Self-Righteous indignation over Letterman's Sarah Palin Top 10 List (UPDATED)

June 9, 3:43 PMPhoenix Conservative ExaminerScott Martin

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Updated below the video...

Some conservative bloggers were needlessly offended by David Letterman's Top Ten List last night, "Highlight's of Sarah Palin's Trip to New York." Rush Limbaugh has a rule that I try to live by, which is not to be offended by anything. Sometimes it's difficult, but allowing someone to offend you gives that person a power over your emotions that one should only grant to loved ones.

Letterman's list didn't even make me think of that rule - it was nothing. Typically Letterman: arrogant and condescending, occasionally funny, rarely accurate. Self-righteous moral indignation from people like Conservatives4Palin is to be expected (David Letterman is a Sexist Pervert; UPDATE: Gov. Palin Responds). Now, I am a conservative, and in many respects I am "4" Palin. But I would never align myself with a group called Conservatives4Palin, because I know exactly what type of person makes up much of its ranks. Not exactly a barrel of laughs, most of these people.

What I don't expect is people like Allahpundit of Hot Air to let Letterman get to him.

I guess if you can’t make ‘em laugh anymore, you might as well make ‘em wince. You missed your calling as a writer for Playboy, Dave.

We poke fun at a certain type of hyper-serious feminist on the left, the one for whom nothing is simply a joke and everything is an affront to all women. And yet we have on our side a similar group of laid-back, down-home women for whom nothing is simply a joke and everything is an affront to all women. I like our ladies a heckuva lot more, but the act is tired on both sides.

Letterman did what he does. He ridicules everything except liberalism and its practitioners. That's his job, and he's made a good, long career off it. And this was Letterman at his tamest. Only one line, the "slutty flight attendant" quip, would likely be considered offensive to Palin herself. Now I love Palin, I think she's exactly what the Republican Party needs, and I laughed most at that line.

I don't agree with Letterman's point of view, but I agree wholeheartedly with what he does. I wish we had more people mocking government leaders. I wish we had even more people mocking government. The result of government intervention in civil society is hilarious, as long as it is mostly theoretical.

When people get the idea that politicians are something other than a mockery to real human beings, and that politicians can really help them, we get screwed. When people aren't reminded that government is nothing more than a perpetual failure to be avoided whenever possible, we get things like Medicare, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Barack Obama. We need less mocking of government and its leaders like we need more self-righteous moral indignation. Enough already.

I laughed at most of his list. Laughing beats the hell out of self-righteousness, is more productive, and makes you look less like a weenie.

What comes closest to offending me is that no comedian with an audience worth talking about has found anything funny about Barack Obama. Except for his ears. I have an idea for SNL that they would love in sane, politically-incorrect times. I'd have two actors playing Obama in every sketch: one white, one black. It would be hilarious, and it would be their biggest hit since the Church Lady. You know it, I know it, they know it. And it will never happen.

Oh, here's the Letterman clip:

UPDATE: Things got a little frisky in the comments, thanks to an update to the post I linked to above at Conservtives4Palin. RA Mansour objected to my criticism of her site as she should have, by tearing me a new one. I just had an amail conversation with her, and am convinced she is a fine lady. I read her site when I'm looking for Palin news. I enjoy the site. As I noted, it is not the type of site that I would be a member of, because its focus on one person means that they must react to almost every piece of news. I believe that leads to some of the attitude I mentioned in this piece.

In hindsight, I think I was a little too strong here. I right in real time, and my beliefs are my beliefs - I make no apology for them. But I love my conservative brothers and sisters, and as Mansour just noted in the same post following our conversation:

I don't like it when conservatives smack each other around. It ain't right.

So I do apologize for the harshness of my attack. And I look forward to the opportunity to deal with C4P in a more agreeable circumstance. Seeing as I agree with the folks there on nearly everything, that shouldn't be too difficult.