Time for courts to decide a decent joke

www.stevenkurlander.com

KurlyReaders:

Since innuendos about Thomas Jefferson’s sexual behavior were circulated in newspapers at the turn of the 19th century, American politicians have had to endure defaming remarks about their private conduct. This week, I examine whether a recent sexual joke by David Letterman concerning a daughter of Governor Sarah Palin was slander. I argue that Palin should sue Letterman not only to right the wrong against her daughter, but to challenge the accepted mores of our society which tolerates jokes and messages of violent sexual behavior toward American women.

Please give me feedback by emailing me at skurl@aol.com.

Have a great week. Kurly.

Time for courts to decide a decent joke

Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke. That's their natural and first weapon. -Gloria Steinem

LAKE WORTH – Last week, David Letterman once again made a not so funny, indecent “joke” at the expense of Governor Sarah Palin-actually, this time, it was about her 14 year old daughter Willow.

After attending an autism event near New York City, Governor Palin and her husband took her daughter Willow to a baseball game at Yankee Stadium. A snide Letterman told his audience that the Alaska governor suffered an awkward moment while attending the game:

“During the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.”

Palin rightfully called the joke an insult to young women and Letterman in turn stated that he had meant to joke about Palin’s older daughter Bristol, who recently had a baby out of wedlock.
When Palin basically called Letterman a dirty old man, he argued back that he would have never made an obscene joke about a 14 year old.

So is a bad joke about the wrong daughter so bad and offensive that it deserves all the consideration it is getting?

Letterman’s joke and his defense that the wrong daughter was the butt of the joke are evidence of a conventional tolerance of indecency and cruelty toward political figures, particularly women. Often, as evidenced by Letterman’s joke, members of political families become derivative victims of despicable political pundits and comedians.

The Letterman joke has sparked a debate about a number of issues surrounding both Governor Palin and women in politics, including the fixation by liberal pundits to be totally unfair and cruel to Palin, the acceptance of the use of negative sexual connotations toward women in politics, and the hypocrisy of the leftist, feminist double standard that exists in regard to Palin and other conservative women when it comes to them being negatively attacked in chauvinistic rather than racist terms (it can be framed as the Imus v. Letterman syndrome).

But another major issue that arises from Letterman’s “comic” reference to Willow Palin is whether our libel and slander laws are outdated and inadequate when it comes to public figures being subjected to a lack of decency and sexuality appropriateness, even in the context of protections afforded to the press and speech by our constitution.

David Letterman has every right to make jokes, comments, and observations about Sarah Palin and every other Republican he may hate. Yet, he stepped over the line with the joke about Governor Palin’s daughter (either one ).

As guardians of Willow, Governor Palin and her husband Todd should sue Letterman for making such a vulgar, slanderous remark (so should A-Rod-while he may not be the most drug-free player or faithful husband, he is not a child rapist). The kid, and especially her sexuality, should be off limits to a national audience, no matter if the child appears in public with her famous mother. It’s called common sense decency.

The benchmark case in regard to this issue is New York Times v. Sullivan, which was decided in the early 1960s by the Warren Court. That case was decided in the context surrounding the media reporting of the civil rights movement, when libel and slander laws were used by segregationists to discourage reporting of civil rights events in the South.

The Sullivan decision stated that in order for a public figure to prevail in a defamation case, an “actual malice” standard must be proven, which requires that the public figure prove that the publisher or speaker of the statement must have known that it was false or acted in total disregard of its truth or falsity.

The standard is a very high one for a plaintiff to prove. The result has been that public and political figures have been basically free targets to brutal character assassination in this country for the last 45 years.

Palin has an important opportunity to change an outdated status quo in suing Letterman, CBS, and other companies involved in the production of his program. She should attempt to have the courts throw out Sullivan’s “malicious” standard.
Instead, Palin should seek the establishment of a common sense balancing test between basic decency and privacy concerns for public figures-and their families- and the right to free speech and press, particularly in terms of dialogue concerning sexual violence toward women.

If Letterman refuses to be decent enough to apologize about for the joke itself instead of not using the right name (and milk the controversy to get his ratings up), he needs to state in a court of law how the violent sexual nature of the “joke” was not indecent and slanderous as it pertains to Willow individually and women in general.

If Imus (who really did the correct thing right away by apologizing profusely) had to lose his livelihood for his really stupid racist, sexist remark, Letterman deserves to endure equal pain for his equally inane joke.

So on behalf of her family, all American women and public figures in this country (and Republicans too), Governor Palin needs to challenge the armies of the status quo by fighting back legally, challenging self righteous, nasty douche bags like Letterman in court so at least they, and their media parents, will think twice next time before telling an obscene joke about women and the sexuality of a politician’s child.

Isaac Asimov once stated that “Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments.”
Letterman’s jokes, as well as commentaries by others, about Sarah Palin have always been nasty, overdone, and far from enlightening. It is time that political pundits like him were challenged. Good people don’t run for high public office because of the sleazy, slanderous crap they and their families have to endure from people like Letterman. Governor Palin should sue and eventually have the last laugh in this matter.

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