But to answer your question YES both jokes can be found offensive but its all on the intent.

And that’s all…

To say the Letterman is politically motivated is to ignore a decade of Clinton jokes that went on before, during and after his administration. He made a valid hit on a public figure, the audience laughed, and everything was fine until the right-wing decided to play victim and get their loony fringe to stand outside the studio with signs mocking outrage. All the late night hosts are moderates by definition… nobody who was a radical thinker in any way would ever be considered by the major networks to host a milk toast show designed to sell soda to the masses while they’re in the gullible stage before they fall asleep.

If this is directed at me, not only did I never so much as imply that no one should make these jokes, I went so far as to say Palin’s reaction was hurting the conservative cause. In addition, I made it very clear that my desire was to leave politics out of the discussion and focus on what makes a joke over the line. Please go back and re-read the line of discussion. My point clearly was that if a joke is over the line because it causes pain, a joke about someone’s child might be more painful than a joke made about a large group of people, although only one person suffers from the personal joke.

The big problem I have is that all political figures generally use their kids in their marketing schemes in order to appear to be more like everyone else. By using your children for political gain you expose them to this type of treatment and sometimes worse, especially when when one of the kids does something that totally contradicts something you represent.

As far as I’m concerned the bottom line is Letterman is paid to be funny and, unless they juice up the audience with a laugh track, people laughed at the joke and not just once but 3x. Letterman isn’t promoting or condoning anything he’s telling a joke and he did it for the laugh, that’s it. Take it at face value, it was comedy for comedy’s sake. When we start questioning every little joke made at someone’s expense then we start questioning what is funny and that is not an answer that is readily available but more importantly you lose the point.

Palin can talk all day about limiting a woman’s right to choose, exposing hate because people choose to have different sexual predilections then her white-trash breeding stock, and express outrage that the president of the United States is enacting the polices he was elected on, but nobody can point out that her daughter is a cock-hungry slut-bag? Really?

If you wanted to express outrage, where were you when these same late-night comics spent eight years talking about the actual president of the United States getting a little oral on the side from a dick-loving fat-chick, much like Palin’s daughter… who as I mentioned, is a cock-hungry slut-bag…

On the other hand, I completely support your right as an American to stand on your virtual soap-box and prattle on about how offended you are about Palin’s daughter’s cock-hungry slut-baggery being exposed to the world. You should always be able to speak your mind and defend the cock-hungry slut-bag, and her cock-hungry slut-bag ways. Just like I think you’d agree that gay people should have the right to the joys that marriage would have brought to the cock-hungry slut-bag, had she decided to wait until getting married before engaging in her cock-hungry slut-bag activities within the bounds of holy matrimony. Or a woman’s right to choose not to pump out another generation of cock-hungry slut-bags.

I’m just saying that she’s a cock-hungry slut-bag… was that too subtle?

—D

I agree with Mike on this one. Making fun of a celebrity is totally diferent. On the other hand I know that there are many comedians who can talk about 9/11 and arabs and totally pull it off and come out really funny. AKA Joe Rogan has an entire cd about it. I am just starting out and my material is nothing like that so if I put a joke like that it would not sound like me.

I refuse to apologize to Sarah Palin or slutty flight attendants….yeahhh I said it.

Do you use a specific opener? If so, is it one that you use for every room or do you have several different openers that you can use for different different situations (like weather, location, local events… etc.)

More importantly, how did you develope your opener? Was it a bit that was later on in your set that didn’t need as much of a setup yet got good laughs?

One of my goals for the next month or two is to find a great opener. I’m not into segues, but I think the opener is a great exception. Right now my openers are generally an awkward few lines that I thought up that day to bridge to my first joke as fast as possible. But I still feels it comes off like I walked on stage and said “Ok guys… this is my set.” I’ve never seen a headliner have an awkward/fake opener. If you’re not paying attention you don’t even notice that he’s begun his set.

Here’s my hangup… if you start a set and the opener doesn’t work the rest of your set is an uphill battle. If you develope your opener in the back of your set than you don’t get an accurate reading of how it’ll preform when you have no repport with the audience.

So, dear brothers, where do you find the balance?