David Letterman's Sarah Palin jokes

How the 'Late Show' host explained his cracks about Palin and her daughter

The drama continues between David Letterman and Sarah Palin, said Nick Sabloff in The Huffington Post. Letterman addressed the feud on his CBS "Late Show" after Palin said Letterman's crack that she looked like a "slutty flight attendant" (watch) was "pretty pathetic," and that his joke that her daughter had been impregnated by New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez (watch) was "sexually perverted." Letterman said his swipes at Palin were just attempts at "cheap laughs," and that his pregnancy joke was about 18-year-old single mom Bristol Palin, not her 14-year-old sister, Willow.

What a relief to know that David Letterman would "never condone statutorily raping a girl who’s underage," said Allapundit in Hot Air. "All he meant to do was goof on the idea that Palin’s eldest daughter, a single mother with a baby, is a whore." That almost makes Letterman a gentleman.

Give David Letterman credit for apologizing—sort of, said Toby Harnden in Britain's Telegraph. A dirty joke about an 18-year-old is not as bad as one about a 14-year-old, "but it's still pretty grubby." Either way, "some half-wit" on Letterman's staff probably wrote the joke and he didn't notice or care which daughter actually attended the Yankees game with Sarah Palin on her New York trip, because Letterman was out to insult the conservative Alaska governor, not her daughters.