No matter what you think - Letterman was appalling!  

You can bet your next paycheck that if the exact thing was said about Obama's family, Letterman would be in jail!

He owns Palin's family and the rest of the world a HUGE apology. He should quit the show right now, before a gang of females hangs him!

This is what passes for comedy??? Letterman has become the Olberman of late night talk show hosts. Sarah Palin was right when she called him pathetic. That word applies as well to the morons who make up his audience these days, laughing like trained seals at bad jokes. Hey Dave, you're just not happening anymore, know what I mean?

Bad enough the "joke" he made about Palin's "slutty" appearance, but children of politicians should be off limits. It wasn't funny when so-called comedians fished for laughs about a young Chelsea Clinton's appearance. Letterman's quip about Palin's teenaged daughter was vulgar and mean-spirited. If he was a real man, he'd apologize. But then again, a real man wouldn't have said something like that about a teenaged girl in the first place.

I think everyone needs to take a deep breath, In..............out. Repeat................................
Now realize these are public figures, and everything is fair game in media eyes. Do I agree, no. But it is what it is. Any anything will get the attention of the hounds.

I agree!

TBH I found it quite funny actually.

Palin's daughter was what? 17 years old when she got pregnant and I recently read that she stated something along the lines of (not a verbatim quote, but close) "if girls knew the consequences of having sex, no one would be having sex!" I mean come one!!! She was 17 years old and didn't know about birth control and that you can get pregnant from having sex?!! Like, OMG! Talk about stupid!

She keeps throwing herself in the public eye and making stupid statements, she's going to get picked on by comedians. If she can't take the heat, she should stick her head back in the sand and stay out of the spot light.

Frankly I'm tired of seeing and hearing about her. She's just another statistic IMHO.

First, he wasn't talking about Bristol. She's now 18, has put herself "out there" doing interviews for publications and such. If she had been the daughter with Sarah at the game, I could possibly see the joke. She wasn't. Sarah attended the game with her 14 year old daughter.

Obviously you don't know about teens' "immortality complex". It's a true adolescent psychological term, meaning that they know about the consequences but think "it won't happen to me". Guess what? I guess I was "stupid" in your words too. I got pregnant as a teen as well (ended in a miscarriage), younger than Bristol. I knew about birth control. I knew I could go to Planned Parenthood and get on the pill for little or no money. I knew I or my boyfriend could go to a drugstore and buy condoms, or go to PP and get them for free. I didn't do it. I didn't think it would happen to me.

As far as I understand (and I haven't read Bristol's interviews) they did use condoms, so they were using protection. It failed. It happens. She didn't say that no one would be having unprotected sex...she said they wouldn't have sex at all. She's probably right. But thanks for diminishing her as "stupid" because of an accident that she is taking responsibility for...for the rest of her life. And using her experience as a teenager whose life became a public circus to possibly educate and knock some sense into teen girls.

Sorry, but that does touch a nerve. I was naive, I was irrational, but I wasn't stupid. I made stupid decisions. Bristol made what she thought were informed decisions and the used condoms when she and her boyfriend (who she thought she would marry) had sex. Now she has a baby. That fact does NOT make her sisters open for lewd, pedophelic jokes. That's not funny.

The jokes he made about Sarah herself, frankly I can't be too upset about. She did put herself out there as a national political figure. I'm sure Joe Biden wishes no one would make fun of him being an idiot when he opens his mouth, but that's fair game too.

I have to admit when I first heard the joke (after the fact), I thought he was referencing the 18-year old. And I chuckled.

The fact that she's previously engaged in demonic acts of penetration (I don't know why that phrase just popped into my head), makes her fair game for that sort of thing, in my book. There's no more taboos to be had there. Rape wouldn't (necessarily) have been a corollary theme.

I see Letterman issued an apology and said that he was referencing the 18-year old. Does that mean he was misinformed regarding which daughter was actually at the game? It seems like a bit of backpedal, doesn't it. If he did know it was the younger daughter, well...not cool. I guess we'll never really know. Either way, probably bad judgment.

The slutty flight attendant thing, well...there's a bit of a syntactical ambiguity going on here that really affects how you interpret this. If it read, "Slutty, flight attendant" look, that's bad, because "slutty" and "flight attendant" are corresponding themes, and assumes all flight attendants are slutty or have slutty "looks". But it read "Slutty flight attendant" look, which infers that, at times, flight attendants may harbor a look that's, well...slutty, and the flight attendant reference becomes more incidental. Semantics, I guess. Probably wasn't intentional. I'm likely trying to cut him a break maybe he doesn't deserve.

