When You Put Your 18 Year Old Daughter on the Cover of People Magazine

Holding her out of wedlock child, then you open her up to criticism and jokes. You cannot have it both ways. The Obamas know this, and they do not exploit their children in this manner.

They also turn people into celebrity status.

Remember "Octomom"...

But you're right; they can't have it both ways.

And you're also right; the Obama family is a real family - and it genuinely shows and there is no hypocrisy or double standards.

Fair game.

gives us plenty of legitimate subjects.

and voluntarily making public appearances. Fair game.

completely voluntary. Many young women raised in a strict evangelical environment, especially in rural areas have a very hard time asserting themselves or defying authority. Can you imagine the pressure she must be under considering her mother's political ambitions and having her personal story (which is completely contrary to the image that her mother was trying to project for her "family values" audience) brought front and center to the world in headlines and tv appearances? I would not be surprised to learn that Bristol does a lot of this as an act of atonement.

then you invite it. I think it's completely appropriate to hold Bristol up as an example of how abstinence doesn't work for instance.

It was a joke. Do you really think anyone who heard it thought she had in fact been impregnated by Alex Rodriguez? Please. No one attacked her, no one invaded her privacy, no one slandered her. And at her age she is allowing herself to be a prop. If she didn't want to be on teevee, her mom couldn't very well make her. Buy the ticket take the ride. Then again if the worst part of the ride is a lame joke told at midnight on a comedy show, it's a pretty smooth ride.

Or you don't give a shit about them.

I have three, as if that is any of your business. Of course I would never presume to tell you or anyone else how to raise their children, but I teach my kids that mean things said by other people reflect poorly on the speaker not the target and not to base their own self worth on what someone else may say. I have also taught them how to take a joke or at the very least to appreciate that what is intended in jest is probably not something to lose any sleep over. I am working on teaching each of them not to be a mean spirited holier than thou pompous ass. Sadly your parents would be no help in that department.

I doubt you would be saying the same if they were being held to public ridicule by some media personality.

My kids have something called self esteem. Sorry you don't. If you really allow what someone else says about you to define you, especially when it is done in an obvious attempt at humor, you are in for a long miserable life.

Our vitriol she now be directed squarely at her.

I don't know how she has the time or the energy. Taking care of a baby is all consuming.

Attention/celebrity/money is what they want. For all the posturing Sarah does, it is toward this end. I doubt she has a real value anywhere.

that was what got me.

10 years from now "Mommy what did you mean when you went on TV and told everyone I was a 'mistake' ?"

in fact I think she said "horrible mistake"

- Sorry but I think that minor children of politicians and celebrities should be Hands Off by the media and everyone else. Bristol is 18, she's an adult and it was her decision to be on People so she is fair game. The minor children of ANY politician are no more fair game than the Obama children are.

You can't have it both ways. Letterman was out of bounds for making that joke while knowing it was the younger daughter that had been at the game.

You probably need to watch this....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHfJM7bMkac

- it appears that they didn't realize it was the younger daughter with Palin when they wrote the joke. The rest of them are fair game, IMO, EXCEPT the minor kids. They should always be Hands Off.

.... if I saw one by herself I might have a hard time knowing who was whom.

the younger daughter was actually the one at the game.

:)

It would be easy to mistake the two.

accused him of talking about the 14 year old. When has palin ever told the truth?

And the joke specifically mentioned the game. I think this could have easily been caught if Letterman had better writers.

Thinking that some viewers may not know Bristol Palin by name, they used "Sarah Palin's daughter" in order to eliminate any confusion. I'm sure it never occurred to them that the dimbo would make such an asinine accusation.

knocked up by old men, but it's ok if other teens do it. I was disappointed.

public property when she accepted the GOP vice presidential nomination.

Now she's dealing with the consequences and she doesn't like it.

You and your family are gonna have to get used to the spotlight honey--you've done your damnedest to stay in it for the last 7 months after the election.

the VP nom immediately puts the children in public domain. The children did NOT choose to accept the nom. However, Palin exploited her children for political gain. During the campaign, I definitely saw more of the Palin kids than the Obama kids. Also, Bristol is now 18 and making her own public appearances. She is definately fair game.

