Any number of reasons, not the least of which is pressure from CBS. I think it was a mistake.
ArchiveGuy made this point upthread several times - the joke doesn’t make any sense unless it’s aimed at Bristol. Nobody knows who Willow is, and if you really think Letterman’s agenda is to insult the Palins over getting a cheap laugh, you’re being intentionally obtuse.
I mean, the Letterman writer (or Letterman himself) probably got the info that “Palin and her daughter are traveling to Yankee Stadium” and assumed it was the famous one, or that people would make the connection between the famous one with the joke. He’s a late-night comedian, not a fact checker.
Listen, if you’re a right winger and you believe that there is a vast liberal conspiracy in the media, I can see how you might think it’s a horrible joke about a 14 year old. But remember Hanlon’s razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
The unbelievable thing throughout this whole shitstorm of no consequence is that Alex Rodriguez actually is being juxtaposed with someone who is worse with media dealings than he is. Keeping his mouth shut is probably the best press he’s gotten since he came to NY.
Oh, I get it. You’re being cute. Well, here is the actual text of Obama’s speech, as handed out to the media prior to the event. (Granted, my source is the NY Times, so I won’t blame you if you’d like to find a second, more reliable, one).
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/us/politics/01obama.text.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1
The botched grammar was actually written for him, fed into the teleprompter…and he didn’t even pick up on it! He’s as bad as Ron Burgundy!
Here’s what he said: “But I want you to know that what you’re doing is making a sacrifice for the next generation – a sacrifice you may not have chose to make, but a sacrifice you were nevertheless called to make…”
But yours was a nice attempt to, literally, re-write history!
Stephe96 - you’ve got 3 1/2, probably 7 1/2 years of the Obama administration to go. You’d best pace yourself.
I pray we have at least three-and-a-half years of Obama; the thought of President Biden should send a shudder down the spine of any intelligent human being. 
Sure you would, except they do not offer material. They are just little kids. Palin is a church nut whose oldest daughter had sex before marriage and had a child. That does offer some ground to play on. I suppose even a righty can see the contradiction between what they say and do is good material.
Willow was at the game. A-rod was at the game. Bristol was not. The butt of the joke is a 14-year old. How dense can one be, really? And here I thought that I was dense…
Sure, there’s certainly some basis for humor, I suppose. But are there really any parents out there who can’t identify with having a child who screws up? Is Palin’s situation really that funny? No, these vicious attempts at “humor” are based on an irrational hatred for Sarah Palin and her family. I honestly don’t get it. I can understand being opposed to someone’s politics, but why on earth go after their kids? I can’t imagine that Letterman is feeling all that proud this weekend. He’s probably seriously wondering how he got to the point where he was attacking Sarah Palin’s child in a misguided effort to score some kind of political point.
And, by the way - I’m as agnostic as they come, but what exactly is your definition of a “church nut?” Would, say, sitting in Jeremiah Wright’s congregation for 20 or so years qualify?
He is weaseling.
Meh.
Biden + drawl = Bush II - cowboy diplomacy
The joke is about promisicuity and teen pregnancy. Which Palin daughter is famous for both? Which one was at the game is irrelevant.
Which explains how Stephe96 thinks otherwise.
You misunderstand the hypocrisy. Bristol is not a hypocrite for preaching abstinence after failing to practice it herself. She’s a hypocrite for advocating the same education program that failed to make her abstinent.
I don’t think that’s right. First, most people do know that Palin has more than one daughter. So the logic behind the joke is that one by one, Palin’s daughters get knocked up.
And where are all of Letterman’s Obama jokes? Here’s a president who is telling all of us we need to sacrifice, drive fuel-efficient vehicles and reduce our carbon footprint; yet he feels no qualms about using a couple of helicopters and Air Force One to take Michelle out for a night on the town in New York City. He’s a total hypocrite! Letterman could milk that for a week’s worth of jokes on his show - it’s funny, topical and, to be brutally honest, far more relevant than last year’s Sarah Palin gags.
But Letterman is a die-hard liberal who is terrified to make jokes about President Obama for fear of appearing un-PC. So how ironic that he’s now reduced to trying to explain why his comments this week were not about A-Rod committing statutory rape against a 14-year-old. But that is what blind partisan hatred will do to a person, I guess.
So, if someone tries AA, but falls off the wagon, but seeing the error of his ways, advocates for AA, is he, too, a hypocrite?
May Obama forgive you.
Peace Be Upon Him.
Is he still going to his meetings?
It’s not necessarily hypocritical for Bristol to preach abstinence after getting pregnant - after all, who could better embody pregnancy risks than a pregnant chick?
It’s totally hypocritical for her to preach abstinence-only after publicly admitting that abstinence-only programs don’t work. I asked if she had done that earlier, and SaharaTea kindly pointed me toward this.
Your analogy is incomplete. A better one would be the guy who goes to AA, falls off the wagon, announces to the world that the 12-step program is useless, and then accepts a (paid?) gig promoting it.
Given any thought to what blind partisan hatred might have done to you, lately?