Bristol Palin

(Check the update at the bottom of this story. Bristol may have accidentally tipped us off as to the intentions of her mother.)

You know what a true insult from comedian Don Rickles would be? It would be if you appeared on a stage with Rickles and did NOT receive an "insult" from the "Merchant of Venom."

However, many media websites seem to be unaware of Rickles' stock in trade. They are crowing over the fact that they believe Don Rickles delivered serious insults to Bristol and Sarah Palin during a visit of the former to the Tonight Show last Thursday where the comedian was one of the guests. As you can see in this video (and below the fold), Rickles "insults" were relatively mild compared to the zingers he directed towards President Ronald Reagan on stage during his second inauguration in 1985. And the reaction from The Gipper was sheer delight at the "insults."

Yet here we have such sites as Raw Story and andPOP taking the Rickles insults as if they were some sort of serious political commentary.  Raw Story leads off with a headline that could also describe a Rickles encounter with anybody on a stage: "Don Rickles makes fun of Bristol Palin to her face."

There were two candidates on the GOP ticket in 2008, John McCain and Sarah Palin. Both had young daughters involved in the campaign. Both have written books about the experience. Guess which book was celebrated and which was savaged?

The media's character assassination of Sarah Palin knows no bounds, as she's been smeared as everything from "evil" to "unintelligent." But "Palin Derangement Syndrome" is a hereditary disease, and the media have continued their multigenerational malice toward Bristol Palin in reviews of her new memoir, "Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far."

(Video after the jump)

As NewsBusters previously reported, Bill Maher last Friday disgracefully attacked Bristol Palin saying, "The s--t doesn't fall far from the bat."

On Wednesday's "Fox & Friends," noted psychiatrist Keith Ablow analyzed the behavior of HBO's "Real Time" host concluding that the comedian has a deep-seated hatred of women and absolutely no regard for life (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Bill Maher on Friday once again spent a good amount of his HBO program bashing Sarah Palin and her family.

In the concluding segment, the "Real Time" host actually said of Bristol, "The s--t doesn't fall far from the bat" (video follows with transcript and commentary, vulgarity warning):

As NewsBusters reported Thursday, the liberal website Wonkette has lost a significant number of advertisers following its disgraceful article about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's handicapped son Trig.

The Daily Beast's Andrew Sullivan, who for years has claimed like so many Trig Truthers that Bristol Palin is the child's real mother, expressed disappointment Saturday that companies pulled their ads as a result of this piece:

What has become of today's liberalism that makes it acceptable to attack the mentally handicapped if they or their parents are conservatives?

Consider the following disgraceful posting about Trig Palin published at the left-leaning website Wonkette Monday:

"Saturday Night Live" began its program last evening with Fred Armisen once again addressing the nation as President Obama.

After being literally held hostage by Republicans for three days - "bound, gagged, blindfolded in a dark room somewhere outside Washington" - Obama, in the grips of weird symptoms associated with the Stockholm Syndrome, became a tax cut-loving, Sarah Palin-admiring, Rush Limbaugh-quoting conservative who's no longer sure he was born in America (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann showed viewers just how on top of things he is Monday attacking Bristol Palin for something that was announced more than a year and a half ago.

During his newly renovated "Worst Person in the World" segment, the "Countdown" host gave Palin top honors for being The Candie's Foundation's abstinence spokesperson (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Comedienne Sandra Bernhard called Bristol Palin a hooker on Wednesday's "The Joy Behar Show."

This was just a part of a televised hatefest reminiscent of the Lindsay Lohan film "Mean Girls" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Those Tea Partiers – is there anything in this nation they can’t spoil? They’ve already gummed up the president’s agenda with their rallies and signs and voting. Now, they’re trying to ruin “Dancing with the Stars!”

So says the left and many in the media agree. Now that newly resurgent conservatives have handed them a crushing mid-term defeat, liberals are seeing nefarious Tea Party plots everywhere – including in silly entertainment shows. And they’re taking plenty of shots at Bristol and, predictably, her mother.

Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol, 20, has done remarkably well in this season’s “Dancing with the Stars” competition on ABC. As she’s advanced from week to week, buoyed by viewer voting, entertainment reporters and liberals have become increasingly frustrated.

Video below the fold.

It's fair game to discuss whether Bristol Palin arrived at the finals of ABC's Dancing with the Stars on talent alone (instead of being judged with telephone voting). But ABC and The Washington Post were Palin-obsessed enough to actually pay for a poll question on the matter. The headline in Tuesday's paper was "Poll numbers suggest Bristol doesn't have 'Dancing' legs to stand on."  (On the website's homepage, the headline was "Poll: Palin a finalist because of mother.") TV writer Lisa de Moraes announced the public verdict:

Fifty-four percent of Americans think Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol is one of the finalists on "Dancing With the Stars" because of large-scale voting by viewers who support her mother, according to a poll conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News.

