I would be remiss if I didn’t pass on some of graphics the PUMA blog HillBuzz created to convince various sponsors to drop Letterman. Three of them are just “puns” involving the word “sexist”, but you can see why Olive Garden caved after this:
Here’s some of the others:
I can’t quite wrap my head around the whole PUMA thing, so maybe John or Wonkette or someone with a better understanding of the PUMAsphere can explain all of this.
Shabbazz
They’re nuttier than a porta-potty at the peanut festival.
SATSQ Vol 061809
John Cole
They’re insane. In the admin panel where you construct posts, go to the comments section, and then search for myiq2xu or p. lukasiak, and then read what comes up. Then it will all make sense.
They are insane.
random asshole
I think that PUMAs trying to be funny isn’t nearly as interesting as the unintentional PUMA hilarity (i.e. Harriett Christian).
I wish one of them were actually commenting on this thread, though, so I can be told why this comment itself is sexist somehow.
cleek
pathetic, mewling, attention-whores and perpetually-victimized rageaholics.
wait, was that sexist, too ?
Ash
I don’t think even the folks at Wonkette can come up with an explanation for these specimens.
JenJen
For All Things PUMA, I suggest, as always, the most excellent RumpRoast as your go-to source!
You can start here, and work your way from the PUMA Movement’s glory days of Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild (Obama is an elitist, daaahling), up to the “Fire Letterman Rally” of modern times. Enjoy!!
Rosali
PUMa A= Repuglican clowns who know that the repug message sucks eggs so it’s better to try to masquerade as Democrats.
Da Bomb
Yeah, those broads are crazy.. er uh.. I mean.
Is it still sexist, if I am broad calling other women broads?
Just wondering..
John
You know, I wish someone on TV or in the media would make this point about the whole Letterman thing – it is unreasonable to believe that Letterman intended to make a joke about raping a 14 year old girl. It is unreasonable because a longtime professional comedian and talk show host would understand that THAT joke wouldn’t be funny to his audience or anyone else watching/listening. I am sick and tired of these scolds coming in and purposely getting themselves worked up over the least charitable and most unreasonable interpretation of Letterman’s words, when (a) there exists an interpretation that makes a lot more sense and (b) they never show similar outrage toward other “entertainers” for their jokes. This has nothing to do with whether the joke is funny, or nice, or whatever; it is simply about what Letterman meant when he made the joke. One interpretation is topical and gives the joke the necessary context that allows it to make sense/be funny, and the other interpretation is that he was making a vicious and gratuitous joke about rape. The latter interpretation is simply is not reasonable.
“You don’t really believe that’s what he meant, do you?” – This is the question I want to see asked, and if they answer “yes,” to me, that simply shows how unreasonable they are.
SpotWeld
PUMA is like the wingnutinomicon.
Reading it requires such a material shift in your understanding of the fabric of reality you go a little insane from the exposure.
… rather like Glenn Beck.
Tonal Crow
@Rosali:
This. It’s Operation Chaos, continued.
gizmo
The PUMA’s ought to spend more of their time trying to get commercial sponsors to boycott FOX News. That would be a worthwhile endeavor.
Catsy
Professional outrage merchants.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@Tonal Crow: Yup, Rosali is right.
The PUMAsphere is where you go when your butthurt is too big for bighollywood.
schrodinger's cat
OT: DougJ’s favorite newspaper, Washington Post aka Neo Con Lite has fired Dan Froomkin.
Tonal Crow
@gizmo:
Are you kidding? FOX News has done an exemplary job exposing That One’s raging sexism!
/PUMA
Interrobang
Eh, I’m totally okay with this. Speaking as someone who is a big supporter of Spocko, whose stock-in-trade is getting advertisers to pull their ads off of right-wing hate radio on the grounds that it’s not great brand strategy to be associating, say, Sears Die-Hard batteries with electrotorturing someone’s testicles, I say go nuts if they can pull it off. On the other hand, the advertisers do in fact have the right to tell the PUMAs to shove it, if they think their target audience likes stupid sexist frat-boy Dood Nation humour.
