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Get real, Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin has been the butt of many jokes since she became the Republican Party’s vice-presidential nominee for the 2008 United States presidential election.
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Sarah Palin has been the butt of many jokes since she became the Republican Party’s vice-presidential nominee for the 2008 United States presidential election.

Now she’s back to serving as governor of Alaska, but the jests have continued.

Now, her overreaction to a recent joke by TV funnyman David Letterman just might signal the end of her political career.

In case you missed it, the joke concerned one of Palin’s daughters being “knocked up” by baseball star Alex Rodriguez.

It’s funny on two levels:

l Firstly, A-Rod is known as a shameless womanizer.

l Secondly, Palin’s daughter Bristol is a complete hypocrite for telling teenagers to embrace sexual abstinence even though she got pregnant at age 17.

Letterman recently apologized for the joke, but there really was no need for him to do that.

He’s a late-night talk show host and such people are expected to make fun of celebrities and their families.

Palin accepted the risk of such treatment when she entered the political arena and, by default, she exposed her family members to the same risk.

After learning of the joke, Palin’s initial response was completely over the top.

She called Letterman’s comments “sexually perverted,” a big stretch indeed.

Has the Alaska governor not heard about freedom of speech?

Can’t she take a joke at all?

Unfortunately, although she eventually accepted Letterman’s apology for the joke, Palin played right into the hands of people who maintain that feminists have no sense of humour.

Letterman was making a joke — end of story.

He and other TV personalities have made countless jokes about other politicians, male and female, with few objections from them.

In fact, during the last American presidential race, Palin’s running mate John McCain scored points with voters by making fun of his advanced age during appearances he made on TV.

Politicians need a sense of humour, just like the rest of us.

President Barack Obama clearly has a healthy funnybone and so does Secretary of State Hilary Clinton.

Vice-President Joe Biden is one of the funniest people in Washington and although his sense of humour occasionally gets him into trouble, he’s exactly the sort of politician one can respect.

He’s intelligent and principled, but he’s not a stuffed shirt afraid to laugh at himself.

Let’s all just lighten up a bit!

Lee Giles is an Advocate editor.