D

avid Letterman has apologized for suggesting that Sarah Palin’s daughter “got knocked up” by Alex Rodriguez during the 7th inning stretch at a Yankee game.  For those of you who have been visiting Pyongyang, here is the original, er, joke:

The fact that Willow, 14, attended the game, not Bristol, 18, was highly publicized on New York media and was common knowledge from New York to SoCal – but Letterman would like us to think that the Palin-bashers on his writing team were unaware, explaining:

We were, as we often do, making jokes about people in the news and we made some jokes about Sarah Palin and her daughter … and now they’re upset with me….  These are not jokes made about her 14-year-old daughter. I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl…. Am I guilty of poor taste? Yes. Did I suggest that it was okay for her 14-year-old daughter to be having promiscuous sex? No.

He then says he hopes he’s “cleared part of this up,” and graciously extends an invitation to Sarah Palin to be a guest on his show.  Why Sarah? Why not Bristol? Or Willow?

Let’s trust the flamingly liberal Letterman at his word (just pretend we’re fools who have suspended all knowledge of liberal behavior). Then we have to accept that making fun of the young (18) children of political candidates is acceptable.  Sasha and Malia, watch out; you could be next! Not. Ever. Redirecting the joke after the fact to Bristol protects Letterman from being a verbal pedophile, but it does not extend any modicum of good taste or decency to the man.

It’s hard to accept that no one on the Letterman team knew it was Willow at the game. This is almost certainly a weasley lie to cover up dispicable behavior – behavior that got a lot of laughs from his similarly dispicable audience.

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“L

et’s get some nice photos of Air Force One with the New  York City skyline in the background.”  Sure, that seems like a great idea … unless you pause to think about the panic that might ensue, which is exactly what happened, as captured in this pure pathos clip.

So a nomination for PR Disaster of the Year goes to the Director of the White House Military Office, Louis Caldera, who fessed up this afternoon.  That would be honor enough, but Caldera wanted more, apologizing by shoving the responsibility over to officials in New York and New Jersey:

Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision. While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey, it’s clear that the mission created confusion and disruption. I apologize and take responsibility for any distress that flight caused.

If you’re taking full responsibility, Caldera, don’t bring up the “proper steps” you took to notify the locals. That’s hardly taking full responsibility.

hat-tip: Infidels are Cool

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Y

ou’d expect better from a state supreme court justice, but apparently Washington State Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders is pretty comfortable with shouting down the Attorney General shortly before Michael Mukasey collapsed at a speaking engagement last week.

Sanders, miffed that President Bush’s policy on detainment of jihadists didn’t align perfectly with his own Pollyanna position, stood at the dinner and loudly shouted, “Tyrant! You are a tyrant.” Mukasey collapsed long enough later that it’s probable the events were unrelated – but it was clearly a violation of judicial conduct, as the Seattle PI pointed out today:

The state’s Code of Judicial Conduct requires judges to be “dignified” toward those they deal with “in their official capacity.”

Asked if his outburst might violate that code, Sanders said: “Well, it’s so open-ended and vague, maybe someone would think that it could apply. I don’t know. I think it’s a free-speech activity. In my mind this had nothing to do with my role as a judge.”

Sanders had nothing remotely approaching an apology to Mukasey – and an apology, even if the shout-down and the fall-down may not have been at all related, would be the dignified thing for a judge to do. But all he had to apologize for is poor word selection.

Sanders said he now regrets what he did: “If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t.”

Alternatively, he wishes he had said “Tyranny” instead of “Tyrant,” “because in my mind, these policies can lead to tyranny.”

Correct. But oh, so wrong.

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or more than 24 years, 17 elections, the people of Western Pennsylvania have returned John Murtha to Congress. And what’s he got to say in gratitude?

“There is no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area.”

Hmm. If racists are electing you, John, what does that say about you?

As for Murtha’s apology, well, he didn’t make one. This guy is so lacking in class that he had staffer Matt Mazonkey apologize for him, and the aide didn’t do much to help the boss:

“It’s naive to think that race or gender doesn’t play a role in a voter’s perception of a candidate. Mr. Murtha makes the point that while race may be an issue for some, it’s evident that voters today are concerned about the issues that truly matter — issues like the economy, health care, and energy independence.”

No way is that the point Murtha was making; he was calling the people who vote for him racists. A five-star non apology from the office of one of the least appealing members of Congress.

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E

than Winner, who suddenly became famous yesterday when The Jawa Report busted him for trying to make a shamefully false hit-piece video on Sarah Palin go viral h as issued an apology a statement.