And yeah, the joke was sexist. Deal.
(To explain, it hinges pretty strictly on the grounds that there is no male equivalent for the term “slutty,” and even applying the word “slutty” to a man is “ha, ha, oh he has a lot of sex,” and to a woman is “ew, damaged goods.”)
mcc
It mostly just seems kind of sad to me we don’t usually seem to see this level of organization when figures like Letterman say something that’s actually identifiably sexist or racist or whatever.
(Although I will say the LGBT community lately has gotten pretty skilled at targeting advertisers!)
Bubblegum Tate
@John Cole:
Either this or they’re pulling off an incredible Andy Kaufman-style routine.
Jim
I got a distinct PUMA vibe from some of those protesters, I thought it was just me.
But if you consider that Mr Greta Van Susteren was one of the loudest PUMAs to glom onto Palin, it makes sense.
Thanks for the good link, JenJen
Tom65
Lots of dirt here:
stupidpumas.wordpress.com
kth
16, of course the joke was sexist, but so are half the jokes late-night comedians tell. What rankles is the selective outrage; if anyone but Palin were the butt of it, they wouldn’t care in the slightest.
Shinobi
Ugh, where are these people when actually bad things are happening to women? I’m so tired of these worthless whiners appropriating the language a feminism only when it is convenient for them.
jibeaux
Isn’t humor supposed to be funny?
jrg
PUMAs can pat themselves on the back now. For the first time ever, they’ve accomplished something.
I think we can all learn for their example… If at first you don’t succeed, try something more asinine.
Comrade Dread
And you know what? Who gives a rat’s ass. Comedians tell sexist jokes, racist jokes, ethnic jokes, religious jokes, etc. all the time. The good comedians make you forget this by telling funny ones.
If we’re all so bloody thin skinned, that at the slightest whiff of our group getting mocked we turn into Victorian prudes, we need to grow up.
David
Olive Garden disputes report that ads were pulled from Letterman
“Information reported today by Andy Barr of Politico regarding Olive Garden’s advertising on the Late Show with David Letterman was erroneous. No authorized spokesperson for the company confirmed the information in his report,” said Olive Garden spokesman Rich Jeffers in an email to The Vote.
“The Olive Garden media schedule is planned months in advance. The schedule for the Late Show with David Letterman was completed earlier this month. We take all guest concerns seriously. And, as always, we will factor those concerns in as we plan our advertising schedule in the future,” he continued.
http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/06/18/olive-garden-disputes-report-that-ads-were-pulled-from-letterman/
Deb
Sexist or not, Letterman apologized for the joke twice. Deal.
Bubblegum Tate
Fuck it, somebody’s gotta say it:
“What’s wrong with being sexy?”
gimmeabreak
It’s MISOGYNY, people. Oh and wymmin-lynching. Also.
Mrs. Polly
I’m delighted to tell you that back during the primaries, Rumproast regular and Puma-fighter extraordinaire StrangeAppar8us came up with the definitive summation of PUMA:
Ash
I use manwhore as the male equivalent for slutty all the time.
ex: “Hey, did you hear about that new chick A-rod is sleeping with? I’m not surprised, CAUSE HE’S A MANWHORE! They should probably name an STD after him.”
Bill In OH
I agree with Interrobang. This is democracy in action. Good on ’em, if they can get results. I won’t cry for Letterman. He’s a big boy and he can take care of himself. Although, like kth and Shinobi, I kinda wish the PUMAs and the protesters would muster up a little outrage when the sexism is aimed at someone other than their favorite GILF. (Wait, is that sexist?)
cleek
Letterman is funny far less than you’d expect from a person with that kind of career.
Maus
PUMAs promote womens’ rights through a conservative prism the same way Michael Steele was chosen as a minority representative. Simply put, they don’t understand the point, and they don’t particularly care as long as it suits them fine.
Jennifer
The mass freakout is more because Letterman pointedly refused to apologize for the “slutty flight attendant look” joke, saying, “all I can say about this is I kinda like that joke.” Since they couldn’t strong-arm him into backing down from it, they invented this fantasy about him telling jokes about “raping 14-year-old girls”.
