My Girl Cynthia Got a ‘Lanche . . .

June 12, 2009

Good for her Insty (who also has the skinny on the FCC complaint, at the link):

FROM CONSERVATIVE LESBIAN CYNTHIA YOCKEY, More on how to get Letterman fired — and why Republicans need to do so. Do they? Well, Democrats would do it.

Anybody interview Don Imus on this subject?

Burn, Baby--burn.

For what it’s worth, I do believe Sarah Palin is right: Letterman’s misogynistic jokes emerge from, and contribute to, an environment of hostility toward women and toward female sexuality that does contribute to the sexual exploitation of—and sexual assaults on—women, especially young women.

And I think it’s clear that I’m not a prude, and that I’m not on any kind of hair trigger when it comes to either criticism of Sarah Palin or perceiving sexism. The reason the Letterman “jokes” and his ham-handed non-apology therefor appeared to be so sexist is that . . . they were. That is all.

Sarah, via Ed at the ‘Air:

Ed:

That could be the overall aim of Palin’s opponents. If David Letterman has to eat some crow every few months for his personal attacks on Palin, does that really matter to him? He has a contract with CBS for the next three years, at which point he’d probably retire anyway. Letterman and his ilk can continue to make all of the coverage about Palin revolve around her daughters, forcing her to respond and to look less serious as a politician, in a way that the media would never do to a man or to a liberal - as Palin said, no one did it to Obama, nor should they.

If enough of them do it, the downside for her attackers will be small, and the upside will be to kneecap Palin before she can threaten Democrats in a future election.

Update: Just to make clear, I’m not suggesting at all that Republicans distance themselves from Palin. At some point, we will need to let the Letterman-like provocations go and have her focus on national politics, where she has clearly improved. Promoting Palin as a victim (although entirely justified) won’t make her a compelling force in politics.

Or, she could give a speech encouraging us to have a national discussion about sexism. I don’t think Palin has ever looked like a victim, and most of what she and her husband have had to say about the Letterman “jokes” have essentially pointed out how far outside the mainstream Letterman is, which is the tactically correct move for them.

The victims here are her daughters, but Palin has always managed to answer the egregious attacks with a smile on her face. That’s what she needs to do.

The tactically correct move for us is to point out that we are—counterintuitively for some people—the party that stands against sexism, against racism, and against homophobia. While we do not all agree about how to streamline the legalities of gay unions, or whether/what restrictions the states should place on abortions (much less such matters as dealing with illegal immigration, whether EITs can ever be reintroduced in extreme circumstances, or what to do about black-market drugs), we do agree that we won’t lie to gay people, or to any group, as Barack Obama has done: we’ll have the debate, and come up with a compromise that makes everyone just a little bit unhappy in most of these arenas.

Because even if Obama’s hands were tied on the issue of gay marriage, I don’t see why he couldn’t end “don’t ask, don’t tell” right now. He has chosen not to do so.

And anyone who has any standing as a conservative should think long and hard before they start saying the kinds of things about Michelle Obama that people once said about Katherine Harris, and that Obama himself started throwing (in a crafty, subtle way) at Hillary Clinton.

I have no intention on dragging Palin as a politician into this, but I do intend to demonstrate that our side is quite serious about the sexism issue, and after what’s been done to both Hillary and Sarah Palin we’re not interested in seeing a lot of this crap in political life.

And we’re not going to keep our mouths shut about it, either.

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