Swine flu is rapidly spreading across the globe with The World Health Organisation now officially declaring we're in the midst of a swine flu pandemic.
Swine flew? Outrage over radio station's flying piglet stunt
A Gold Coast radio station could face action from the RSPCA after attempting to make a piglet fly using helium balloons.
I told you so: Former cop slams stun gun
A former MP and ex-Queensland police sergeant who predicted a Queenslander would die in 2009 from......
Dokic jailed for threatening ambassador
The estranged father of tennis queen Jelena Dokic has been jailed for 15 months in Serbia after......
NRL star embroiled in sex blackmail scam
Sydney police have arrested and charged a woman with attempting to blackmail Parramatta and the Wests Tigers NRL clubs in the wake of the Four Corners rugby league sex scandal.
"Obama a puppet created by Jews": Gunman
A white supremacist who shot dead a black guard at a Holocaust museum in Washington had a notebook of anti-Semitic rants in his car, in which he denounced Barack Obama as a Jewish puppet.
Mystery of the Melbourne Myer snake
A reptile expert has cast doubt over an apparent snake attack on a department store worker in Melbourne's CBD.
Misses doomed jet, dies in car crash
A woman who was meant to be on board the doomed Air France jet, but arrived late for the flight, has died in a car accident.
Punched woman pleased Tony Zappia resigned
The woman at the centre of the saga involving the Sharks outgoing chief executive says she's pleased by his decision to stand down.
Tracy Grimshaw offered $50,000 to strip for Zoo Weekly
Tracy Grimshaw has turned down a whopping offer to strip down for Zoo Weekly.
Ronaldo on his way to Real Madrid after Manchester United agrees
Cristiano Ronaldo sowed the seeds of his proposed world record transfer to Real Madrid more than 18 months ago, but it took a lengthy campaign by the Portugal winger and his Spanish suitors to finally persuade Manchester United to sell their prize asset.
Mining income slumps
The impact of the puncturing of the resources boom is well and truly upon us.
Paris Hilton caught kissing Cristiano Ronaldo
Paris Hilton has been seen kissing soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, just days after she was said to have dumped the man she was planning to marry.
=== Journalist Corner ===
Miss California Canned!
After all the controversy, why has Trump turned on her now? Carrie speaks out to Sean!
Don't miss the exclusive interview on 'Hannity'!
=== Comments ===
ORNVIRONMENTAL
Tim Blair
“For some time,” emails Canadian reader Ray, “I’ve been shopping for a crudely-designed hand-crafted weeping dolly, made from felt, featuring a polar bear and disconcertingly prominent nipples, to use as a hood ornament on my 4x4.
“Sadly, I’ve never managed to find anything which meets my exacting specifications – until now!”
===
CARBON COPS
Tim Blair
The Herald Sun reports:
Frontline police will be forced to become “carbon cops” under the Government’s blueprint to cut greenhouse emissions.
The Herald Sun can reveal Australian Federal Police agents will have to prosecute a new range of climate offences.
But they are yet to be offered extra resources, stretching the thin blue line to breaking point.
“The Government is effectively saying to us, ‘Ignore other crime types’,” Australian Federal Police Association chief Jim Torr said.
And what other types of crime might now be ignored?
The AFP’s 2855 sworn agents are involved in law enforcement in Australia and overseas, investigating terrorist threats, drug syndicates, people trafficking, fraud and threats against children.
===
BLEW IT BIG TIME
Tim Blair
James Lileks deals with joke jerk David Letterman. So does the Chicago Tribune‘s Steve Chapman:
Instead of acting as though he’s the victim of someone else’s misunderstanding, as he did last night …
… Letterman ought to simply admit he blew it, big time, and personally apologize to the Palins and his viewers.
He also should to keep in mind that if you’re going to ridicule someone’s sex life, you might pick on someone your own size. And make very sure you have the right person.