:eyes:

It is wrong to go after all politicians' children. Besides, the child that attended the game with Palin was not Bristol, it was 14 year old Willow. Letterman's half ass excuse that he meant Bristol is still unacceptable.

:(

really?

LW women = we will defend and call out the offending party

RW women = fair game

:-(

Are you comparing the Obama family on the cover of People to one with a 18 year old baby mama and her child? That photo you decided to post somehow proves that topic starter is hypocritical? What nonsense.

are enjoying a pretty nasty joke at the expense of a politician's daughter simply because we don't agree with her mother's politics. To me that's hypocritical. If she had been the daughter of one of our pols, we would have been all over Letterman's ass.

They are everything that's wrong with America today. They have no intellectual curiosity, don't value education, can't impart values onto their own damn children and yet they want pass judgment on others. The mother is an older version of Paris Hilton and the daugther is a wannabe Paris. Teenage girls who have children out of wedlock have always been the butt of promiscuity jokes, the Palins aren't special. You don't want to be considered loose then don't behave like a loose girl. The difference with the other side is that they mock respectable young women who are doing the right thing simply because of their parents politics. This girl didn't carry herself like a respectable young woman, so comparing her to anyone else is foolhardy.

And if she was a Democrat her family would rank right down there with John Edwards for me.

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making fun of Chelsea Clinton did you defend her or did you defend their right to free speech?

I have also seen where people were upset about the previous admins * two college age daughters who were drunk and rude in public. They put themselves out there.

And let's just set the record straight if Obama had a 17 year old daughter that got pregnant out of wedlock, and then forced the teen dad to parade around like he was going to marry the daughter would you be defending Obama's daughter? Would the right be defending Obama's daughter?

I will tell you what the right would be doing, the right would be spouting racist shit about how black parents don't teach their children anything. They would be talking about an unwed young black mother blah, blah, blah,. This is the hypocrisy that is so ridiculous it makes one's head spin.

The right has been doing this shit for years against anyone they deem a target and now it's not fair that their shit has come full circle. Now all of a sudden everyone is offended

I will tell you when I first saw the magazine cover with the teen and her baby I asked myself "what is the message here?" Is it that teen pregnancy is okay? "It's okay to not be in a committed relationship to raise a child?"

Now having said all of that I hope that Bristol finds a way to establish Independence and raise her child without the media lights and all of the attention.

That People cover focused on the Obama family home, not the children. The Bristol Palin cover was focused on her being an unwed teenage mother. Apples to Oranges comparisons.

My point is that if we don't want others to pick on the children of our pols, then we should respect the children of conservatives too.

Bristol is still a very young woman. It was a cheap shot for Letterman to make her the butt of his lame joke.

Much like Dick Cheney's daughter is hoping on every news show defending her dad.

If the children of pols go out on their own in the media to advocate policy, then they are fair game for criticism and ridicule.

Once you advocate a policy, then you are fair game.

The joke was about the contrast between Palin's "abstinence only" approach and her own daughters promiscuity. Since willow has never been in the public light nor does she have a known history of promiscuity, then the joke is clearly about Bristol.

Its unreasonable for your to not understand that the joke Letterman was making about Palin's daughter getting "knocked up" was about the Palin daughter who got knocked up.

The only people making this about Willow are the Palin's and apparently you.

A joke attacking Bristol's looks would be as unseemly as the ones that have been made about Chelsea Clinton. A joke alluding to her recent pregnancy is not the same thing, IMO. Her pregnancy is a very public fact and using it in a humorous context doesn't cross a line. Now if someone makes a joke a la John McCain or Rush Limbaugh about Bristol or Willow or makes a tasteless joke about Trig, I could understand condemning it as unacceptable. In this case? Not so much. ESPECIALLY since Bristol is now an adult who has chosen to embrace the publicity rather than seeking to try to regain a modicum of privacy.

And you talk about what is wrong? Did you not post a week or so ago how your friends called you and expressed their happiness that Ted Kennedy became ill? Give me a break. :eyes:



Fuck palin and her fake outrage...and yours too.

