s appropriate to respond to demagoguery with demagoguery. And I think a below the belt punch or insult is deserving of another. So here goes my effort in that vein:

Fuck you David Letterman. I hope your bastard son gets raped. And when you die, I will seek out your resting place and take a dump on it.

UPDATE: Letterman has apologized. Transcript.

UPDATE 2: Jim Treacher gets it right. I suppose I should also say I do not, in fact, hope Letterman’s son gets raped. But I still reserve the right to take a dump on his grave, if only because that actually is funny.

UPDATE 3: Found the Family Guy clip:

Tags: David Letterman, NOW, Pizza Hut, Rape, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin

This entry was posted on Monday, June 15th, 2009 at 2:00 pm and is filed under News & Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.