Is it a sexist joke? I guess so…but that doesn’t stop it from being funny as hell because…it’s true, and any time you can distill an idea into 3 or 4 words that everyone listening can immediately identify with and agree on its basic underlying truth, well, that’s a good joke. Doesn’t mean it’s politically correct. I think Lenny Bruce was considered politically incorrect in his day, likewise George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and many others.
Besides, Olive Garden sucks ass.
jibeaux
@cleek:
I was referring to the “satire”, but I would also agree that Letterman is not that funny. He has his moments, but mostly it’s repetitive and Paul is just flat creepy.
This, OTOH, I do find funny.
Maus
That’s a rather fancy way of saying “concern troll.”
dmsilev
During the Democratic Convention, The Daily Show did a pretty good piece on the PUMA protestors who showed up: link
-dms
Rosali
Watch some of the same clowns who got all worked up with moral indignation over the Letterman joke start expressing outrage over today’s Congressional apology for slavery.
A comedian making a stupid joke = sexist outrage.
A congressional apology for actual crimes against humanity = caving to the PC liberals.
jake 4 that 1
Especially hilarious when you consider PUMA mascot male MyIQisPoo had this to say about a 17 year old:
It got even better and earned him the nickname Meatprod at Rumproast.
bvac
I don’t get it. How was the joke sexist? Because it was about a girl who drew national attention for getting knocked up? It was just about as much as A-Rod’s reputation for being promiscuous. Anyway, it’s nice to see conservatives embrace the PC movement AND give old white guys a hassle at the same time.
Shygetz
@Interrobang: Manwhore, as per Ash.
Betty Cracker
@kth # 22:
Ding-ding-ding! That’s it exactly. PUMAs routinely make stupid, sexist comments about female Obama supporters, Michelle Obama, Donna Brazile, etc. A front-pager on a leading PUMA site, the aforementioned myiq2xu, is a sexist pig whose chief hobby is accusing others of sexism for far less onerous transgressions than he himself is guilty of. The only thing they were ever good for is a laugh, and even that has worn thin, at least as far as I’m concerned. Now they’re just boring.
JGabriel
DougJ @ Top:
Think: Roger Stone* ratfucking** that took on a life of its own.
*Stone has a reputation for kinky sex, and was a frequent denizen of The Vault, a literally underground 14th St S&M sex club in the 80’s and 90’s. Might even still be there for all I know.
**How cool is it that there’s a Wikipedia entry for ratfucking ?
.
Maus
Even aside from sexism, the PUMAs were defending Palin to the end while making disgustingly racist “jokes” one after the other. Even the ones who didn’t tolerated all manner of anti-black and supremacist jokes in their online communities. Needless to say, black conservatives that joined up stopped mentioning that they were black or disappeared quickly.
Litlebritdifrnt
The PUMA’s are a bunch of men hating harpies who’s outrage de jour is simply fueled by the fact that Hillary didn’t get the nom. IT WAS THEIR TURN DAMMNIT! They felt entitled, and when it didn’t work out they did the old “woman scorned” bit. Right now they are over there claiming that the Iran elections mess is EXACTLY like the democratic convention when poor Hillary was robbed, ROBBED I TELL YOU! They are most famous now for their total and utter failure at anything they do, if you want a particular thing to fail set the PUMAs on it. They have not accomplished a single thing that they set out to do, and in most cases the exact opposite has happened. I am expecting Dave Letterman’s ratings to continue to soar and HBO’s too seeing as that is their latest target. Finally they are the most vicious hypocrits, screaming sexist at every turn yet those nasty bitches have no problems saying very unpleasant things about FLOTUS (their nick name for her is “scoop mouth” how sweet) or any other female that incurs their wrath (ie serves on the Obiteme (their name) administration.) They are the nastiest most vicious bunch of bitter bitches that I have ever come across, and I’ve known alot. (I am female BTW so I can say such things).
jibeaux
And, you know, coming to complain about sexism at a blog that keeps running the same disturbing-ass three-armed picture of Pam Anderson instead of simply bumping the nice moon-over-North Carolina ad up a bit to improve the view, as I politely requested, is, well, stupid.