...to a DOG the day after the 1992 election??

He said that it was a good thing the new President has a cat not a dog, otherwise he and the First Lady wouldn't be able to tell their kid from their pet in the White House.

No one said ANYTHING, anywhere, to amount to anything about this. Everyone thought it was funny. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Why is it OK for Right Wingers to attack anyone and everyone they choose? Why the double standard??

Ditto for McCain when he said something similar. McCain at least had the grace to apologize to the Clintons, I'm not sure whether Limbaugh ever did.

Regardless, a wrong doesn't justify another wrong. We on the left should know better.

:shrug:

On edit: there was certainly no public flap about it, and the Clintons had the good taste and good sense to keep quiet. At least they were smart enough to realize you wrestle with pigs you get muddy. But no one else came to Chelsea's defense and Limbaugh's ratings went higher than ever after that.

He was chastised.

I never remember one major outlet doing an entire news segment about Pigboy or McCain's disgusting jokes about Chelsea Clinton.

I don't remember anyone saying it was not right like we have all these wingnuts now standing up for Palin.

All I remember is a lot of people locally talked about the joke and thought it was funny.

Oh, and as I recall, Limbaugh prefaced the Chelsea crack with a whack on Amy Carter something like -- well, we've got another ugly kid in the White House... I think this one's worse than Amy Carter... good thing the new President owns a cat and not a dog.....

It was one of the only times I ever listened to the Gasbag, and I was so mad I turned off the radio. Was even madder when people later on commented on his "great" wit and humor. :puke:

I don't remember, it was so many years ago. Limbaugh is a pig, that hasn't changed. Even though I noticed that over the years he has become somewhat more respectful, it's now "Mrs. Clinton".

:eyes:

If you can't remember even one name of one person who "bashed" (as you put it) Limbaugh in Chelsea's and Amy's defense, I would say that your argument is pretty weak.

I stand by my original question. Why is there a double standard? Why is it OK to attack Democrats and not Republicans.

And just for the record I think that Sarah Palin's furor over the Letterman thing seems fakey. Another free publicity op, and notice how she uses the Divide America language in it. Pitting New York and Hollywood against the "rest" of America. Ugh.

He was calling her senator or Mrs. Clinton. A step up from his usual "Hillary".

Hey, I was pretty young when Bill was president. I wasn't paying that close attention at the talking heads.

Of course it isn't OK to attack a Democrat. My point is that it's equally not OK to attack a woman and her child in a sexist manner just because we don't agree with the mother's politics.

I guess we now know why you started defending Sarah Palin.

Are you mad? :crazy:

Hooray for women's right!

and are hypocritical about sex education.

I love when people bring up Womens rights..Something Palin wasn't concerned about when she made rape victims pay for their rape kits or when she cut funding to unwed teenage mothers. Not to mention cutting funding for children with disabilities before she had one herself...yeah she really "cares" about Women and their children....Not.

There was no joke made about "rape", how the Palins came to that conclusion is really strange.

Dictionary.com defines slutty as:

slutty  /ˈslʌti/
of, resembling, or characteristic of a slut: slutty behavior.

If it's not, then why did Sarah Palin laugh as her political opponent was called that by a dj?

Futhermore, Letterman never called her a slut. He referred to her "slutty flight attendant look". It's not the same thing. And furthermore, she was running around with hair extensions and glitter on her red toe nails in short mini skirts at fund-raising events. Sorry, but as a woman, I would never dress like that for "work". Nor would I expect a man to show up wearing his pants half-way down his back and not get laughed at. It's not sexism- it's called having standards of decorum.

I posted this elsewhere today, but I think if you listen to Palin laughing at a female opponent who is recovering from cancer as the dj calls her a "bitc-", "fat" and a "cancer", you'll see that Palin in no way deserves the help of NOW.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4a7_1220377291

Palin has been anti-woman from the moment she hit the scene. She is an egregious puppet of the white male patriarchy.

want to put us under)

Ahhh, Republican hypocrisy....

be perfect. They seem to love attention. As soon as you think they're finally out of the picture, they do something to get more media focus.
Very disingenuous.

