David Letterman Apologizes to Sarah Palin for A-Rod Joke

By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

The great Letterman-Palin feud of '09 ended Monday with late-night comedian David Letterman emerging from his New York bunker waving a white flag (not literally, though that would have been a pretty good sight gag).

Letterman, who tried a kinda-sorta, half apology last week, gave what the Daily News called a "full-throated mea culpa" for having joked that Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter had been "knocked up" by A-Rod at a Yankees game.

"I told a bad joke. I told a joke that was beyond flawed, and my intent is completely meaningless compared to the perception," he said on Monday's show. "And since it was a joke I told, I feel that I need to do the right thing here and apologize for having told that joke."

"It's not your fault that it was misunderstood, it's my fault that it was misunderstood," he said.

"So I would like to apologize, especially to the two daughters involved, Bristol and Willow, and also to the governor and her family and everybody else who was outraged by the joke. I'm sorry about it and I'll try to do better in the future."

In perhaps only tangentially related news, CBS's Web site had lost an advertiser over the kafuffle. And while Palin accepted Letterman's unconditional surrender without preconditions, not everyone was content to let that be the end of l' affaire Dave & Sarah. The not-even-older-than-my-newborn-son group firedavidletterman.com has vowed to continue the fight anyway, holding a rally today outside Letterman's New York studio. As one Newsday wag put it:

But it's going to be a sad, lonely and cranky affair, I suspect: What are the organizers going to demand? That Dave issue the apology in multiple languages, including Urdu? That Dave never make tasteless jokes again? That Sarah Palin really didn't mean to accept the apology? That the cool and bracing summer air of Juneau has deluded her judgment?

Who knows. Guess we'll find out.

Indeed. It seems safe to say that the largest contingent at the rally will likely be television camera crews hoping for one last ride on the Pal-erman Express.

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