It was a flashback to the turn of this century, a "best of" from the Republican Party noise machine's playbook. Sarah Palin acted like she was shocked and hurt by Letterman's jokes about her daughter; Letterman took the bait and apologized and it wasn't, nor will it ever be, good enough for the Right Wing.
Classic. Remember John Kerry's comment about the troops. "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq."
Republicans pounced on Kerry and kept up the heat, Democrats distanced themselves from the Massachusetts Senator and the firestorm never abated. Finally Kerry apologized but nobody on the Right forgave him. They said his apology was forced under pressure. The White House said it came too late.
They didn't care about the troops at the time, and they didn't care about John Kerry. They cared about the effect that their wounded, persecuted narrative would have on the electorate. Strategists wanted voters to think that Republicans were regular US troops and always under attack from the liberals like Kerry who actually SERVED in Vietnam, in sharp comparison to President Bush, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and all the other rabid right-wingers attacking him and winding up their shoot-up-Holocaust-museums base.
Now, strategists seem to want voters to think that Republicans are persecuted women, hounded by an elitist, sexist liberal establishment. It's a twist of logic that is so cynical it just might work. Case in point: the National Organization of Women has gone out of its way to help conservatives bash Letterman, putting him on their list of shame.
I can't think of a greater waste of that organization's money. To think that conservatives--whose leaders are, in a recent poll, Dick Cheney, Newt Genghrich and Rush Limbaugh--will ever stand up for women's rights because NOW helped Sarah Palin begin her 2012 presidential campaign is ludicrous.
This entire uproar is manufactured by the same hacks who have been winning elections for the Republicans for the last three decades. Letterman is comedian. Lighten up.
