Palin Gag? Comedy's All in the Mis-Timing

Letterman Contrite, But Hosts All Joked

By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Did Sarah Palin not notice when late-night comedians were making fun of her daughter's pregnancy last fall, or did she simply get fed up with one-too-many cracks when a now-contrite David Letterman weighed in last week?

Bristol Palin, the Alaska governor's then-pregnant 17-year-old, was a punch line for almost all of the late-night TV crew -- Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, Jon Stewart, as well as Letterman -- almost as soon as her mother was chosen as Sen. John McCain's Republican running mate.

Facing enormous criticism for his Palin-daughter joke, Letterman on his show last night apologized to the Palin family, saying it could not "be defended."

Yet similar jokes never drew much objection from Palin's camp until Letterman's gag last week about Palin's daughter getting "knocked up" by baseball player Alex Rodriguez during a visit to a New York Yankees game -- a line Palin suggested was really a reference to her 14-year-old daughter, Willow, who attended the game.

(More here.)