That’s a key to this whole disgrace. Being so very much smarter than Sarah Palin, you’d think Letterman and his writers and his producers would have been able to work out the difference between one Palin daughter and another. I’m pretty sure Sarah Palin can tell them apart, but the combined brains of Letterman’s CBS team evidently cannot. Nor will they acknowledge their error, if error it was. An assist from Jim Treacher: “Here, Dave, let me try to help you out: ‘Governor Palin, I apologize for my amazingly stupid and cruel jokes about your daughter, and for being too lazy to even make sure I was joking about the correct one. It was wrong to lash out at you through your children, and I won’t ever do it again.’ If you’re capable of saying that, then maybe we’ll think about letting you off the hook.”
===
PEOPLE USED TO LOOK AT THEM AND LAUGH
Tim Blair
They bought minicows.
===
Just spend it, it’s free
Andrew Bolt
It’s exactly the carelessness and waste you get with any handout of “free” money:
SCHOOLS slated for demolition are being showered with federal funding to spruce up their facilities through the Rudd government’s education stimulus spending. At least 21 schools marked for closure have been handed a slice of the $14.7 billion Building the Education Revolution program.
I’ve also been told of one big grant going to upgrade car parking at a school that didn’t know how else to spend the cash. Nice, but that car park is precisely where they will next year build a new classroom.
===
Some crimes are so terrible that one chance is too many
Andrew Bolt
Exactly why must other children and their parents take the risk of having this man out on the streets, especially when the experts concede he’s still a “walking timebomb”?
===
Labels switched
Andrew Bolt
What would you call a man who wrote this:
SOCIALISM, represents the future of the West.
A Right-winger or a Left-winger? I know, too easy. And let’s tick all the other boxes that tend to go with that:
Anti-Christian? Check.
Anti-Zionist? Check.
Anti-George Bush? But of course.
Anti-Murdoch and the imp Bill O’Reilly? Check again.
A sceptic of the official version of the September 11 attacks? You betcha.
So who have I described so far? Phillip Adams or John Howard? David Marr or Piers Akerman?
Answer? Go here. And that sudden sound you hear? It’s of the Left switching labels.
===
These deaths won’t count
Andrew Bolt
Barack Obama’s pull-out will probably kill Iraqis - but that’s just the price of being nice, so the Left won’t mind:
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki warned on Thursday that attacks could increase in the coming weeks ahead of the US troop pullout from urban areas, after a deadly car bomb hit the south of the country…
“The attacks will be stronger, they will try to give the impression that Iraqi forces have failed in their duty with the withdrawal of multinational forces approaching,” he said in a speech to ministers and generals in Baghdad.
===
Are any of these Kevins real?
Andrew Bolt
STREWTH! There is now a Kevin Rudd for every occasion, and the only version of the Prime Minister that’s missing is one that’s real.
Here’s Kevvie Rudd, the voters’ mate, talking this week on Sky News like he saw mates do on some old Barry Mackenzie film:
“Fair shake of the sauce bottle, mate . . . It’s chalk and cheese . . . Fair shake of the sauce bottle, mate . . . Well, again, fair shake of the sauce bottle, mate.”
Here, now, is Corporal Rudd, the soldiers’ buddy, talking to troops in Afghanistan last December like he imagines a soldier would:
“You really know your s--- . . . Bugger that for a joke . . . We know what’s goin’ on . . . Genuinely s--- weather . . . I’ve been to too many funerals . . . “
But here is Herr Professor Rudd, the bureaucrat’s bureaucrat, talking to political eggheads in Brussels the way he rather fancies they admire (and please take a deep breath before reading the next two sentences):
===
Don’t spare even their children
Andrew Bolt
ON Monday night, famed American TV host Dave Letterman told a rape joke about a little girl.
Not just any little girl, of course, because that would be wrong.
No, his joke on national television was about the daughter of Sarah Palin, the popular Governor of Alaska . . . and a Republican. Which, to many of the Left, apparently made it right.
Palin and her 14-year-old daughter Willow had dropped in on Letterman’s town of New York for a visit that included watching the New York Yankees, the baseball team starring Alex Rodriguez, rumoured lover of Madonna.
And here’s the joke: “One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the game. During the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.”
Why a 62-year-old thought the statutory rape of a 14-year-old was funny I’d hate to think.