Sorry ’bout the commas.
blogenfreude
This will explain a lot.
JenJen
Speaking of phony GOP outrage, apparently ABC is The Liberal Devil for airing special on health care including a Town Hall from the White House, but it was OK when Fox News aired all of their fawning specials about then-President Bush.
I’m so shocked!!
@JGabriel: Absolutely! PUMA definitely started out as a semi-professional ratfuck, and then it got a little out of hand. In that same vein, I enjoy thinking, from time to time, how poorly Rush Limbaugh’s home-grown ratfuck, “Operation Chaos,” worked out for the GOP and the PUMAs. ;-)
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
My apologies if Commie Atheist has already posted this over here like he did at Sadly, No!, but those of us who thought the GOP diversion of this controversy to Willow was just disingenuous were wrong; it’s an outright lie. It turns out none of the Palin larvae were at the game.
jake 4 that 1
Oh noes! Clinton is a tr8tor!
Is it me or was their willingness to accept Palin as a Clinton substitute the biggest insult off all?
blogenfreude
Another favorite. And has anyone mentioned Darragh Murphy yet? Batshit insane.
Maus
They were never really that interested in Clinton to begin with, she was just the “lightskinned non-Mohommedan” choice in the Dem race. They weren’t going to vote for the Dems in the long run anyway. Democrat != Dixiecrat.
Brachiator
@Interrobang:
You’re right. This, of course, explains why John Edwards is currently Attorney General in the Obama Administration, because nobody cared about him being a manwhore.
What? Edwards is not the A.G.? Oh, snap! And as others have noted, the joke was as much about A-Rod as it was about Palin’s daughter. What’s that? mannism?
Oh, I don’t know. There is something anti-woman about the idea that family values demands that you try to force your daughter into a relationship with a young man simply because she has become pregnant, with no consideration of her desires, her maturity, her ability to raise a child.
But I think we should all thank the PUMA folk. We now know that a swell evening would be to take a woman (of legal age) to the Olive Garden in order to seduce her, then take her to a Best Western to do the deed, using Hellman’s Mayo for lube, and the next morning treat her to room service and a Special K Breakfast.
Tom65
Darragh Murphy has her own little corner of the “PUMA-sphere”, where she hands out daily helpings of poutrage and urges her ever-decreasing minions to hit the “donate” button.
Of course, her “PUMA PAC” has neglected to file quarterly reports with the FEC since July (probably because too many people asked questions about the July report, as in “why did you pay $5000 for ‘web hosting’?)
She’s a scam artist, and that’s a matter of public record.
MikeJ
Someone in that thread linked to an AP article that does say Willow was there. Sadly, I doubt they mean the sexy lesbian witch from BtVS.
It’s still irrelevant. Anyone who really thought the joke was about sexually assaulting a 14 year old wouldn’t be able to function in society. So I guess it may be true for some of the pumas, but not for someone who managed to get elected governor. She’s just a liar.
Litlebritdifrnt
@blogenfreude:
Ah the famous Jenniferforhillary she who said after the election (and I am paraphrasing)
“I want there to be death and starvation and blood in the streets” nice girl (a tad unhinged but nice.) Oh and this little ditty:
“my poem (ode to his lowness) goes like this (I apologize for the tone but you know how I am)
Fuck you BO, and fuck your wife
Fuck your family (not the kids) and your life
May all that you have done to us and her
come back to you times seven I’ve heard
And on that day that you face the music
remember that I did not choose ya
I walked alone and held my head up high
support you nope I’d rather die
I’m proud to say that you’re not the messiah
and I hope to hell that you are soon exposed as a big liar
sleep softly and remember this
you chose the wrong women to dis
we’ll never forget, and we’ll never stop
Until she is queen, and you are not!
Long live the girl child….may she rule soon and forever!!”
