Dude, this is just sad.

David Letterman is - well, was - to we X-ers as Carson was to our parents, more/less Letterman of the NBC era; he wore wrestling shoes and hosted the bizarre comic talents of Chris Elliot. Letterman, mind you, oversaw the send-up of the in/famous Budweiser commercial, the one where an Amish fellow's wagon had busted a wheel and some WASPy types stopped to help. The send-up, on an anniversary special, was the same thing happening in the halls at 30 Rock, only the Amish guy lifted Dave's wallet, and is - as I recall - shot in the back.

Letterman, who lost all the comic credibility I was willing to offer after his Russert-style grilling of Dub in '00 (itself an unintentional send-up of Krusty the Klown hosting a Mike Wallace-stile interview regarding UAW talks breaking down, itself even funnier when you consider Conan O'Brien probably wrote said piece) has descended into a) making [statutory] rape jokes about one Palin daughter while b) justifying said joke by noting it was about the older, more barely legal daughter while c) referring to one of the most popular Conservatives in American politics as "a slutty flight attendant" who d) happens to be the mother of the two girls. I know you're with me, because love or hate the Palins, you already know the story.

The conclusion? David Letterman isn't a sick-fuck, he's just another Medea Figure. So washed in the brain, he still doesn't realize what he did wrong, which would explain the rambling, bizarro statement in full, pasted below.

I remember the Dave who used to drop fluorescent lights off overpasses while doing supid pet tricks. That fellow, long ago, was replaced by the Dave who makes jokes at the expense of the teenage children of politicians he doesn't like. Nice.

Now, we have a Dave who's doing a pale imitation of what Olberman does poorly over at MSNBC - seriously? As it's too odd to not reprint, here's David Letterman's second non-apologetic explanation of his joking about a 14-year-old girl getting impregnated by the highest-paid player in baseball (and note, please, the absence of any mea culpa regarding Sarah Palin and his second-degree affirmation that she's a slut, even though she has five children by the same husband, was, a nominee for Vice President on a national party ticket and, to this date, has not had as many children out of wedlock as David Letterman, the man who called her, via joke, a slut):

“All right, here – I’ve been thinking about this situation with Governor Palin and her family now for about a week – it was a week ago tonight, and maybe you know about it, maybe you don’t know about it. But there was a joke that I told, and I thought I was telling it about the older daughter being at Yankee Stadium. And it was kind of a coarse joke. There’s no getting around it, but I never thought it was anybody other than the older daughter, and before the show, I checked to make sure in fact that she is of legal age, 18. Yeah. But the joke really, in and of itself, can’t be defended. The next day, people are outraged. They’re angry at me because they said, ‘How could you make a lousy joke like that about the 14-year-old girl who was at the ball game?’ And I had, honestly, no idea that the 14-year-old girl, I had no idea that anybody was at the ball game except the governor and I was told at the time she was there with Rudy Giuliani … and I really should have made the joke about Rudy …” (audience applauds) “But I didn’t, and now people are getting angry and they’re saying, ‘Well, how can you say something like that about a 14-year-old girl, and does that make you feel good to make those horrible jokes about a kid who’s completely innocent, minding her own business,’ and, turns out, she was at the ball game. I had no idea she was there. So she’s now at the ball game, and people think that I made the joke about her. And, but still, I’m wondering, ‘Well, what can I do to help people understand that I would never make a joke like this?’ I’ve never made jokes like this as long as we’ve been on the air, 30 long years, and you can’t really be doing jokes like that. And I understand, of course, why people are upset. I would be upset myself.

“And then I was watching the Jim Lehrer ‘Newshour’ – this commentator, the columnist Mark Shields, was talking about how I had made this indefensible joke about the 14-year-old girl, and I thought, ‘Oh, boy, now I’m beginning to understand what the problem is here. It’s the perception rather than the intent.’ It doesn’t make any difference what my intent was, it’s the perception. And, as they say about jokes, if you have to explain the joke, it’s not a very good joke. And I’m certainly – ” (audience applause) “– thank you. Well, my responsibility – I take full blame for that. I told a bad joke. I told a joke that was beyond flawed, and my intent is completely meaningless compared to the perception. 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.” (audience applauds) “Thank you. 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. Thank you very much.” (audience applause)