If Bristol was on the cover as part of a family picture wiith her parents that would be one thing. But she was on the cover alone and the article was about her as part of her 'do as I say not as I do' media tour. Bristol is 18, an adult, and she has put herself out in the media so she opens herself up to critizism.

I don't care if they are the Obama's, the Bush's or the Clinton's. If they run for office some day then they can be put through the meat grinder.

Which is what Bristol has done.

with a reasoned, intelligent counter-argument so instead you resort to a cheap personal attack. Nice!

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They are posing in family photo with their parents, the same as they did on the Obama website, the point being to introduce the family to the voters.

A profile on a family should not be an open invitation to level insults at them.

Bristol Palin should not be the butt of jokes or denigration as a matter of common decency - 'do unto others' and all that.

However, the fact that the RW would vilify the child of a Democrat had they done the same thing as Bristol is fair game to call out, as are any claims that Sarah Palin may make in claiming to be about "family values".

I don't care if they are 18 and are technically an adult. We have plenty to attack Palin about. We don't need to get into the gutter and attack her kids too.

Frankly I have no idea why the media gives her any attention at all. Or is it because the Levi situation is such a mess?

I would think that Levi has a better chance at getting custody if Bristol looks like she is craving publicity.

Instead of discussing real issues we turn politics into a continuing soap opera. And please don't tell there are some real issues here.

So you admit you are insane? LOL you are a real pip. Welcome BACK to DU. NOT.

You are fooling no one.

Sure the article is something else. But People magazine is not one to really show the negative side to well on it's cover. They seriously turn her into a pin-up in that advert.

IGNORE. THEM.

That's the only way they'll go away. Anytime anyone pays attention to or comments about them, especially in an unfavorable way, they're going to eat that up and play victim.

Someone please let me know when Sarah's gubernatorial opponent shows up. I plan to donate heavily to their campaign.

ignoring her request. Hell, even when people say "Leave my kid alone" (Clinton) they don't get any respect.

No one was terribly squeamish about the Bush Twins, Amy Carter, Chelsea Clinton, Al Gore Junior....why start now? She's the first one to pop out a child out of wedlock, but so what? She's out there, she's going to catch brickbats and "Poor dears."

Apples not falling far from trees, and all that. Plus, people will be gossiping basstids. You can't scold them into silence.

(as Bristol clearly has done) has to deal with the consequences of being in the public eye. I can understand the argument about leaving children alone when it pertains to minor children who shouldn't necessarily be made to suffer because of their parents' decisions, however, since we are dealing with an adult here, there is really no issue.

how wrong Sarah Palin is about issues, what she wears, what her daughter believes about abstinence, etc. Using sexist language to ridicule them is wrong.

In the past, racists (who didn't think they were racists), would argue that it was okay to call the "n" word when someone they didn't like was "acting like an n." That was their sick-o argument which was somehow supposed to excuse their despicable racist language. That kind of language should never and is never tolerated in our culture any longer because we as a country fought against it wherever it reared its ugly head. And as a society we must always continue to be vigilant and see that racism is stamped out immediately when it emerges.

Now we have the argument that it's okay to attack Sarah Palin and say she dresses "slutty" and make inappropriate sexual jokes about her daughter (even if it was about the 18 year old), because of the way Sarah and Bristol behave. It's never acceptable to talk about any woman that way. America has a lot of growing to do in this area. We have to stop tolerating sexism as a society and quit using excuses such as it's just a "joke," or it's a deserved criticism. As a culture, sexist language should be unacceptable, no matter what.

And I'm not against the joke--I think it was funny. It's saying Willow is following in Bristol's footsteps, which is much more funny than Bristol getting knocked up again.

Letterman spent two or more days joking about Palin's New York trip. Jokes were written to correspond with what she was doing on the trip. It is ingenuous in my opinion to suddenly act like you didn't know what the heck you were saying.

And I'm not against the joke. I just wish Letterman would stand behind his jokes.

Because Willow and Bristol look so much alike, I did think that it was Bristol who was at the game. How many people even know Willow's name? I get the point that one shouldn't joke about the daughters in general though.