Jeezum Crow
The Winger outrage over this has been hypocritical at best and many times more offensive than the original Letterman joke at worst. But let’s not play dumb here. Versions of “she was asking for it” are still considered a defense lawyer’s first best “it doesn’t really count as rape” defense, and jokes about that slutty Palin kid are still sexist in a way that jokes about how many times A-Rod has made it past 3rd base are not.
And Bristol’s only real claim to fame is a mother who won’t shut the hell up. I have no problem with pointing out the hypocrisy and insanity of the Letterman protesters while conceding that making sleezy jokes about a politician’s non-celebrity children is a dick move.
The Moar You Know
@Brachiator: Spying on my private life is not cool.
Allan
Oops.
The synergy of fail that is PUMAfail, PALINfail, and ZIEGLERfail creates a Bermuda Triangle of Fail. Media crusades that enter there emerge with their targets not only intact, but stronger than ever.
jenniebee
@Jennifer:
OK, I get why the “slutty flight attendant” joke is sexist, but I can’t for the life of me imagine why the A-rod impregnation joke is sexist. Somebody, please explain.
I mean, I totally get it that BOB’s “he called her daughters sluts and whores” reaction to the joke is sexist. But I don’t think that’s what the original joke did. Maybe that’s because the only thing I see wrong with a young woman knocking boots with A-rod is that he’s a – ewwwwww – Yankee.
Save it for Papelbon, sisters!
Chris Johnson
That first one is funny- Letterman grade funny :) too bad they ran out of funny thereafter…
jenniebee
@Brachiator:
Yeah, I’m with you on this one. I thought the joke was gender neutral and more about lrn2usecondoms than any kind of “such a slut!” behavior. Nobody was laughing because if that Palin girl will do it with A-Rod she’ll do it with anyone. A-Rod is a major bedpost notch and a major step up from Levi what’s his name. If Bristol wanted to fool around with him and the feeling was mutual, then go on girl! Get some! Maybe he’ll even teach her a thing or two about, oh, I don’t know, birth control.
freelancer
Jumping on Letterman for this seems a little too convenient.
He’s milquetoast and on network tv.
If you’re going to go after a comedian talk-show host who has been way more scathing about Palin, why aren’t the PUMA’s freaking out about Bill Maher and HBO? I think Maher would wear PUMA outrage as a badge of pride though.
They’re nuts, and to be taken about as seriously as a Mark Levin audience member.
J. A. Baker
Microsuck is also on the PUMA shit list.
Yeah, I’d love to see these Emmy Award-winners try and use Linux. That’d be a laugh riot.
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
Well, it’s your fault for posting that YouTube video, Last Tango in the Olive Garden.
drillfork
This has to be a Republican front. It has to be.
What ever you think of Letterman as a comedian, he has in recent years mocked Bush on a regular basis, and of course he told Bill O’Reilly that he was full of shit.
Since Dave’s an older white dude, he isn’t tops on the right-wing hit list, but they were going to get around to him sooner or later…
Comrade Darkness
@cleek: Letterman’s humor reminds me of europeans proclaiming soccer to be exciting because “you wait 90 minutes for something to happen” so it is extra super exciting when it finally does.
With which I can’t really argue. (except that half the time it’s an offsides call and the other half it’s penalty kicks..)
Jennifer
@jenniebee:
See, they’re mixing up their outrage here, this is the point where it’s very obvious: the joke about Palin herself WAS sexist but Letterman already told them “fuck off; I thought it was funny and I’m not going to apologize for it” – as he shouldn’t – it was a funny joke, sexist or no, and she is a public figure. Because they aren’t going to get the satisfaction of an apology (as if it would do any good) for the joke that actually was sexist, they project their “outrage” over the sexism onto the other jokes. Which were not in any way, shape or form sexist. “Knocked up” refers to the condition of being impregnated; it’s used about and by pregnant women in describing their condition, regardless of marital status; there’s nothing sexist about the term, unless “pregnant” is also a sexist term since it applies exclusively to women. And the joke about Palin keeping busy keeping Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter is a joke about Eliot Spitzer being a perv, not any kind of statement about the daughter. It’s icky, but it’s not a slam at the daughter.
