Inspired by Letterman? Senator John Kerry Insults Governor Palin

For those of you wondering why many of us think that David Letterman's disgraceful comments of June 8, 2009 about Governor Palin and her daughter require more than a belated apology, consider this:

The failure of CBS to hold Mr. Letterman accountable for his comments in any way sends a signal to politicians and media figures everywhere: It's ok, apparently, to continue this onslaught of coarse and crude comments about Governor Palin.

Case in point:

Yesterday the ignoble Senator John Kerry hurled a gratuitous insult the Governor's way.

An Excerpt from the Website of Sue Hassett, the Self Published Author Suing Elisabeth Hasselbeck

Here's an excerpt from a website that purports to be of Sue Hassett, the woman suing Elisabeth Hasselbeck for plagiarism.

I am 45 years old I am from Cape Cod Massachusetts. I am almost a hundred percent Irish. I have been a self employed floor installer for 25 years. For the past 5 years I have been unable to work because of such a servere case of Celiac Disease that left me struggling for my life. My struggle did have to be this hard, I was misdiagnose for almost 20 years. My reason for writing this book is to help other people so their struggle does not have to be so hard or go on so long. Gluten free living can be a very healthy way to live. Cooking is a big passion in my life and I want to help others with that as well. The most important thing of all about the Down sydrome, Epeleptic, Autistic and children with Celiac Disease who I can help through this book as well as through my cooking.

A gold star to the blogreader who accurately identifies the total number of spelling and grammar errors in the paragraph above.

UPDATE:

Sandra Robins offers her analysis of the plagiarism claims here. Her conclusions: items cited as examples of plagiarism look much more like facts "in common knowledge".

CURIOUS FACTS

The attorney representing Ms. Hassett contributed $1,000 to Senator John Kerry in 2004, according to a search done at the Huffington Post FEC Records search site.

I'm beginning to wonder if this suit is just a case of a lone opportunist, or might be part of the pattern of ongoing left wing attacks against conservative women.

ADDITIONAL CURIOUS FACTS

The ISBN Book Number of the edition of Ms. Hassett's book, the one she claims to have sent to Ms. Hasselbeck in April of 2008, is different from the ISBN Book Number of the edition of Ms. Hassett's book currently available at Amazon, which lists a publication date of April 2009. The publisher, Xlibris, is a pay for service printer and publisher used by self publishing authors.

It does not appear that Ms. Hassett marketed the April 2008 edition of her book.

Johnson and Johnson, David Letterman, and Corporate Community Responsibility

Johnson and Johnson, the consumer goods giant that claims to be in support of American families, continues to dodge responsibility for its steady advertising on the David Letterman show since June 8 when Letterman made the offensive comments about Governor Palin and her daughter.

Yesterday, Johnson and Johnson completely failed to respond in a meaningful way to the thousands of emails and phone calls sent by members of the Fire David Letterman Movementasking them to issue a statement that they would not advertise further on Letteman until CBS held him to the same level of accountability they held Don Imus.

It's pretty clear that the company at present has no intention of responding. Perhaps they think that the loyalty of their customers who find Letterman's comments offensive something that isn't an important consideration.

Which is another reason why we should re-double our efforts today. Those of you interested in specific action steps can go to our website, www.FireDavidLetterman.com, sign up for the Facebook Group, and can see the action plan for today there.

The products Johnson and Johnson advertises on Letterman are:

Listerine
Aveeno
KY Brands

In addition to making the calls to Johnson and Johnson executives, please make a point of stopping by your local grocery store and letting them know you won't be purchasing these or any other Johnson and Johnson products for the duration.

For those of you tracking the shallow nature of Johnson & Johnson's commitment to "family values" consider the following: I have verified that the national organization they referenced in their emails of their commitment to "family values" on television -- The National Council for Families and Television -- wants nothing to do with the Letterman controversy. That small organization focuses merely on providing information on health issues to production professionals in the television industry involved in the creation of prime time programming.

It would be nice to see Johnson & Johnson actually act in a way that is consistent with the principles and values they claim to represent !

Why the Fire David Letterman Movement is Targeting Johnson and Johnson Today, Monday June 22

If you read the corporate credo prominently displayed on the corporate web site of Johnson and Johnson, you might have guessed that they would have been the first major sponsor to drop advertising on the David Letterman Show.