More useful to ask is what made the Left-leaning Letterman think his audience would forgive him a joke about Palin’s daughter that they’d lynch him for if he told it about, say, one of Barack Obama’s daughters instead. The difference? Willow Palin was fair game for being mocked on TV as rape bait simply because her mother was not a Democrat (or, God forbid, a black), but one of the most popular Right-wing women in American politics.
===
Save the planet! Mobilise the police
Andrew Bolt
We don’t have enough police to protect Australians from being bashed to death, even in our busiest airport. But what police we do have must now protect the planet - and from a non-existent threat:
FRONTLINE police will be forced to become “carbon cops” under the Government’s blueprint to cut greenhouse emissions.
The Herald Sun can reveal Australian Federal Police agents will have to prosecute a new range of climate offences… Ms Wong’s office said AFP agents would be expected to enter premises and request paperwork to monitor firms’ emissions reductions.
Future generations will find it hard to satirise our mad times, because the reality is wilder than any sane person will be able to believe.
===
What is it with the Left and violence?
Andrew Bolt
Italian police bust up an alleged gang of local terrorists:
Six people have been arrested on suspicion of planning an attack on the Group of Eight summit next month in Italy, police said.... They “tried to reconstitute a formation similar to ...
Guess:
A. a gang of conservatives
B. the Blue Brigade
C. the Red Brigade
===
Howard’s Pacific Solution was cheaper
Andrew Bolt
The Wall Street Journal on the price the US paid Palau to take Guantanamo detainees nobody else wants:
MONTHS of moral grandstanding and intense diplomacy are finally yielding dividends: (Barack) Obama has convinced Palau to resettle a small group of the least dangerous Guantanamo detainees. All it took was $200 million in foreign aid to a country with 20,000 residents and a GDP of about $164m. The Uighurs are not America’s problem alone; they were captured during “the good war”, after all. Yet for all Europe’s excoriations of Gitmo as a blight on America, no one jumped at this easy chance to reduce the prison population. According to news reports, the Obama administration asked more than 100 allies (ie, basically everyone) to accept custody. Palau deserves credit for its “humanitarian gesture”, as Palau President Johnson Toribiong called it, though the $200m in aid probably helped. That works out to $11.7m for each detainee.
Connie Levett, in The Sydney Morning Herald in 2007 on the price John Howard paid to send other unwanted guests to Pacific islands - and Christmas, too:
THE federal government’s Pacific solution has cost more than $1 billion over five years, according to a new report. The report, prepared by Oxfam and A Just Australia, which oppose the offshore-processing scheme, calculated it cost more than $500,000 (a) person to process fewer than 1700 asylum seekers in Nauru, Manus and Christmas Island.
===
The real game isn’t Rudd’s
Andrew Bolt
There really isn’t any need for Kevin Rudd to rush through legislation before December to approve his plan to cut emissions when the real game is being played without us - and is getting badly bogged, anyway:
China and the US failed to achieve a breakthrough at their latest round of climate talks on Wednesday, raising the stakes in the global effort to fight global climate change.
The two countries responsible for almost half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions ended three days of negotiations in Beijing. While there are still months to go until the December meeting in Copenhagen, where 181 countries, led by the United Nations, plan to work out a new climate pact, the two biggest emitters’ glacial pace towards compromise is likely to discourage others from making concessions during a pre-Copenhagen round of negotiations under way in Bonn, which is set to wrap up on Friday.
Todd Stern, President Barack Obama’s special envoy on climate change, tried to sound optimistic when the US delegation ended its China visit but could hardly conceal that little had been achieved…
Chinese officials maintained that the two countries should have a “common but differentiated approach” – code for Beijing’s reluctance to adopt a formal domestic mandate to reduce its carbon emissions. The US Congress is considering a bill that would reduce US emissions to 83 per cent of 2005 levels by 2020. China wants the US to cut its emissions to 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 – a different order of magnitude. It also wants the US to pledge up to 1 per cent of its gross domestic product to pay for clean technology in China and elsewhere.