Mrs. Polly
The killingly clever graphics at the top are brought to you by the Photoshop expertise of a PUMA whose handle (Sarah Palin Air-Wolficide notwithstanding) is Dances With Pumas. She’s also responsible for PUMAPAC.org’s depictions of Obama as, respectively, a lawn jockey and a shoeshine boy.
There’s also a picture of the famous Jon Favreau Cardboardgate incident, but with Donna Brazile’s face swapped in for Hillary’s, because the best way to fight demeaning images of women is with demeaning images of women.
And yes, I know way too much about these stupid loons, and yes, when I think I could have devoted my time to rereading Jane Austen instead, it does make me want to drink a fifth of Canadian Club and lie under the piano.
Quicksand
Assertive Pantsuit 2012!
bvac
@Jeezum Crow: Yeah. I guess my way of looking at it is that it wasn’t a criminal defense of rape/sexual assault, but a joke about consensual sex between two adults premised on the girls history of getting pregnant out of wedlock and the guys history of promiscuity. If there were absolutely no basis for the punchline of the joke, then sure I’d find it sexist.
Little Dreamer
Well, if Olive Garden doesn’t fold on this, I’m going to pay them a visit and enjoy a nice meal in their restaurant.
This shit is just over the top:
Why would anyone think people would go to Olive Garden and laugh about rape while eating there? Aren’t they just as guilty for saying this shit as they thought Letterman was for his comment?
Perhaps we should all start monitoring these businesses and patronize them when they don’t fall for the PUMA bullshit.
Deborah
I’m embarrassed to share a gender with people who imagine “He raped her with his mouth!!” to help the situation for Willow in any way. It’s just icky, like they’re desperate to be able to talk about horrible Obama voters coming to rape our minor daughters, and seized on the first excuse.
Though contra the racism theory, there is a strong PUMA contingent who went the “Hillary IS me” route–2 of them had editorials in the Boston Globe–explicitly including that their husbands cheated on them, but they took them back because they’re good guys, nice to the kids, and well I’m not as attractive any more and it’d be hard on the dating scene…and so if Hillary became president that would make it all all right. I didn’t understand it, but it was there and contributing to a 10-foot wide blind spot.
LD50
The squirmy thing is that apparently if Palin were president, that would ‘make it all right’, too. Ick.
JGabriel
LD50:
Really? Cuz I get the feeling most women look at Palin and think, “That’s the tramp who slept with my ex-husband!”
.
Little Dreamer
@JGabriel:
Really? I look at her and just see a christianist idiot.
Wile E. Quixote
Well, I’m never going to eat at an Olive Garden again, which means that the next time I want to eat over-salted, pseudo Italian food which burns through my digestive system like a Milk of Magnesia/Tobasco cocktail chased with a couple of handfuls of chocolate Ex-Lax I’ll have to go somewhere else.
Wile E. Quixote
@JGabriel
@Little Dreamer
And there are some women who probably look at her and think, “That’s the christianist idiot tramp who slept with my ex-husband who lied and told me that he was a Promise-Keepers meeting when he was fucking her.”
Little Dreamer
@Wile E. Quixote:
Read further, they have not accepted the PUMA pressure.
Little Dreamer
@Wile E. Quixote:
Wait! You mean John Ensign was fucking Sarah Palin?
::rolling::
LD50
It’s poetic that wingnuts have started to embrace boycotts a couple years after the left finally realized that they were pointless.
I guess it’s like new fashions & hairstyles seeping into red states 10 years after they’ve become passé on the coasts.
Wile E. Quixote
@Little Dreamer
Ya ever wonder if women look at Larry Craig and think “That’s the tramp who used to blow my ex-husband in airport restrooms.”?
Little Dreamer
@Wile E. Quixote:
LMAO
Thanks. ;)
Jeezum Crow
@bvac:
And why would the fact that a 19-year-old’s high school boyfriend got her pregnant imply that she would sleep with a promiscuous 34-year-old man that she doesn’t know?