You would be wrong, though.

Embassy Suites, Southwestern Airlines, and Hellman's beat them to the punch.

And Johnson and Johnson has maintained a steady advertising presence on Letterman between June 10, when Letterman made his offensive comments about Sarah Palin and her daughter, and this past Friday, June 19. Johnson and Johnson has continued to advertise three key "family friendly" products during this period: Listerine, Aveeno, and KY Brands.



Here's what the company calls its corporate credo:

We believe our first responsibility is to the doctors, nurses and patients, to mothers and fathers and all others who use our products and services...We are responsible to the communities in which we live and work and to the world community as well.

Apparently, Johnson and Johnson considers their steady advertising on David Letterman part of being responsible members of the community.

The offensive comments were made by Letterman on June 8.

According to the website Watchful Raven, Johnson and Johnson advertised on Letterman on June 10.

It appears that Mr. Letterman's comments didn't bother the advertising executives at Johnson and Johnson, because they advertised on his program the next day, Thursday, June 11, and the day after that, Friday, June 12, and continued advertising on the day of his second "heartfelt" apology, Monday, June 15.

Here's how Johnson and Johnson responded to emails this past week asking the company to stop advertising on Letterman:

"Johnson and Johnson takes a firm stand regarding the quality of television programming in which its commercials appear and supports the National Council for Families and Television...

With the help of our advertising agencies, a conscientious effort is made to screen all programs prior to broadcast. As a result of our screening, we have frequently withdrawn ads from television shows in the past and we will continue to monitor programming in the same manner in the future...

Your concern will be directed to network personnel. However, the most effective comment on programming is direct action by viewers. Therefore, we would urge you to communicate your feelings directly to the network... "

If that response doesn't sound enough like a corporation passing the buck, consider the significance of the national organization it cites as the group it supports -- "The National Council for Families and Television". Sounds like that must be a large organization working tirelessly to maintain standards on television, right ?

According to this website, that might not be quite right.

It's a little organization with an annual budget of $350,000 run out of a storage room in the Los Angeles office of the Leo Burnett Advertising Agency. OK, I have no proof that it's run out of a storage room, but it's hard to find an actual website for the organization, so you make your own conclusions.

Better yet, send me the link for the website, and I'll post it here.

Here's how the one website I could find with any information about the organization describes it:

The National Council for Families and Television is an advisory board comprised of television producers, writers, and programming executives; advertisers; educators. [It] aims to enhance the quality of life for families and children by positively affecting the creation and uses of primetime television entertainment. [It] conducts seminars, symposia, and invitational weekends where television creators meet with experts to discuss issues that are important to the American family.

This agency, in its stated purpose, is only focused on primetime television, which is earlier than the Letterman Show. So the executives at Johnson and Johnson are sending out generic emails to concerned citizens that represent little more than a condescending pat on the head.

All of the above goes to explain why www.FireDavidLetterman.com is going to focus its energies today, Monday, June 22, 2009 on sending a message to the executives at Johnson and Johnson.

Here's the message:

We are asking Johnson and Johnson to make a public statement on Monday, June 22 that the company is stopping ALL advertising on the Late Show with David Letterman immediately until CBS has held Mr. Letterman to the same degree of accountability to which the company held Don Imus.

Until Johnson and Johnson makes such a public statement, our message to them is clear. We won't buy their products and we will make a point of going into every grocery store in the country and telling that same message to the manager of the local grocery store.

Here's the phone numbers and email addresses.

Main Number: 1-888-222-0182 (Johnson and Johnson Healthcare Products)
Kristina Chang, Public Relations, 973-385-4370, kchang12@conus.jnj.com
Steve Schonberg, Edelman PR, 212-704-4494, stephen.schonberg@edelman.com

Drop me a line here and let me know what you hear back !

UPDATE

Our campaign appears to be working today. Johnson and Johnson's website is now experiencing "technical difficulties."

Here's what the site says now:

"JNJ.com is experiencing technical difficulties. Please try the site again later. We apologize for any inconvenience that you may experience as a result of this service disruption."

Letterman Sends a Message: I'll Tell a Joke about Sarah Palin Any Time I Want

Last night David Letterman told us exactly what he thinks of the www.FireDavidLetterman.com Movement. Our purpose is to persuade CBS to hold Mr. Letterman to the same standard of accountability for the offensive comments he made about Sarah Palin and her daughters that they held Don Imus to for his offensive comments a few years ago.

