It took David Letterman a week and a few false starts, but the late-night
comedian finally apologized for joking on national television about the
statutory rape of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's 14-year-old daughter. Claiming that
his crack about Palin's daughter being "knocked up" during a Yankees game by
third baseman Alex Rodriguez was "misunderstood" because he intended to mock
Palin's 18-year-old daughter rather than her younger one, Letterman ceded that
"it's my fault that it was misunderstood."

That's not much of an admission, given that 14-year-old Willow Palin was the
daughter who attended last week's Yankees game and viewers had every reason to
assume Letterman was referencing her. Nor is it heartening that a 62-year-old,
twice-married male celebrity — who himself waited five years after becoming a
father to marry his child's mother — considers it acceptable to tell sex jokes
about a politician's teenage daughter because she is 18 rather than 14.

It's hard to imagine Letterman making similar cracks about President Barack
Obama's daughters, who are not much younger than Palin's, or about Obama's
mother, who was an unmarried teenager when she conceived the future president.

For that matter, it's hard to imagine Obama himself coming in for such
off-color criticism, since comics have largely exempted him from the barbs that
are par for the presidential course. The Center for Media and Public Affairs
recently tallied last year's political punch-lines and found that late-night
comics mocked Republicans John McCain and George W. Bush far more than they
ridiculed Obama, telling nearly twice as many jokes about McCain as about
Obama. As for Palin, who only arrived on the national scene in late August,
comics told more jokes about her in the last months of 2008 than they told
about Hillary Clinton all year and nearly seven times as many jokes as they
told about Palin's Democratic counterpart, Joe Biden.

The entertainment industry's fondness for mocking conservatives is nothing new,
but the raunchy tenor of its attacks on conservative women — particularly when
those women are attractive and openly religious — is extreme even by Hollywood
standards. From Letterman's reference to Palin's "slutty flight attendant look"
to the incessant jokes during the 2000 presidential recount about Florida
Republican Katherine Harris' makeup, attacks on conservative women typically
focus far more on their appearance and alleged promiscuity than do attacks on
men in the public eye.

Male chauvinism is largely to blame, but there is another culprit. The feminist
establishment that loudly protests any sexist slight against its
standard-bearers often goes mysteriously mute when the victim is a conservative
woman or the perpetrator is a liberal man. In the 1990s, feminists raged
against Clarence Thomas when Anita Hill accused him of sexual harassment but
yawned at Bill Clinton's affair with a White House intern less than half his
age and allegations that he had sexually harassed or assaulted several women
subordinates.

When it comes to below-the-belt knocks against attractive women who defend
traditional values, establishment feminists often lead the way. Former Planned
Parenthood president Gloria Feldt recently appeared on FOX News to discuss
media treatment of beauty queen Carrie Prejean, who endured vicious insults
about her appearance and intelligence after voicing her opposition to gay
marriage. Rather than condemn the sexist taunts, Feldt offered one of her own,
suggesting that Prejean needs "a heart transplant rather than the breast
implants."

With feminist watchdogs like Feldt, it's unsurprising that comics like
Letterman feel free to spin sex jokes about teenage girls and deride a female
former vice presidential nominee as "slutty" even as they tiptoe around
criticism of a sitting male president. No wonder so many American women refuse
to identify with a feminist establishment that preaches sisterhood while aiding
and abetting chauvinism.

Colleen Carroll Campbell is an author, television and radio host and St.
Louis-based fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her website is
www.colleen-campbell.com.