The joke’s absolutely sexist. That does not mean that Dave’s a bad person or a misogynist or that he’s going to send his crack team of comedy writers to rape our kittens with their keyboards, but that particular punchline hinges on linking A-Rod’s promiscuity and Bristol’s pregnancy. Which still doesn’t explain why the crowd who brought us the Pelosi Galore ads is suddenly getting the vapors over a little casual sexism on the Late Show or why the nutbags on the Right insist on turning all the Palin kids into props. At the risk of Godwinning the thread, the Palin family is beginning to look like the Bizarro von Trapps.
bvac
@Jeezum Crow:
I think thats where the whole concept of a “joke” comes into play. It played off the historic fact that whats her name got pregnant and whats his name has a reputation. Anything else you want to read into it is probably stretching it a bit. I’m not going to waste my time deconstructing it any further.
Little Dreamer
@Jeezum Crow:
Well, you know, if Sarah Palin hadn’t paraded her unmarried pregnant daughter in front of national cameras while campaigning to be Vice President and specimen of all things godly and good, none of this shit would have happened.
As far as I’m concerned, she deserved it.
Jeezum Crow
@Little Dreamer:
Sarah Palin deserves it. Bristol Palin doesn’t. Just because her mother treats her like an object or an idea instead of a person doesn’t make it okay for everyone else to do it too.
Maus
I think it’s one of those “PARENTS LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS, HORNY LATINOS ARE EVERYWHERE” sort of retarded backwoods fearmongering. They wouldn’t be so up in arms if a good ol’ huntin and fishin’ and snowmachinin’ white boy knocked up one of Palin’s kids.
qwerty42
DougJ:
And now on Wonkette: WHERE Do Olive Garden’s Allegiances Lie: With David Letterman, Or Some Funny PUMA Blog?
the response:
It’s not too complicated, Doug, and can be explained in one crisp sentence: “The PUMA movement was thought of as a bunch of disgruntled voters when, in reality, it was the Taj Mahal of consciousness reforming political mathematics.”
Jim includes links and a movie. The movie is described:
“It’s a standard recruitment tape for a suicide cult or the Dharma Initiative or whatever.”
Little Dreamer
@Jeezum Crow:
Sorry Jeezum, no, Bristol Palin created her own dilemma when she joined up as a spokesperson for abstinence, when she couldn’t even live by that tenet herself.
She is in the spotlight because she put herself there, gaining notoriety and fame because her mother was a candidate for VP (and doing so as a hypocrite).
The only person who truly didn’t deserve the attention is Willow Palin, and she’s only in the spotlight regarding this issue because her own mother PUT her there.
Martian Buddy
Me either. It makes about as much sense as “atheists for Huckabee.” Sarah Palin was the anti-feminist; a thoroughly mediocre fundamentalist hack who characterized Hillary Clinton as a “whiner” on women’s issues while screaming sexism the moment anyone dared question her meager qualifications. Her selection made it abundantly clear that, to the GOP, “feminism” is all about having a token vagina on the team without changing their regressive platform one iota.
A vote for Palin was a vote for wingnuttery as usual. I simply cannot imagine performing the mental gymnastics necessary to believe otherwise.
demimondian
@J. A. Baker: I’m having this very…experiential…image of one of these room-temperature IQ types trying to do even this second rate image editing with the Gimp.
Yeah, maybe not…
Little Dreamer
I’m so happy that PUMA has decided to no longer engage in American corporate produced and manufactured pleasures and will instead move their homes to wilderness territory where they sew their own clothes out of animal skins and shoot their dinner. Yippeeee!
bago
The Taj Mahal of ploitical mathematics! I watched that whole video. It raped my mind with a circle.
Brachiator
@Jeezum Crow:
So what? Who cares? The original claim was not that the joke was sexist.
The claim was that the joke was about the younger daughter. Which was a lie.
A sexist joke can be funny and not be mean spirited. A racist joke can be funny and not be mean spirited. A wildly inappropriate joke can be funny and not be mean spirited.