Remember, Don Imus made the offensive comments, apologized, and after the apology CBS fired him. We think CBS did the right thing then.

Mr. Letterman has apologized to Governor Palin and her daughters, and the Governor has accepted the apology. Many in the mainstream media think this closes the book on the issue.

We don't, and have mounted a very successful campaign to get advertisers to drop sponsorship of Letterman.

We can count 3 advertisers so far that have dropped him, and one that may have dropped him.

Off the Letterman sponsorship list now:

(1) Hellman's
(2) Embassy Suites
(3) Southwest Airlines

Off the Letterman sponsorship list, for now at least, in addition, is the Olive Garden Restaurant chain, though we are awaiting word from them as to whether they are dropping him temporarily, permanently, or until Letterman is held more accountable by CBS.

In his monologue last night, David Letterman sent us a message.

He told a joke about Sarah Palin.

The joke was par for the course for Mr. Letterman, about men dressing up like the Governor in a parade. The joke itself was not of the kind he told earlier, the one that launched this entire episode.

But it struck me that Mr. Letterman and his writers made a very conscious decision to include a joke about Governor Palin last night.

Why, I wonder, didn't he think it might make more sense to simply not refer to the Governor at all in his show for awhile? After all, he delivered his second "heartfelt and sincere apology" only 4 days ago.

My personal thoughts on the matter are as follows.

Mr. Letterman was sending us a message, and the message was as follows:

You can protest and try and boycott my advertisers all you want. I don't care. I'll tell any kind of joke I want about Sarah Palin any time I want.

If my assesment is correct, it's only a matter of time before Mr. Letterman crosses the line yet again. All the more reason for www.FireDavidLetterman.com to continue our efforts to boycott Mr. Letterman's sponsors.

Up next in our boycott efforts: Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg's, and several more !

Another Advertiser Abandons Letterman: Southwest Airlines Confirms it will No Longer Advertise on the Late Show

You can read the full story at www.FireDavidLetterman.com.

The source here is a series of emails sent by the Southwest Airlines Vice President of Communications and Strategic Outreach.

So, unlike the Olive Garden, where a Manager of Media Relations is not authorized to speak for the company, we're pretty sure that a Vice President of Communications and Strategic Outreach is authorized to speak on behalf of Southwest Airlines.

Olive Garden Equivocates on Letterman

Apparently, the Olive Garden Manager of Media Relations is not an authorized spokesman for the company.

That role seems to be reserved for the DIRECTOR of Media Relations.

In any event, that's what Olive Garden wants us to believe now.

Hard to keep track of Olive Garden's definite response to the calls by www.FireDavidLetterman.com for advertisers to drop sponsorship of Letterman until he's held fully accountable for his disgraceful statements.

The latest, according to Olive Garden's DIRECTOR of Media Relations appears to be a finely parsed statement along the following lines (I'm using my own words here):


We didn't cancel our ads on Letterman for the rest of 2009. We are merely following our original schedule, which didn't include any planned advertising after June 15, 2009 anyways. We might advertise later in 2009 on his show but we might not. Depends. Sort of. Maybe.

Politico has a great follow up story you can read here.

Update:

I just left a message on the voicemail of the Olive Garden Director of Media Relations asking him to contact me and give the exact statement of the company on this issue. I promised him in my message to post his response verbatim at our website, www.FireDavidLetterman.com .

Hellman's and Olive Garden Drop Letterman Sponsorship: First Two of Targeted Top Ten Advertisers to Drop Letterman

Olive Garden stops further advertising on David Letterman for 2009 and Hellman's cancels all online advertisements on Letterman.

Story at www.tcotreport.com

Online Fire David Letterman Rally to target #3 on the list of Targeted Top Ten Advertisers to Drop Letterman starts Monday. Details at www.FireDavidLetterman.com

Who do you nominate to be targeted as the #3 Advertiser to Drop David Letterman?

Online Fire David Letterman Rally Saturday June 20

For those of you online who couldn't make yesterday's Fire David Letterman Rally in New York City, here's a chance to let CBS know how you feel.

Go to www.firedavidletterman.com and sign up to attend online.

