David Letterman directly apologized to Gov. Sarah Palin and her daughters on his program Monday night, saying he took responsibility for a joke that had offended Ms. Palin, her family, and her supporters.Up against a planned Tuesday rally calling for his firing and a boycott of Letterman's sponsors by Sarah Palin supporters and others, the late night talk show host apparently decided that he had gotten himself into a war he could not win.
Mr. Letterman opened the desk portion of his show with the apology in which he said he wanted to say he was sorry to “to the two daughters involved, Bristol and Willow, and also to the governor and her family and everybody else who was outraged by the joke.” Two weeks ago on his “Late Show” program on CBS, he had joked about Governor Palin attending a Yankee game with her daughter.
Embassy Suites had yanked its advertising from CBS' website, as company spokeswoman Kendra Walker explained:
"We received lots of e-mails from concerned guests and we assessed that the statement that he made was offensive enough to our guests and prospective guests that we elected to take the ads down,"CBS suits, meanwhile, insist that they put no pressure on Letterman to apologize and that there has been no real impact on advertisers from the protests. And if you believe that, they have some slightly used Letterman jokes they would like to sell you.
More here, including a full transcript of the apology.
Update: John Ziegler says the "Fire David Letterman" rally will go on as scheduled. We think this is a hasty decision. Ziegler should wait and see what Gov. Palin says. If she is the person we think she is, the governor will accept the apology, declare victory and move on. There's nothing to be gained from taking this further. Sarah stood up to Letterman, and he backed down. We win, they lose. There's too many other important things to be accomplished to dwell on this.
- JP
