Last night David Letterman issued an apology to Sarah Palin about his “knocked up” joke that referenced her 18-year-old daughter, Bristol.  Here’s the video:

Palin accepted Letterman’s apology:

Of course it’s accepted on behalf of young women, like my daughters, who hope men who “joke” about public displays of sexual exploitation of girls will soon evolve. Letterman certainly has the right to “joke” about whatever he wants to, and thankfully we have the right to express our reaction. And this is all thanks to our U.S. military women and men putting their lives on the line for us to secure America’s right to free speech–in this case, may that right be used to promote equality and respect.

One of the best reflections about this ridiculous issue came from James Poniewozik at Time magazine’s website, where he notes how Palin-Letterman issues last forever in Culture War America.  Poniewozik hit the mark that what should be a minor dust-up between two people takes on an entire life of its own in the 24-hour news cycle and blogosphere:

But really this controversy doesn’t belong to Palin and Letterman anymore, and both of them only have so much power to end it. That distinction belongs to the army of cable-news and online commenters using it as a proxy for every dispute under the sun, and they are too well invested in keeping it going. Yea, verily, it has been written down in The Holy Book of Partisan Grievance, and it shall be cited henceforth in culture wars to come.

You know how that works. A controversy like this comes up, and suddenly there’s a mad dash to the history books to cherrypick decontextualized examples and catch the other side in an act of hypocritical defense of / outrage against humor. Well, what about when Jay Leno made essentially the same joke last year!, Letterman’s defenders cried. But what about Imus!, Palin’s partisans countered. CBS fired Imus for his remarks! Well, what about all the jokes people made about Chelsea Clinton? Yes, but what about the ones about the Bush daughters? You’re a hypocrite! No, you are!

On and on it goes, the grievance and counter-grievance, the gotcha and counter-gotcha. And thus the discussion over a freaking tacky late-night joke becomes like adjudicating an ethnic conflict in the Balkans, where yesterday’s atrocity is rationalized by a massacre during World War I, which in turn was righteous payback for some atrocity in 1484, which in turn… Good Lord.

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