Just 14 percent of respondents think Bristol is still in the competition because she is one of this season's best dancers on the show.

Jon Stewart is finally flaunting some of that "sanity" we've heard so much about. On his show Wednesday night, he had a simple message for the legions of journalists obsessed with Sarah Palin's children: "Who gives a sh*t?"

"Kids are off limits," Stewart added. "In fact, we should all go out of our way to treat her children with kid gloves and respect to show that we don't judge individuals and mock them purely based on who their parents are."

"Stop making me feel sympathy for the Palins!" he begged - hysterically, I might add. "Stop it!" (Video below the break - h/t Charlie Spiering)

MSNBC's Ed Schultz on Wednesday hysterically alleged Bristol Palin's successful movement into the finals of "Dancing With the Stars" was a product of voter fraud.

Maybe even worse, liberal radio host Stephanie Miller thrice told the "Ed Show" host Bristol "sucks":

There is a fine line between tasteful political comedy and crossing-the-line crudeness, and the Huffington Post’s new song “My Girl's A Republican” just leaped over that line. With lyrics such as “Dick Nixon sucking lips” and “she made her oil money last, and now I’m tapping it,” even the most liberal among us could agree that the attack on Republican women is downright revolting.

Hailed as an “ode to right-wing ladies,” the three and a half minute song and video by Rap duo “It’s The Real” (and proudly displayed on the Huffington Post Web site) does nothing but smear conservative women like Christine O’Donnell, Michele Bachmann, and of course, Sarah Palin. The HuffPo write up on the “tribute to conservative women” song claims “it does a pretty solid job of both mocking and admiring right-wing conservatives.”

(Video below the fold)

 Appearing as a guest on Tuesday’s Joy Behar Show on HLN, liberal commentator Nancy Giles of CBS Sunday Morning declared that she was "tired" of Bristol Palin and asserted that "she makes me ill."

After host Behar brought up Palin during a discussion of the television show Dancing with the Stars, Giles sighed and responded: "Can I just, can my comment be rolling my eyes and heavy exhaling? I just am so tired of her. I’m tired of her getting these breaks. I’m tired of her making money and leaving her baby at home. I’m tired of her maybe getting 30 grand to speak about abstinence. Excuse me? I’m tired of her."

After Behar challenged Giles’s suggestion that Palin was neglecting her baby, the liberal commentator continued: "I know, Joy, I do believe that, but I’m so, she makes me ill, so all bets are off."

Giles eventually admitted to sounding sexist after actress Eve Plumb complained that men are never asked about whether they are neglecting their children, with the liberal commentator conceding: "I know it’s not fair. I sound like I’m sexist."

Gee, I wonder which "cable news show" Joe had in mind . . .

In a seeming shot at Keith Olbermann, Joe Scarborough has predicted that "certain cable news shows" will stir up a "fake controversy" tonight over whether Sarah Palin was booed on Dancing With The Stars [she wasn't].

Here's the background: Bristol Palin performed on DWTS last night, and Sarah was there in the front row to support her.  Jennifer Grey [of Dirty Dancing fame] also competed last night.  Her backers in the audience began to boo when her scores, which they judged to be too low, were announced. That happened just before the show cut to an interview with Sarah Palin.  Some have tried to suggest that the audience was booing Palin.  But the crowd in fact cheered when Sarah appeared, and as Willie Geist said "my staff and I have studied the tape.  They were not booing [Palin]."

That served as preamble to Joe's prediction . . .

ABC News has changed the headline of an online video to "Christine O'Donnell's Masturbation Argument" from the more inappropriately suggestive "Christine O'Donnell's Masturbation Stance," but that doesn't mean the network has grown up about the sex-related beliefs of conservative candidates.

ABC posted video on its news website Sept. 16 from a monologue by comedian Jimmy Kimmel, who hosts a late night show on its network. The network's social networking team also publicized the link via Twitter using the "masturbation stance" pun. The headline on the video has since been changed, but the Twitter message remains active.

"Nobody knows what this woman does for a living, if anything," Kimmel said. "All we do know is that she's gone on the record to oppose masturbation, for real." He referred to a 1996 documentary that aired on MTV in which O'Donnell made a Biblical argument against self-pleasure based on Jesus's exhortation that lust in the heart is the same as adultery.

In a slam on another prominent conservative's family, Kimmel joked that, "I have a feeling Christine O'Donnell opposes masturbation in the same way Bristol Palin opposes premarital sex." Bristol Palin, of course, had a baby out of wedlock and now publicly advocates abstinence before marriage.