Whatever the case, it all seemed a bit unnecessary.

Okay sure enough, not a nice thing to say. But I'm missing the part how this is sexist? Should we just ignore the fact that she's a woman and not comment on her appearance is that taboo for female politicians?

Letterman himself is a joke.

As for saying young women who get pregnant are stupid - that's just insulting. My SIL used a condom and foam and still got pregnant and she was 19 years old, not 14. Those of us who engaged in sexual activity during our teen years and did not get pregnant are just plain lucky IMO. The old adage of "there but for the grace of God" comes to mind.

I have no issue with comedians taking shots at political figures but I draw the line at involving their children. I also think taking shots at their political decisions is as far as it should go. Personal matters should be off-limits IMO. It is none of our business what goes on between a man and his wife even if he/she is a political personality. It is a private matter between them.

Some fact checking before his "knocked up joke" would have done him some good. The fact that he didn't say WHICH daughter he was referring to would lead to only one conclusion: he was talking about the daughter that was with her and present.

However, it seems those who weren't aware of who was traveling with her assumed it was Bristol he was talking about, not Willow.

Does that make it right? No. And I if anyone has a clip where he talks about rape, please let me know. I didn't hear it, just that "her daughter got knocked up by Alex Rodriguez."

Funny? Nope. Tasteless? Yes.

I agree. I sent CBS an email yesterday telling them exactly how I feel. I urge everyone to do the same.

I see Conan O'Brian's rating started to go up at the same time Letterman decided to insult a 14 year old. Coincidence? I hope not.

Bristol Palin did not attend the baseball game, only Willow the fourteen year old did.

Sex with a 14 year old is rape.

No, they weren't. She and he both said that they had used them sometimes, but not all of the time.

I still have no pity for her. She was old enough to know how babies are made and I doubt very much that she was still under the impression at 17 years old that she was brought by the stork one night while her parent's slept. Heck, I'm sure she saw her mother walking around pregnant to know that babies don't just miraculously appear from out of nowhere!

To be honest, I can't even imagine what her mother may have told her regarding the origins of pregnancy. The possibilities are mind-boggling.

I still feel that is pretty harsh. Judge not lest ye be judged. The humans among us make mistakes and teens have been known to make more than adults since they don't have the experience and sometimes common sense that comes with age and maturity.

I personally would never judge, blame or berate a teen who got pregnant. I would assume it was not intentional and accidents have been known to happen.

There is always that as well. I had a best friend whose mother told her nothing - absolutely nothing about being a woman. It was left to my mom and me to tell her.

Where's the tolerance? Where's the compassion?

I doubt very much if Bristol Palin wants or needs your pity. That has nothing, whatsoever, to do with Letterman talking child rape about Willow (not Bristol) Palin.

One has to wonder if you would feel the same if Letterman was talking trash about the Obama girls.

Cindy, seeing as Natalie_ca is Canadian, she may not have the same feelings on Obama and his girls that a US citizen would although I don't believe Letterman should have been trashing anyone's children.

I was under the impression he was talking about the one who got pregnant at 17 and had a baby. However, now that I know that he wasn't, my opinion still doesn't change.

He made a joke! That's it, a joke! He didn't say anything about raping a child. The age of consent in many places is 14 or 15 years old. And there are kids much younger than 14 getting themselves knocked up too. Dont' believe me? Come follow me around at my job for a day and see for yourself.

You ask me about tolerance? I'm going to turn the question right back at you. Where is your tolerance to turn a blind eye at a harmless joke?

If it was funny and harmless and based on something their family had done, my opinion would be the same. And it would depend on the subject matter of the joke too. If he was making it racial about their skin colour, no, then I wouldn't be tolerant of that. But I sure wouldn't get my panties in a bunch over it either.

IMHO there are far more important things in life such as senseless killing in war, poverty, homelessness and illiteracy to be concerned about who knocks up who and who decides to make a joke about it on TV. Save your energy and anger for things that really matter in life.

whoops, didn't realize that, sorry about that. Yes all children should be off limits.

Talking about a fourteen year old girl getting "knocked up in the dug out with A-Rod is rape pure and simple. Sex with a child is rape in this country, thank goodness.

Oh, I see, it is fine and dandy for some old man or any man to talk child rape and that is fine but skin color is off limits. I got it now.

I have to ask, are you a mother? IMO, it wasn't funny unless you consider sex talk about child rape funny and it did harm someone, it harmed Willow and the Palin family but I'm sure there are some people that find it funny and sexually titillating, I'm just not one of them.