What he owed Palin and the voters of our free, Democratic nation was an apology for deliberately befouling the channels of communication with a video that contained a known lie, this lie:

Sarah Palin and her husband were members of this anti-American organization, which supports separation of their state from the United States.

In Winner’s video, the screen text behind this statement reads:

Alaskan Independent Party

Sarah Palin, Member

Todd Paliln, Member, 1995-2002

Source: New York Times.

Of course, Sarah Palin was never a member of AIP. That’s been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt by a review of her voter registration, and the NYT published a correction eight days before Winner uploaded his video.

So let’s not mince words: It’s a lie, a deliberate lie, a lie designed to dupe the unread into a misbelief about a candidate for VP. In his apology statement, Winner does not apologize for telling a lie:

I believe the American people have a right and a need to know information about candidates for political office and their views. I made this video because I think it is important for the public to be aware of the association between Sarah and Todd Palin and the Alaskan Independence Party. The New York Times has reported that the Alaskan Independence Party website describes the party as seeking, in the words of the party, “a range of solutions to the conflicts between federal and local authority,” including “advocacy for state’s rights, through a return to territorial status, all the way to complete independence and nationhood status for Alaska.”

What the American people have a right to know, and what Winner, as a communicator, has an obligation to tell them, is the truth. Parse Winner’s statement carefully, and you see he doesn’t repeat the exact lie of the video but makes it sound like he hasn’t backed off on iota. It’s the sort of thing really crappy crisis communications managers do – play petty little word games when big issues are at stake. Imagine a statement that close to a lie being issued on behalf of a company responding to a major accident. They would be media vulture lunch meat in minutes.

As for the rest of the statement, Winner says he made the video himself and was not paid for it by anyone – possible, even probable, but he presents no proof and since we’ve already established that he’s a liar, what is his word worth?

As I told you yesterday, I wrote Lou Capozzi, the (former, now emeritus) chairman of Publicis’ PR and Communications Group, of which Winner & Associates is a member. Yesterday evening I received a very nice response from him, promising to look into the matter, but stating that there no longer is a direct reporting relationship between Winner and himself. Still, it seems like dealing with a matter like this is a perfect assignment for someone in the Chair Emeritus role.

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T

he United Long-Term Care Workers section of the Service Employees International Union represents, by its own proud admission, “the poor serving the poor” – nursing home workers who earn $9 an hour on average.

Tyrone Freeman, who leads the section was just busted in a major LA Times investigation:

California’s largest union local and a related charity have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to firms owned by the wife and mother-in-law of the labor organization’s president, documents and interviews show.

The Los Angeles-based union … spent nearly $300,000 last year on a Four Seasons Resorts golf tournament, a Beverly Hills cigar club, restaurants such as Morton’s steakhouse and a consulting contract with the William Morris Agency, the Hollywood talent shop, records show.

In addition, the union paid six figures to a video firm whose principals include a former union employee. And a now-defunct minor league basketball team coached by the president’s brother-in-law received $16,000 for what the union described as public relations, according to the union’s U.S. Labor Department filings and interviews.

Asked about this, Freeman didn’t offer an apology (which technically precludes him from being the focus of this second “Apologies from Hell” post, but what the heck). Instead, he said:

“Every expenditure has been in the context of fighting poverty.”

Excuses from Hell, then. Every penny Freeman spent came penny by penny from workers who earn so little that their ends rarely meet. How then would a cigar that cost a full day’s wage for the men and women he represents fight poverty, exactly? What advice can William Morris offer to people who empty bedpans for a living?

As this news spreads through the union, I’m sure more than a few of the workers he represents have thought about emptying a few of those bedpans over Freeman’s pampered head.

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here have been so many awful excuses for apologies lately, I’ve decided to start a new category to document them. What could be more fitting to kick off the series than a real stinker from the Obama camp?

Asked if he felt an apology is in order for kicking a tortured POW, Obama spokes-surrogate Wesley Clark offered up this:

“I’m very sorry that this has distracted from the message of patriotism that Sen. Obama wants to put out.” (Breitbart/AP)

And here I thought that there was honor in the military, respect for one another’s service to the country. Not from Wesley Clark, not even one molecule. Obama can do more than to call this sort of atrocious statement from Clark as “inartful.” Clark is not just an Obama supporter – he’s part of the campaign, an official surrogate.

He speaks for Obama, and he shows that Obama is just another ruthless gutter politician who will trample on anyone to further his quest for aggrandizement at all cost.

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