It's network tv. Hello? McFly? NO ONE is going to make a joke about Alex Rodriguez having sex with a 14 year old girl on network television. The show is taped. If anyone at the network, or anyone except you and Sarah (well okay, just you, cause even she doesn't actually believe that)thought such a joke had been made it would never have made the light of day. Get a grip.

They're not morons--well I assume they're not. If they meant the joke to be about Bristol they should have programmed her name into the joke. Making the reference so vague (if that was their intent) was not a wise thing to do.

I think somebody's head is rolling on the writing team, probably a newbie who didn't think there was any big deal about it, and slipped it past Letterman and the other adults without them realizing the double entendre.

Jokes are inappropriate--that's what makes them funny. It all has to be taken with a grain of salt. As I've said I thought the joke was funny, but tasteless. Tastlessness is just part of the act--I'm already bracing myself for late night jokes about the Obama girls' menarche and other otherwise inappropriate things. The line will keep getting pushed farther and farther.

There is no research staff of thousands to cross reference every joke. They are quick little jokes, written that morning. No one slipped anything by. This isn't Stern, it's the Tiffany Network, sponsored by some soap company. There is NO ONE on the staff that thinks pregnant 14 year olds are going to be part of the show. No line is moving on vanilla network television. Edgy on network tv doesn't come anywhere close to what you are suggesting. Not to mention that what you are suggesting isn't going to be funny to Dave. Again, the show is taped. Nothing is "slipped by" Dave. Repeat after me: It was about Bristol. It was about Bristol. It was about Bristol.

I repeat, they aren't stupid, they aren't morons. They are sophisticated pop culture commentators. I think the joke was funny--Willow following in big sis's footsteps. I'm disappointed that they aren't owning up to the laughs they got--even McCain didn't try to pass off his "family dog" joke with saying he was referring to Buddy. And it's not like this is a first for mining the edges--Larry Flynt poked great fun at Amy Carter in his "Chester the Molester" comic strip during the Carter administration.

But in the end it's a business, we do agree on that. It's always about the money.

You do realize you just equated Late Night with David Letterman with Hustler Magazine, right?

Jokes about teens having sex in public in the middle of Yankee stadium would have been considered hilarious back in Hustler's salad days. If Flynt were still at his best he would be scouting for a Willow/Bristol and an A-Rod lookalike for a pictorial follow up.

If the bit had appeared in Hustler Magazine, there could very well have been jokes about the younger daughter or lord knows what else (Mrs. Falwell's outhouse, perhaps). But I hate to tell you, network television comedy writers, not to mention censors and executives don't really look to Hustler Magazine for guidance on what they air on broadcast television.

Flynt poked fun at Carter's wholesome image and born again Christianity by having Amy cross paths with the ne'er do well "Chester the Molester". Meanwhile the Lettermans of the day were doing the same thing in their own unique way--drawing on Carter's image to create humorous commentary. It's pop culture at its best. Some push the line more than others, and the line is certainly pushed farther than it has ever been before, but it's all basically the same.

Because Hustler Magazine and CBS do not "draw from the same well". "The Line" being pushed by Larry Flynt is so all together different than anything considered "edgy" on network television that the comparison is just silly. Do you have any recollection of Janet Jackson's right breast? You can't say shit on network television. Literally. No one was on network television in the Carter administration joking about baseball stars raping 14 year old girls. If you think you have seen jokes about baseball stars raping 14 year old girls on CBS in the past, I suggest you up the dose of thorazine, asap.

And they tried to pass it off as a mishap/misunderstanding/malfunction. Great tv moments that drew attention and laughter shouldn't be clouded with half-assed incredulous back tracking.

But of course that was in prime time, on a show that theoretically is marketed as "family programming". That's the line being edged up against again, until either a clumsy underling (a costumer) or the performer botched it by stepping over to far.

The well I was speaking of was pop culture--Flynt drew on it in Amy Carter's appearance in his ribald comic strip, and Letterman (or his writers) drew on it when they lampooned Sarah and Willow Palin's New York visit. What they do with it varies in degrees and audience, but it's all part of the same shifting tide of cultural archetypes.

You can't be this dense.