Yeah, good luck with those demands for cash from a country with none left to spare. But it all makes so unbelievably stupid the claims by Rudd that Australia needs to set an example by the end of the year to impress the Copenhagen summit. Who’d notice? Who’d care? Who’d follow?
===
Hateful Faithful on the Left Help Ax Miss California
By Dan Gainor
Liberals finally got their scalp and what a lovely one it is. The Donald “fired” his lovely apprentice for what he claimed were contract issues. Out went Miss California USA Carrie Prejean. In comes the celebration from the hateful faithful on the left.
Perez Hilton, the gossip blogger who pretends to be human, was eager to rejoice over Prejean’s unemployment.
Three big photos of the young star were covered with graffiti saying: “Fired,” “bye bye,” and “show her the door!” And here’s how Hilton described Trump: “He has seen the light!”
After weeks of left-wing campaigns to destroy the young woman, Americans have now seen what happens to anyone who dares run up against the gay lobby. The exact same scenario played out with Proposition 8 against gay marriage. They are attacked by the left and the media, which on this issue like so many others, are identical.
And it all happened not because Prejean made a career out of attacking gays. She didn’t mock the Matthew Shepherd Foundation or protest at a gay marriage rally. All she did was answer a question posed by Hilton, who was a judge at the Miss USA pageant, about gay marriage. Prejean, who is opposed to the idea, answered honestly. And, Lord knows, we can’t have any of that in the media. “I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised,” she explained.
The horror! For that she was skewered as “controversial,” and everything she had ever done in her life was dragged through the mud; photos, her parents, their divorce, surgery and more, all became fair game for an unfair media.
MSNBC’s “news” anchor David Shuster went berserk when Trump first allowed Prejean to keep her crown. “Can I vomit right now? I mean, literally. Can I vomit?” Maybe if he did, his ratings would improve.
Michael Musto of The Village Voice said Prejean was actually a “homophobic man” during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Countdown.” Musto went on to compare her to the Nazis. “Well, she’s dumb and twisted. She’s sort of like a human Klaus Barbie Doll”
But Hilton was easily the worst. The openly gay scandal-sheet blogger had started the controversy by asking the initial question. He then responded by attacking her and calling her a “bitch,” but really wanted to go lower. “She lost, not because she doesn’t believe in gay marriage, Miss California lost because she’s a dumb bitch, OK?” He followed with a bogus apology: “I was thinking the c-word and I didn’t say it.”
This is the same Hilton who runs a Web site where he scrawls dirty pictures on top of photos, shows images of penises where microphones should be or has drawings of semen dripping from the mouths of celebrities. Instead of that kind of bile causing the media to ignore him, major news outlets embraced it.
He went on “Larry King Live” where the host was actually nice to him. He appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC and more. Every outlet gave credence to Hilton’s comments attacking a young woman who merely dared to oppose gay marriage.
We hear a lot about tolerance on the left but in reality they hate tolerance. They don’t want acceptance either. They want devotion –- to their beliefs, to their celebrities and to their causes. The symbol of the gay rights movement is the rainbow flag or Pride flag. Given how they treat opponents, they should try the skull and crossbones.
===
Are Nancy Pelosi and Others in Congress Putting Our Troops in Even More Danger?
By Bill O'Reilly
Let's walk through this. Congress is now voting on funding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. As part of that spending bill, Senators Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham added a provision that would ban the release of so-called torture photos involving U.S. military people who were tried for their crimes.
As you may know, the ACLU, The New York Times and other far-left organizations want those pictures put out to the world.
The Senate approved Lieberman and Graham's provision, with just Republican Tom Coburn, Democrat Russ Feingold and socialist Bernie Sanders opposing the funding bill.
Then the measure went to the House, where it stalled. At first, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would support the proposal, but now she may have changed her mind. It's hard to tell with Mrs. Pelosi, as she is all over the place.
Congresspeople Louise Slaughter, Barney Frank, Jerry Nadler and Gerry Connolly among others want the photo ban eliminated, even though both the Defense Department and the CIA say releasing those pictures could be very dangerous to our military men and women. Slaughter, Frank and the rest have some explaining to do.
