Governor Palin defends her daughters..
June 12, 2009
by The New Agenda
|Governor Palin must be reading The New Agenda Blog and our article published yesterday in The Huffington Post. Here’s what Governor Palin had to say on MSNBC’s Today show this morning (Letterman segment starts at 3:23, skip to 5:00 for this comment):
..it was a degrading comment about a young woman. And I would hope that people would really start rising up and deciding it’s not acceptable. No wonder young girls especially have such low self-esteem in America. When we think it’s funny for a so-called comedian to get away with making such a remark as he did.
We’re here, and we’re rising up!
Join our community. Buy a t-shirt. Make a donation. Sign up for action alerts. But let this be a wake up call to be involved and say NO MORE to this treatment of our daughters!!!
And thank you to our friends at Conservatives4Palin and Hillbuzz and the many other conservative and liberal, mens and womens blogs for joining in the fight for the next generation – our daughters!
- good work TNA for not letting this atrocious situation to just fade away like it usually does, at the expense of women
David Letterman needs to go, and all of the idiots on television trying to defend him need to be next on the list. Hillbuzz has a good list of sponsors, complete with contact names and phone numbers. http://hillbuzz.org/
Conservatives4Palin (http://www.conservatives4palin.com/) are on top of this as well. Michael Patrick Leahy, who has started a petition calling for David Letterman to be fired (http://www.conservatives4palin.com/) also suggests contacting local CBS affiliates and calling and boycotting local sponsors whose ads run in this time slot as well. Enough is enough, and we need to draw a line in the sand here. If David Letterman is fired for these remarks, and they were deliberate and not off the cuff, the rest of the media will be put on notice that this behavior will not be tolerated. If he gets away with a sarcastic mealy mouthed apology, the rest of them will be emboldened, and the behavior will get worse. Thank you for your efforts on this Amy Siskind and New Agenda.
Every day in America, 17- and 18-year old girls in a steady relationship – with hormones (they can barely comprehend) raging – engage in sexual activities with their boyfriends.
Every day in America, a few hundred (or thousand) lose the roll of the dice and become pregnant.
Some families, confronted with a daughter’s undesired pregnancy, opt for an abortion.
Other families, although equally anguished, do not believe in abortion for religious or moral reasons and opt to let the pregnancy continue.
Some families give the baby up for adoption, others cannot bear to part with the own family member and opt to keep and raise it.
In those cases, a heavy burden falls on the girl who is now still a teen-ager, with all the desire to be free to have fun that most teenagers have. But they soon learn that is all over for them and it is now time to take care of the baby 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
What might seem “adult” and/or somewhat glamorous to other teens – having a baby of one’s own – is anything but. It is hard work and long hours. Oh yes, there is the joy of the darling baby, but it is still long hours and hard work.
I can imagine how difficult it must be to be that young, not married, not even planning to marry any time soon, but trapped by biology.
You see, the young man who did the impregnating is still foot loose and fancy free to go on with his life, untouched by the scandal and unburdened by the responsibility of caring for the baby all day every day.
Bristol Palin has had the frightening experience of having a sexual encounter result in the birth of a baby; she clearly loves the child dearly but is also painfully aware that it is hard work and not glamorous. So, she has set a task for herself that is to be admired: she is using her experience to talk to other teen girls and alert them to the possible consequences of engaging in sex. She is telling them that the only safe way to avoid a pregnancy is to avoid engaging in intercourse.
I applaud her efforts. Her life has been permanently altered by this pregnancy. She is urging other young women and girls to think hard about their choices when it comes to sex and relationships. As a woman, I am very familiar with the pressure put on young girls to “prove” their love for their partner. Bristol Palin is trying to open the eyes of girls to the possible price they may have to pay for “proving” their love for their male partner by engaging in intercourse.
That is hardly something to condemn Bristol Palin for doing … nor should it be cause to make her the butt of tasteless jokes by dirty old men, who tell their jokes to get rich and famous without any concern for those whom they have ridiculed mercilessly.
At this moment in time, the best thing David Letterman could do for humanity would be to devote one entire show to hosting a serious discussion of teenage pregnancy and how it affects the lives of those caught in an unplanned-for teenage pregnancy.
In any contest, right now, between Bristol Palin and David Letterman as to which one is trying harder to do a good thing, Bristol wins hands down.
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CBS Contact Info: (212) 975-4321
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I went over to You Tube to find the second part of the interview, and now I think I might lose my lunch. Some of the comments on another video of the interview (a video posted by a sexist pig, who would welcome such comments) have got me so mad that I’m shaking. I won’t link to this video, but the user name is firedoglake.
Some of the comments include: “I wanna watch? all three Palin sluts take a bath together and stab each other with dildoes.”
“Sarah is such a good mother NOW. Where was she when 2 drunk teens were screwing in her family room at her house.? She is the biggest idiot imaginabe. She is a bitter bitter shit stain on society. What did McSame see in this two bit hooker wannabe.”
“She really is a piece of? nasty work. She’s twisted and distorted this into something it wasn’t. Her constant playing the fake victim is what’s setting back women’s rights.”
Thank God there were also comments from people agreeing with Palin, or I would’ve lost my mind, but these comments only prove that Palin IS DOING THE RIGHT THING by standing up for young women…from the looks of these comments, we need more people like Palin to stand up for what is right. I should know better than to read the comments, since I only get upset, but this is just too much.
History Enthusiast, I agree. Letterman making the terrible joke is one thing, and we are addressing it. All the people that are supporting him and bashing/blaming Palin… that’s what has me depressed. How can we get through to all of these people? We have such a long way to go. It seems nearly impossible.
Is anyone as completely annoyed as I am with some of Matt Lauer’s responses? Especially the part where he insinuates that David Letterman was merely in “poor taste”. The attached interview cuts off the part where he asks Palin if her comment about not accepting an invitation to go on David Letterman because “Willow” “shouldn’t be around him” was equally distasteful. It was clear to me that he had the “boys will be boys” mentality and that Letterman will catch some flack for his poor taste and it should be over. That bugs me ore than the overt perverts on you tube.
This is what a real feminist looks like:
USAToday: Palin: Letterman owes apology to all ‘young women’
Loralee, I agree 100%. Lauer was most definitely not about to acknowledge that Palin was in the right.
I’m glad someone else notice how Matt Lauer was acting. I think we should let him know how we feel also.
For what it’s worth, here’s a poll on the subject that right now is running 68% for “Dave’s outta line.”
http://extratv.warnerbros.com/.....tterma.php
*****A
Matt Lauer was nauseating. So it’s PALIN that went too far? Oh my Lord. But if it was a Liberal woman, the story would be different. For one, it never would have happened. That’s media bias for ya! I remember when Liberal women were saying that Palin should stay home and raise her family, not run for VP. Uh, doesn’t Obama have kids? Didn’t Biden keep traveling 3 hours a day to work in DC when he had 3 young children and his wife and daughter died? No, only a WOMAN should stay home and raise her family. Guess that’s why we have 16% and 17% in 2009
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