Just another sign of the times of the decline of good taste and morals and breeding of the masses IMO

This morning, on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe', the four people on set unanimously agreed that Letterman was refering to Bristol. Even so, the joke was in poor taste and should have been stopped by the producers before airtime. The writers need to be admonished too, for writing such. I'm not certain that Dave even sees the top ten prior to taping. Maybe he just first reads it on the teleprompter???

Well maybe because Palin is such a girly girl that she provokes it. Her mannerisms, her flirtatious winking at the audience while she gives speeches, the fact that she was a in a beauty pageant lol...she brings her sexuality into everything she does. Has Hillary Clinton or Condoleeza Rice or Margaret Thatcher or Angela Merkel ever done anything like that? Not that I've noticed.

I honestly don't hold it against her. Come on it happens all the time, it can happen to a married couple, unexpected pregnancies are so common. Most people that age don't think things through, a lot get lucky but some end up pregnant...What I do think is funny is how the fact that Bristol got pregnant at 17 was a clear indication of how Palin's much advocated method of sex education is a failure. I mean come on, this is a joke before any comedian decides to even talk about it.

I think this is blown WAY out of proportion. Guilty of bad taste? Sure. Guilty of saying child rape is ok???? BIG BIG BIG stretch of interpretation imo.
Saying someone purchases makeup to update a "slutty flight attendant look" IS NOT the same as calling that person slutty imo. I dont disagree that this wasnt funny, but Ive heard ***lots*** of tasteless/offensive/not-funny comedy referring to men and male teenagers, and on another note Ive also heard lots of massively slanderous comments about David Letterman in the wake of this incident (but these people, they are justified in their attacks right? I say wrong).
Big overreaction by everyone - including Letterman acting on the defense.

Lol you must have been totally different from me, when I was in middle school I thought STDs and pregnancy was a joke that was blown out of proportion. I went to school in suburban Atlanta- a very christian area and abstinence only was the way it was done. We had multiple guest speakers in health class. I was such a rebel kid...I kept thinking OMG this is such propaganda they are feeding us, as long as you just use protection none of that stuff they show will ever affect you. I didn't have sex until 18 anyway, but those thoughts were flowing through my head, and I wished I was having sex at like 13 and 14. Then when I did have sex I had such a huge pregnancy scare for no reason whatsoever!! Even though the chance may be 1 percent with protection i was sure I was it. And even though my boyfriend had only had sex with one girl before me, I was sure she had to have had an STD so I had to go running to a gynocologist! Lol...funny how perspective changes so much. But I think a lot of kids just get unlucky. I mean failing to follow directions on how to use a condom is a big deal...a lot of times they put it on wrong, etc. I think the most impmortant thing is, parents need to take their girl to a gynecologist at 12 years old. Of course a parent can do a lot about teaching values about waiting until marriage, try to have one partner all your life but a parent can never know if this type of discipline is effective. That's why I think it's important to go and get them checked just in case. A doctor can get more info out of her about her sex life than a parent can and do a lot to protect an unwanted pregnancy and screen for STDs and do the routine checks. That's probably the one thing that I think is most important and the solution to the failures of sex ed classes. They should probably even do routine checks for girls through the school system although that would be impossible the way the healthcare system is now.

Yes, accidents do happen. However they admitted they weren't using condoms sometimes, and it only takes once. Also, she's putting herself out there spouting off to People Magazine and anyone else that will listen that if girls knew the consequences of having sex, they wouldn't have sex. So in essence she's saying that she didn't know the consequences of having sex (especially without a condom) would be getting pregnant.

To me that sounds like a completely stupid statement, and more of a joke than a "spokes person."

I'm a huge fan of President Obama. If I were eligible to have voted in your election, he would have gotten my vote. I hope he does wonderful things for the USA.

I was a victim of child sexual abuse when I was 9 years old. I know what child abuse is like. But this thread is not about me, despite the many quotes about my statements in this thread.

It was a joke people. I still believe that he was talking about Bristol because she already had a teen pregnancy. It was a joke. I found it funny because she's put herself out there and has been making really stupid comments to the press, just like her mother did when she was running for vice president and didn't know anything about whether some place was a country vs a continent. It seems to me that whole family funs a few stories short of the top when it comes to brains.

Personally I wish people would just leave them alone and ignore them and let them fade into the background and go away.

As I said, I have more imortant concerns about the world than David Letterman making a funny joke about a "kid" who had already been knocked up once.