For his part, Sen. Graham is outraged:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C.: I just cannot imagine the House doing this. What is driving them? Who is running the House? Is the ACLU now in charge of the House of Representatives? What good is it to pass a supplemental giving our troops new weapons if it also in the supplemental you give a weapon to the enemy to use against our own troops?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Of course, the senator is correct. The spending bill should pass with the photo ban attached, and most clear-thinking Americans know it.
There comes a time, ladies and gentlemen, when ideology can cause death. I am so tired of zealots, primarily on the left, putting their insane personal agendas above the safety of fellow Americans.
Do you think the brave soldiers and Marines operating in dangerous areas right this minute want grisly pictures all over Al Jazeera and the terror Web sites? So let's look out for our military, OK?
Nancy Pelosi has an obligation to get the loons in her party under control. If the speaker cannot do that, she does not deserve her position. Wednesday the photo provision was stripped by a House committee. That is on Mrs. Pelosi.
I am writing to Pelosi tonight. You should, too. We've posted her address on BillOReilly.com.
===
Where Are the Feminists in the Palin-Letterman War?
This is a rush transcript from "On the Record," June 11, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Does Dave get it? Was that an apology or really a lame excuse? Now, everyone is talking about the sex joke David Letterman made about Governor Sarah Palin, and worse, about her 14-year-old daughter. Last weekend, while she was in New York, Governor Palin took her 14-year- old to a Yankee game. And this week, in his monologue, David Letterman made a raunchy sexual joke about the governor's daughter being knocked up by a Yankee baseball player.
Letterman now claims he was talking about the governor's 18-year-old daughter, Bristol, not her 14-year-old. Really, Dave? You think your remarks about sex and getting knocked up are OK if they are directed at an 18-year-old woman and not a 14-year-old? That makes it OK?
Well, here's what Letterman said. You decide if this is dripping with sarcasm, like I just was, or whether it is genuinely sorry and that he gets it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID LETTERMAN, HOST, "LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN": I'm not necessarily proud of these jokes.
(LAUGHTER)
LETTERMAN: I mean, we do stuff all the time, and our objective here is to get a laugh. And thank God, you know, we don't have to go to the Hague before the World Court to defend them.
(LAUGHTER)
LETTERMAN: It's a joke. That's all it's supposed to be. That's what this is. Now, here's the other joke they're upset about.
LETTERMAN: One awkward moment, though, during the game. Maybe you heard about it. Maybe you saw it on one of the highlight reels, one awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game. During the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
LETTERMAN: You can see how that'd be awkward.
(LAUGHTER)
LETTERMAN: Now, cut that out! Get back in the dugout! I'm telling you, I recognize that these are ugly.
(LAUGHTER)
LETTERMAN: These are actually ugly. These are borderline -- but again, in an act of desperation, to get cheap laughs, which is what I've been doing for the last 30 years. Why didn't we hear from Alex Rodriguez?
(LAUGHTER)
LETTERMAN: But now, everything the governor and Todd said I absolutely agree with. 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. I mean, look at my record. It has never happened. I don't think it's funny. I would never think it was funny. I wouldn't put it in a joke.
Here's where you draw the line. Yes, maybe these are questionable because the girl who actually -- excuse me, but -- was knocked up is now 18 years old. So the difference there is 14 years old and of legal age. OK. Now, I can't really defend the joke. I agree, unpleasant, ugly. But I would never, never think that it was funny to use a 14-year-old girl as a joke like this, for God's sakes. Now, here's the other joke they're upset about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
Number two: Bought make-up at Bloomingdale's to update her slutty flight attendant look.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LETTERMAN: The only thing I can say about this is that I kind of like that joke.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
LETTERMAN: So summing up now -- and I'm going to ask questions and then answer them. Were the jokes in question in questionable taste? Of course they were.
(LAUGHTER)
LETTERMAN: Do I regret having told them? Well, I think probably I do. But you know what? There are thousands of jokes I regret telling on this program.
(LAUGHTER)
LETTERMAN: Would I do anything to advocate or contribute to underage sexual abuse or misconduct? Absolutely not, not in a thousand years. Look at me!
