Letterman's Palin Joke Costs CBS an Advertiser, Spawns Campaign for His Firing
David Letterman
David Letterman's comments about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and one of her daughters has prompted a hotel chain to pull its advertising on CBS' website — and spawned a campaign to fire the Late Show host that includes a planned protest outside his studio.
Embassy Suites, part of the Hilton Hotels Corp., pulled advertising on CBS' site because of complaints, company spokeswoman Kendra Walker told TVGuide.com. The company was not an advertiser on Letterman's show.
"We received lots of e-mails from concerned guests and we assessed that the statement that he made was offensive enough to our guests and prospective guests that we elected to take the ads down," Walker said. She declined to release the cost of the ads.
CBS declined to comment Tuesday.
Letterman joked last week about Palin's daughter being "knocked up" by Alex Rodriguez during a New York Yankees game. He later clarified that he was referring to 18-year-old Bristol Palin — who, he said "was knocked up." But the Palin family and Letterman critics said he was referring to the governor's 14-year-old daughter, Willow, who attended the Yankees game with her mother.
"It's a disgraceful comment and it needs to be stopped," said Michael Patrick Leahy, one of the organizers of the "Fire David Letterman" campaign. "It is totally inappropriate and disgraceful for a 62-year-old man to sexually insult a 14-year-old girl, period. These comments are more egregious than those of Don Imus, and CBS fired him for those comments."
Leahy, who also helped organize the anti-tax "tea parties" in cities across the country earlier this year, estimated anywhere from 50 to 300 people would attend a protest planned outside Letterman's studio in New York City on Tuesday.
The campaign has also urged advertisers, including Embassy Suites, to pull their ads.
What do you think? Should Letterman be fired?