The claim that a joke is sexist is an ideological claim, not an aesthetic one. And as such, it is totally irrelevant.
Was the joke funny? Kinda, but it left too much room for willful misinterpretation. And Letterman apologized for this.
The rest is commentary.
Jamie
I’d always been under the impression that PUMA was an acronym meaning “Pants Up My Ass”, referring to the unfortunate condition of having one’s underwear ride up one’s nether-crack. With this in mind, its considerably easier to understand these people’s perpetual anger; perhaps a charity telethon for small, claw-like devices, which might enable easing of the offending undergarmental irritation, is called for.
Jeezum Crow
@Brachiator:
Yeah, but the poster that I was answering (and multiple other people on and off this board) claimed that the joke wasn’t sexist. Pretending it’s not just gives the other side more ammo, because it’s denying something that is patently and obviously true. Personally, I didn’t find this particular joke that funny because I think it’s time for the “Speedy Gonzales” horny latino trope to die, but it only ranked about a 3 on the offensive stereotypes scale.
Frankly, I think that having Sarah Palin for a mother ought to be punishment enough for Bristol’s “hypocrisy” crimes back in high school (Because, you know, we were all so smart and logical when we were 17). Obviously, that’s a minority opinion around these parts, but whatever. I agree that Letterman’s apology ought to have settled things and that the fact that it hasn’t proves that it was never about any of the Palin kids in the first place.
Most of all, though, I’d love it if we could go back to making fun of Sarah Palin without dragging her children into it. It’s not as if she doesn’t provide more than enough material all by her lonesome.
shortstop
See, I don’t, or at least I don’t see why it was more than mildly so. Sexist is calling Hillary Clinton or Kay Bailey Hutchison or Margaret Thatcher or Janice Schakowsky slutty-looking, because the implication there is that it’s okay to insult women in general by stating that they look like sluts.
But damn, you know, sluts and slutty looks do exist apart from the sexism involved in casting those terms around inappropriately, and Alaska’s governor sports getups/makeup that indisputably sometimes qualify as same. (Actually, I think she looks more like the naughty librarian or English teacher of bad porn film fame, but I take the flight attendant point.)
And that was why the joke was funny. Everyone immediately tuned into what a slutty flight attendant look means and how Sarah Palin’s fashion choices are in tune with that. It’s not like making a joke about an accomplished Latina federal judge being a maid or the first black president growing watermelons on the WH lawn.
Deborah
@Jeezum Crow:
There’s a huge difference in messengers. Pelosi Galore was from the RNC, which the Republicans can hardly claim is unconnected to the Republican party. Insults at Palin tossed by comedians are different. For example, the recent slew of Republican racist e-mail spams, twitters, and Facebook updates made news because the authors were elected Republicans or working for them–they are the face of the party at the local level. If a comedian, even a conservative one (are there any?) had sent the e-mail/tweet/update to other comedians it wouldn’t tar the Republican party in the same way.
When the DNC makes a commercial joking about the wee Palins’ sex lives or Palin as a slutty flight attendant, I shall be commensurately upset with them.
Brachiator
@Jeezum Crow:
It may be patently and obviously true to you, but not necessarily anyone else. Also, as I noted, the judgement that a piece of humor is sexist is just not meaningful.
Sorry, this is more faux outrage. The other component of the joke was specific to A-Rod. Nobody in the sane part of the universe thinks that a steroid-fueled baseball superstar who has been entangled with exotic dancers, Madonna and actress Kate Hudson conforms to some stereotype of a horny Latino.
You know, for what it’s worth, I think that Palin is probably a pretty good mother. I wouldn’t want her to be my mother, but we really don’t know much about the Palin family, nor should we.
Yep. I agree with you here.
Jeezum Crow
@Deborah
That’s exactly the point that I was making. It’s an exercise in hypocrisy that the same people who are just fine with Pelosi Galore and watermelon jokes are stocking up on tar and feathers over a pretty tame Letterman joke.
@Brachiator
At least we agree on the important part.