It seems ol’Dave is in the news again. Looks like he did some not-so-great stuff with some staffers. Is there hypocrisy on his behalf? Yep. Will it be harder for him to make fun of the Spitzers, Sanfords and Clintons of the world? Probably. Will people look at him differently? Maybe, maybe not. Do I care? Not really.
He’s human. He makes mistakes. He’s not some moral compass or preacher of all things good. Yes he pokes fun at others. And yes, he will be made fun of for this for quite some time. And we know the media will keep this in the news cycle as long as they can. It has it all—sex, money, bribes, power—all the makings of a great drama. Which makes me wonder, why does the media need a flare for the dramatics? What ever happened to news and reporting? I will have to think about that in more depth soon. But for now, that is not what intrigues me.
What has me in a twist at the moment is the fact that I keep reading on blogs about the rape joke Dave made about the Palin kids. After all this time, the Blogtards still have not come to grips with the facts.
THERE WAS NO RAPE JOKE!!!
There was a joke. It was a pop culture reference to Bristol Palin’s unplanned teenage pregnancy combined with Sarah Palin’s own recent child birth. It was based on a perception that the Palin women may be somewhat fertile. That, combined with A-Rod’s dating flare, and perceived virility, which made for an easy joke. Was it a good joke? Maybe not. Was it in poor taste? Perhaps. Was it unfair to make a joke about a politician’s child? Maybe, maybe not. After all, Bristol Palin was a national spokesperson for teen abstinence at the time, and thus, a public figure in her own right.
Did Dave know that it was Willow at the baseball game and not Bristol? Nope. And it didn’t matter for the premise of joke to work. It was about the 18 year old adult daughter, Bristol. And the audience got it.
The false outrage began when Sarah Palin did one of two things. She either misunderstood the joke, perhaps due to a lack of self awareness and public perception. Or she understood the joke and went on the offensive. She attacked back with media spin based on a lie. Or, as I believe, a combination of both.
And some applaud her for doing so. And perhaps parents should be applauded for defending their kids. People were glad to see a mother defend her cubs (or guppies, or whatever it is barracudas have). They like the feisty Sarah Barracuda persona. But is that how you want a (*cough*) leader to act?
She had the chance to show poise and class. Instead she accused a man of making statutory rape jokes. She could have used this time to point out the problem of dragging children into things, instead it all became about rape jokes. She could have thought it through a bit. It was not like we had inbound nukes and only seconds to react. In this case, she could have afforded “to blink” and to think. But she shot back with false, misleading accusations.
And the Blogtards latched on. And they will not let go. So again, for the cheap seats: THERE WAS NO RAPE JOKE! And every time someone leads with that lie, they disqualify whatever statements follow. And that's a shame because there are likely some well thought out points-of-view in there somewhere. But we’ll never know about it if they keep leading with an obvious and deliberate lie... a lie that even 'Sarahcuda' has managed to move past.
-JC
