We know D.C. Get our free newsletter to stay in the know.
The Huffington Post‘s Shannyn Moore has created this clever top-10 list of the worst sex jokes hurled at Sarah Palin and her daughters since last year’s presidential campaign. The list, which includes jokes made by Conan O’Brien, Saturday Night Live, and Craig Ferguson, is hard to stomach. The A Rod thing is not the first sports-team rape joke in the bunch, is what I’m saying.
Moore’s point here is that “Sarah Palin’s “Outrage” is Misplaced and A Little Late,” since she’s seemingly ignored a host of inappropriate sexual jokes about her family (and other political families) before finally speaking out against Letterman. To me, Moore’s list proves that the outrage has been a long time coming.
Moore writes:
The National Organization for Women named David Letterman to their Hall of Shame. Will Letterman be joining Jay Leno? Conan O’Brien? Craig Ferguson? Seth Myers? Rush Limbaugh? Or John McCain? Of course not! I guess N.O.W. didn’t bother checking Sarah Palin’s “feminist” credentials.
Actually, Limbaugh is a repeat offender in NOW’s media Hall of Shame. As for other notable sexists who have so far escaped direct criticism from the Palin camp in the past: Sexism in comedy and politics is so wide-spread that it would take up all of NOW’s—-and Palin’s—-resources to dutifully record every instance of it. Imagine if Palin responded to every sexist attack hurled at her from anyone ever—-it would be a debilitating task, one which would totally derail her life, her family, and probably the entire state of Alaska.
That being said, Palin happened to hear a joke that was particularly inappropriate, Matt Lauer asked her about it, and she responded. Palin’s lack of public reaction to these past jokes does not rob her of her right to react now. There are too many sexist jokes. Palin’s acceptance of the Republican vice presidential nomination does not rob her of the right to speak out against sexism. There are too many sexist politicians.
And when Rush Limbaugh or John McCain or yes—-Sarah Palin—-makes their next sexist comment or enacts their next sexist policy, I hope that liberal commentators don’t hold back just because they chose not to defend Sarah Palin now.
Moore thinks Palin’s outrage is “late.” Better late than never.
This isn't a paywall.
We don't have one. Readers like you keep our work free for everyone to read. If you think that it's important to have high quality local reporting we hope you'll support our work with a monthly contribution.