(LAUGHTER)
LETTERMAN: Do I look like I'm trying to make trouble? No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAN SUSTEREN: Well, the controversy was a hot topic on "The View."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELISABETH HASSELBECK, "THE VIEW": Quite honestly, I mean, when I first heard it, I thought, Wow, you know, maybe I was wrong because I thought he was just being a jerk when he said it. And then when I realized...
(CROSSTALK)
HASSELBECK: ... the wrong daughter, I thought, Oh, he's not a jerk. He's just being an ignorant jerk to say something like that!
(APPLAUSE)
(CROSSTALK)
HASSELBECK: ... but he was right to apologize. This is a real one.
JOY BEHAR, "THE VIEW": Bristol's always got that the baby in her arms. Maybe he thought it was Bristol.
(CROSSTALK)
SHERRI SHEPHERD, "THE VIEW": ... whoever wrote the joke for him should have done -- we always talk about doing research. He should have found out which daughter was because Bristol wasn't there.
BARBARA WALTERS, "THE VIEW": You know what?
SHEPHERD: So it was the 14-year-old.
WALTERS: There is something about talking about anybody's child, I mean, however you feel about Sarah Palin, she is -- and the family, they are a devoted family. You can say anything you want about me. We all say this. Don't talk about my child. And that is something that I guess even humorists have to understand.
BEHAR: Yes, but Barbara, you don't parade your child out...
WALTERS: Doesn't matter.
BEHAR: ... a poster child for abstinence.
WALTERS: Don't talk -- don't talk about my daughter!
(APPLAUSE)
(CROSSTALK)
SHEPHERD: You can believe in abstinence -- you can believe in abstinence. But we're all imperfect people, so you can believe in it. Sometimes we fall. Sometimes you just get caught up in the moment. It does not demean the fact that you believe in abstinence.
(CROSSTALK)
BEHAR: I know, but they traipse the kid out as -- she's a walking punchline!
HASSELBECK: What do you mean, "traipse her out"?
(CROSSTALK)
HASSELBECK: We have seen politicians' children with them throughout the course of elections, throughout the course of their presidencies. We only see this type of attack when it comes to Sarah Palin's children. And because she had daughter -- because her daughter had a child...
BEHAR: No, it's the hypocrisy.
HASSELBECK: It is not hypocrisy!
BEHAR: It's not because she has a child.
HASSELBECK: It is human nature that you can believe something is right and then...
BEHAR: They preach abstinence and then she gets knocked up. That's the joke.
HASSELBECK: That is awful and it's not a joke! That is not a joke!
(CROSSTALK)
WALTERS: We like each other very much! As you can see, we never argue!
(CROSSTALK)
SHEPHERD: I believe in celibacy, and I'm trying really hard, but I might fall! But I believe in celibacy. It's not a joke.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAN SUSTEREN: Well, it's clear where Rush Limbaugh stands.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Let's not forget all of the hate and venom that was directed at Sarah Palin last summer and continues to this day in the form of so-called comedy from the pathetic David Letterman, who himself -- he used to have -- his shows was, I remember, back on NBC. It was great. It was one of the funniest TV shows ever. He's just an angry old man now. Every night, angry, filled with rage about somebody, and genuinely wrong about everything he says, suggesting that Palin's daughter was raped at 14 years old during a baseball game at Yankee Stadium. And who's denouncing it? Who denounced any of the hatred against Sarah Palin?
(END AUDIO CLIP)
VAN SUSTEREN: So where is the feminist outrage over this? We called "MS" magazine. They had no comment. We asked the National Organization for Women to send someone to appear on our show. They declined but then added Letterman to its Web site's "Media Hall of Shame." But is this enough?
Joining us live is Jane Swift, the former governor of Massachusetts. She is the first woman to ever hold that office. Good evening, Governor.
JANE SWIFT, FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR: Good evening, Greta. How are you?
VAN SUSTEREN: Very well. Governor, let's start first with David Letterman. At least the way I listen to him, he seems to think it's OK what he said if he were talking about an 18-year-old instead of a 14-year- old. Yes or no?
