"I understand, of course, why people are upset; I would be upset myself," Letterman said.

masuki bance

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Mon Jun-15-09 09:33 PM
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"I understand, of course, why people are upset; I would be upset myself," Letterman said.

Edited on Mon Jun-15-09 10:28 PM by masuki bance

..."I understand, of course, why people are upset; I would be upset myself," Letterman said. "I�m sorry about it and I�ll try to do better in the future."

Below is the full text of Letterman's latest comments which will be telecast on "The Late Show" tonight.

�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).

http://www.thrfeed.com/2009/06/letterman-readdresses-palin.html