Updated below:

I think he did a much more credible job of showing his remorse.  I will add only one slight caveat, that he missed one aspect of it completely.  I’ll get back to that.

Here is the text as transcribed by TV Week,  with my comments to follow:

The summary of this is that former VP nominee Gov Sarah Palin was in New York with her family and Letterman couldn’t resist the chance to poke at her a bit in his top ten:

Letterman Top Ten: Palin has a “slutty flight attendant look” 

I bet Ashley Herzog’s bummed he didn’t pull this a day earlier, huh? It would have made a sweet addition to her latest column. The best part: Letterman wondering why Slutty Flight Attendant didn’t stop by the show.

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.

Good point actually.  Coming on the heels of the hate f*ck column at Playboy, this is another indication of the lack of respect offered to conservative women.

And exactly why does he make a connection to “flight attendant” and “slutty”?  I have a friend who is an FA and she is hardly slutty, and from recent flights, I cannot recall seeing any that were dressed thus.  I wonder where the FA unions are in this?

And people wonder why I like her so much.

Palin links Tiller, Long slayings

Sarah Palin today picked up a widely heard theme on the right, using the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller to call attention to the murder of an army recruiter in Arkansas, allegedly by a self-styled Islamic militant:

The stories of two very different lives with similar fates crossed through the media’s hands yesterday — both equally important but one lacked the proper attention. The death of 67-year old George Tiller was unacceptable, but equally disgusting was another death that police believe was politically and religiously motivated as well.

William Long died yesterday. The 23-year old Army Recruiter was gunned down by a fanatic; another fellow soldier was wounded in the ambush. The soldiers had just completed their basic training and were talking to potential recruits, just as my son, Track, once did.

Whatever titles we give these murderers, both deserve our attention. Violence like that is no way to solve a political dispute nor a religious one. And the fanatics on all sides do great disservice when they confuse dissention with rage and death

I just watched the two skits over on HuffPo.  Watch yourself here.

First, I admire her for confronting it directly.  SNL has been ruthless in portraying her as a fool. 

Now that is nothing new, SNL portrays everyone as a fool, but even with that in mind, there is something slightly deranged about the depths that Tina Fey has taken it, followed closely by her own comments of dislike.

I cannot remember every political contest and how they were represented on SNL, but so far, SNL has favored the Obama campaign to at least a modest degree, reaching back to the primary fight against Hillary.

And certainly they have that right.  The producers and writers are under no obligation to be fair, and they have taken some shots at the other campaign.

But it seems to me that the old SNL would be a little more broad in its approach, if my memories of old shows are accurate..

Back to Palin.  I thought she held her own with dignity.  While I do agree with others that the skits marginal at best, as I said, I think she chose the right way to deal with it.  She cannot allow them to think it is upsetting.

Apparently they do not think so.

I don’t have to replay all the past drops by the Obama campaign and all the other various uses.  Prime examples are as in the recent events file.

One was when Palin took the gloves off and attacked Obama over his association to unrepentant domestic terrorist, William Ayers. 

As this RNC faq sheet shows, he did have a close association, and Ayers has never recanted his terrorism.

And almost immediately, the race card was dropped on her.  Not by Obama, ironically, but by the Associated Press¹:

Analysis: Palin’s words carry racial tinge

By claiming that Democrat Barack Obama is “palling around with terrorists” and doesn’t see the U.S. like other Americans, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin targeted key goals for a faltering campaign. 
 
And though she may have scored a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.

…

Palin did one thing in the debate that I almost stood up and cheered for:  She finally addressed the constant BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) that Biden and so many other democrats have been playing.

Biden made repeated comparisons between McCain and Bush during the debate, and democrats all over have ridden that dead horse all over town, that McCain is another 4 years of Bush.

In 2004 the campaign was “anyone but Bush” and it lead to a defeat.  I do not know if the same will happen this time, but the constant complaint is tiring.

They won’t address the issues, and address their opponent, just lame comparisons to the present administration.

Sarah, in the debate, would ave none of it (via Hot Air).

PALIN: Say it ain’t so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let’s look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. …

Abortion.  Apparently that is the defining issue of our culture.

Sure, there are many things that drive the liberals wacky about Palin, but her determined pro life stance has to be the one I read about the most.  The constant accusations that she will repeal Roe Wade are generally the loudest.

No matter that the ability to make Roe Wade go away is hardly easy and not in the list of executive powers.

Perhaps these panic stricken fear mongers should consider that you have had 3 conservative presidents, all who were pro choice, and gee, none of them managed that trick.

We have a stumbling economy, a war, the constant threat of terrorism and all manner of other important issues, but for some reason, the defining issue keeps becoming Abortion.

Why is abortion such a polarizing issue?  Why does it promote such a visceral reaction?

The reality may be in what the two sides see it as.

Conservatives see the issue as a moral one, that of protecting innocent life. 

Liberals see it as a matter of choice, the choice to terminate a life.

…Becomes truth.  Words spoken long ago by Lenin, they have never before been truer.

The Democrats are not dumb, they quickly realized that they have a tiger by the tail, so in good old Democrat tradition, they launched a campaign of disinformation.  A campaign determined to smear her beyond all respectability.

Fortunately, most of the rumors are easy to deal with. 

The more outrageous obviously come from extremists like Randi Rhodes, who in the clip below suggests Palin is a pedophile¹:

The sheer ridiculousness of that is self dismissing, but still, these rabid loons have rabid listeners who are in turn rabid believers and rabid voters.  They would likely never never have voted for her, but inflame them with enough righteous indignation and they will work much harder to vote against her.

Then you also have the Hollywierd types like Lindsey Lohan² who chides Palin for (among other things) being a media whore, ignoring the reality of Obama the media whore whose face has appeared on more magazines than…well, maybe even more than Lohan herself.  She also takes her to task for an anti gay conference her church is sponsoring, saying Palin herself is hosting it, not the church, but seems to ignore the foolishness of Rev Wright and Obama’s church.

That appears to be one of the more surprising aspects of the rise of Sarah Palin in national prominence:  A solid unabashed Conservative is now the new Poster Child for American Feminism.

Feminism has long been a Democrat stronghold.  They owned exclusive rights to the world of Gloria Steinem and Helen Gurley Brown.  The battle of the sexes was fought between Billie Jean King and Bobbi Riggs and family values redefined by the sniping between Dan Quayle and Candice Bergen (Murphy Brown).

Republicans and conservatives have long been the enemy with the baseless accusation that conservatives want women to be subjected to a life of subjugation akin to the Yearning For Zion religious community in Texas.

Now, suddenly, the new role model is a former beauty queen turned hockey mom, a mother of 5 and a woman who rejects the #1 feminist issue, abortion.

Desperation. 

Nothing more, and nothing less.

The democrats have reached a severe point of desperation in the presidential race as they face something they cannot understand, and find to be anathema:  A woman who is feminist, successful, and unapologetically conservative.

The democrats would have you believe that conservative men are unibrowed atavistic chauvinists who want their women barefoot and pregnant.  They likewise consider conservative women to be ignorant slaves to their religion and men, and when one pops up that is strong willed, yet not subservient to the liberal agenda and dogma, they freak out, and begin to attack them for the very things that they claim to respect:  Women who are independent to their own ideals, dependent on no one and willing to fight for their beliefs.

The attacks on Palin are by far some of the sexist and most ridiculous attacks I can recall, and in their own way, they are a massive compliment to Ms Palin’s qualifications.  The democrats know she is not only capable and qualified, but that she brings a sense of life to the campaign that has never been seen.