David Letterman: The Bad Humor Man

Like a lot of Americans, I was disgusted by David Letterman’s “Top Ten” jokes about Sarah Palin last week. On Monday, he reported that the Alaskan governor was visiting New York, and that she had stopped by Bloomingdale’s for new makeup to update her “slutty flight attendant look.” On Tuesday, he said that the Palins had been trying to keep their daughter away from Eliot Spitzer, implying that their girls could be mistaken for prostitutes. And he topped that by joking that Willow, who’s all of 14, had been “knocked up” during the seventh-inning stretch of a Yankees game.

Letterman’s jokes weren’t funny. They’re classist, for one thing. Clearly, media elites like David Letterman find that it’s easy to make fun of “little people,” like flight attendants.

The comments were misogynistic, too. In a fair world, female politicians wouldn’t be singled out — in crude language, no less — for their appearance or for raising families.

I have to admit, though, that I was a little surprised by the firestorm of objections that followed Letterman’s remarks. After all, Sarah Palin and her family have been the butt of jokes ever since she emerged on the nationwide political scene last year. Letterman’s jibes didn’t seem any worse than any of the countless other wisecracks I’ve heard at her expense. While his use of the word “slutty” might be over the top, it wasn’t far off the usual mark.

What’s more, the jokes about the Palin kids are old hat. Baby Trig has been mocked for having Down Syndrome, and poor Bristol has suffered from a non-stop series of insults about her pregnancy.

I’m also used to the double standard that was on display. Honestly, no one would make similar jokes about Democrat families. Try a quick Google search for “Sasha and Malia Obama jokes,” and then compare the results you get with the findings for “Trig Palin jokes” or “Bristol Palin jokes.” There’s no comparison. I couldn’t find a single joke about Sasha or Malia, except for an innocent comment or two that Barack Obama himself made during some of his speeches. The Palin kids, on the other hand, have been viciously skewered at every turn.

So why did Letterman’s routine incite such a strong response this time around? Let’s check the cards.

I shuffled my trusty Rider-Waite tarot deck and let it fall open in my hands — and the card that turned up was the Fool.

Clearly, David Letterman is a classic Fool — a contemporary court jester, entertaining millions of subjects with modern versions of age-old jokes and comedy routines. Perhaps he really was “just kidding,” as he claims.

But maybe people are getting tired of his brand of humor, too. Maybe Americans — particularly mainstream, middle-class, conservative Americans — have simply had enough of people like David Letterman making fun of us. Maybe we’re tired of a media that insults and offends us at every turn, and denigrates women and children with impunity. Maybe we’re tired of being played for fools ourselves.

I also get the sense that David Letterman has a real problem dealing with powerful women. Maybe he has mother issues: I remember how he used to set up his own mother as the focus of some of his comic routines, playfully “teasing” her for her Midwestern values and lifestyle. When David Letterman makes jokes about Sarah Palin, maybe he thinks he’s speaking truth to power — like a medieval clown, cloaking his observations in humor, when no one else feels  free to comment. Maybe he really does think that many a truth is told in jest, and that it’s his job to put Sarah Palin in her place. (Again, that would be the misogynist in him.)

His latest round of apologies is all over the TV news this morning, so I asked a follow-up question: Is Letterman’s latest “mea culpa” sincere?

I shuffled again, and the deck fell open to the Queen of Wands.

I’d have to say no, David Letterman isn’t sorry — and you don’t have to be a wild-eyed psychic to figure that out, either. I remember the first “apology” he offered, in which he suggested that he never meant to insult Sarah Palin’s 14-year-old daughter. No: he was attacking the 18-year-old — an adult of legal age, who really did get “knocked up,” and who thereby was fully deserving of a nation’s scorn.

Whatever.

When I first saw the Queen of Wands, though, I saw Sarah Palin — and I suspect that David Letterman blames her for the response he’s getting to his joke. Obviously, he does perceive Palin as a woman with great power, which is what the Queen of Wands represents: she’s a fiery, outspoken personality. She’s popular and charismatic, and a born leader. In fact, Sarah Palin is one of the few politicians who can draw crowds of thousands wherever she goes. David Letterman is intimidated by Sarah Palin, and on some level, he’s afraid of her. His little court jester routine pales in comparison to her popular appeal — and when she spoke out against his attacks on her daughter, she made him seem like a very small man, indeed.

So what will we learn from this latest installment of pop culture and politics?

Sadly, nothing — as evidenced by the next card to reveal itself, the Five of Wands.

The Five of Wands suggests that we won’t learn anything, at least not in the short term. We’ll continue to bicker and squabble amongst ourselves.

Oh, maybe I shouldn’t be so pessimistic. After all, it is a “5″ card, halfway between the 1 and the 10 — so maybe we’re at the halfway mark. Maybe we’re at some sort of tipping point as a culture, where the divide between Democrats and Republicans can advance beyond petty, humorless attacks and name-calling.

We’ll see. Time will tell — and so will the comments that trickle in after this post.

If you’d like to comment, feel free, but don’t bother telling me that Sarah Palin is dumb, or dangerous, or that she deserves the treatment she’s received. I don’t agree, you won’t change my mind, and that’s not the point, anyway. Try to keep your comments to the subject at hand, which is David Letterman and his jokes about the Palins.