SWIFT: No. I think Barbara Walters had it right. And apparently, the politics of personal destruction has now morphed into the politics of family destruction. And what kind of people are going to run for political office, men or women? Although this seems to happen more to women. What kind of women are going to run for leadership positions if this is how they can expect their minor children to be treated?
VAN SUSTEREN: Where are the feminists? And I'm a feminist. I have defended Secretary of State Clinton, Governor Palin from personal insults, not on policy. They're fair game for policy. But where are all the feminists in their outrage? Is it because this is the child of a Republican?
SWIFT: You know, who knows what it has to do with party politics, although I think Rush Limbaugh should get credit for standing up for a common standard of decency, and I doubt there are many liberals who will recognize that. But the truth is, it's wrong. It was a bad joke. David Letterman maybe should go back to his "Stupid Pet Tricks."
And I think the other thing people are missing is this isn't, like, an unscripted moment. This is a joke that's written beforehand and that he chose to deliver. And I think that carries with it a special responsibility versus perhaps just saying something that you later regret. And in terms of an apology, this is what constitutes an apology, "I'm sorry."
VAN SUSTEREN: You know what I found interesting about it is that he made -- and I took notes on it. He said that -- something that -- about the fact that she was knocked up by the Yankee. And incidentally, it was the 14-year-old that was there at the Yankee game, not the 18-year-old, although I don't think that makes any difference. But he said, "knocked up," and used that as rape and making fun of the 18-year-old, when the irony of it is, is that the mother of his child was, quote, "knocked up" and he didn't marry her until last March, when the child was about 5 or 6, so he's the worst hypocrite on this.
SWIFT: Well, and violence against women is never funny. And so saying things like somebody being knocked up or raped, particularly when you're using those words to try to so-called apologize or regret what you said, it's just not appropriate. None of us would want anybody to say that about our children and none of us would tolerate it.
VAN SUSTEREN: Imus -- Don Imus said horrible things about that basketball team, that women's college basketball team, it was at Rutgers, which was terrible. And there was an unbelievable public outcry, as there should have been, as there was. Where -- is this going to happen with CBS? Is CBS going to get it, or do you think they're just going to let him off the hook? Oh, I thought it was an 18-year-old and it's OK to say those things about 18-year-old women.
SWIFT: Well, you know what, Greta? Thanks to you and to "The View" today, to give them credit, hopefully, the popular opinion will come to bring to the attention of CBS, and you know, to David Letterman, who I'm sure is a -- you know, a decent person, that what he said was wrong. An apology is warranted and he probably needs some new joke writers.
VAN SUSTEREN: But he -- it's funny. It's, like, you know, he had his chance to give his apology. You know, I'm not sure he really gets it because he was dripping with sarcasm. And I was dripping with sarcasm when I started the show. But he says that -- you know, he thinks it's OK because it's 18. I don't think he gets it, so I wonder if CBS gets it.
SWIFT: Well, hopefully, enough voices will speak out so that they get it. This is not about whether or not she's -- first of all, it's not about whether she's 18 or 14. It's about family members shouldn't be subjected to this kind of vulgar discussion of their private lives. That's number one.
Number two, if that crosses the line, which I believe and I think many decent people believe it does, it was clear that the person who was there was her 14-year-old daughter. And again, the Imus show is unscripted, right? Imus said something probably in the heat of the moment that he has apologized for, he has made amends for. He went and met in a private setting with those young women and got to hear from them how that hurt them. I don't think that that's the kind of that David Letterman has gotten to and that he needs to understand.
And when something's a written joke, somebody could have figured out that it was a 14-year-old girl. And since when is it a criminal offense to sit with your mother at a baseball game when you're a 14-year-old girl? In fact, to me, that's a pretty nice thing.
VAN SUSTEREN: And to repeat, because I know some people are going to disagree with me, but I want to repeat I'm a feminist and I think women candidates for office and women in office should get aggressive grilling by the public but that it should be fair, never go into sexism and certainly not pick on the children. And David Letterman, I really don't think, gets it and I hope CBS at least does something. Governor, thank you.
SWIFT: Happy birthday -- belated.
VAN SUSTEREN: Thank you very much!
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