Fire David Letterman Rally Tuesday in NYC at Ed Sullivan Theater

Please attend the Fire David Letterman Rally.

It will be held this Tuesday, June 16, at 4:30 pm, on the sidewalks outside the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York City, located at 1697 Broadway. The rally will begin an hour before David Letterman tapes his Tuesday show.

For more details, please go to www.firedavidletterman.com

The Differences Between Don Imus and David Letterman

(1) Imus actually apologized for his inappropriate comments.

(2) Imus comments were off the cuff. Letterman comments were planned and rehearsed.

(3) CBS fired Don Imus.

(4) MSNBC fired Don Imus.

(5) Imus verbally attacked women over 18. Letterman verbally attacked a 14 year old girl.

(6) CBS boss Les Moonves "deeply upset & revulsed" by Imus, silent on Letterman.

Fire David Letterman -- Sign the Sponsor Boycott Letter

More details available here:

www.firedavidletterman.com

By subscribing to this list, you are adding your name to a letter that will be sent to CBS and all sponsors of David Letterman's Late Night Show stating that you will not purchase any product sold by a sponsor of his program until CBS fires him!

Sign up here to join now:

Name:


Email:

David Letterman Should be Fired for His Sexist Attacks on Sarah Palin's 14 Year Old Daughter

Yesterday the mean and nasty David Letterman tried to talk his way out of the self-inflicted controversy caused by his sexist attack on Sarah Palin's 14 year old daughter.

Here's the big lie he told to justify his latest coarse behavior:

“We were, as we often do, making jokes about people in the news and we made some jokes about Sarah Palin and her daughter [Bristol]... and now they’re upset with me…” Letterman says on tonight's show. "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.... Am I guilty of poor taste? Yes. Did I suggest that it was okay for her 14-year-old daughter to be having promiscuous sex? No." Saying he hopes he's "cleared part of this up," Letterman extended an invitation to Palin to come on the show as a guest.

Even if he was initially misinformed as to the identity of the daughter who attended the Yankee game with Governor Palin (all reports agree, it was 14 year old Willow, not 18 year old Bristol), Letterman sets yet another low standard for televised vulgarity.

It's ok, apparently, to make jokes about raping an 18 year old girl, but not a 14 year old girl in his warped mind?

Time for CBS to fire this 62 year old vile man who thrives on sexually intimadating and threatening 14 year old girls in public.

And time for fair minded conservatives to BOYCOTT every sponsor of Letterman's Late Night Show. His time has come and gone.


UPDATE:

Here's a link to some of Letterman's sponsors.

Rules for Conservative Radicals

I offer these 15 Tactical Rules for Conservative Radicals , which I recommend for consideration by all Conservative Radicals, in addition to 9 of Saul Alinsky’s Tactical Rules that are as relevant for today’s Conservative Radicals as they are for today’s Left Wing Radicals.

The Conservative Radical’s Tactical Rules

1. It is better to be 85% right and quick than 100% right and slow.

2. Do what you can right now with the technologies, resources, and time immediately available to you.

3. Use free and cheap technologies at every opportunity

4. Observe Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment – do not engage in personal attacks of fellow conservatives in public forums. Anything you say will be ammunition for the left. Personal disputes among fellow conservatives are best handled privately.

5. When communicating through any public forum on the internet--Twitter, blogs, websites – remember that anything digital lives forever, so refrain from the use of profanity, personal attacks, or statements that are factually unsupportable.

6. Publicly engage with the left only when there is a clearly identified goal that has a reasonable likelihood of being accomplished through the engagement.

7. Privately engage with the left when you are confident you are dealing with a person of honor and good will whose personal integrity has not been compromised by Saul Alinsky’s moral nihilism.

8. When engaging with the left let no falsehood go unchallenged.

9. When dealing with the left, look for opportunities to persuade open-minded opponents of the merits of conservatism.

10. When evangelizing to open minded members of the left, be a friendly teacher guiding your students towards conservatism, not an argumentative and arrogant haranguer bent on demonstrating your intellectual superiority.

11. Seek out opportunities to collaborate with like-minded conservatives through self organizing projects.

12. You earn a seat at the table of a self organizing project by showing up, doing the work, and collaborating effectively with your project colleagues.

13. Successful self-organizing projects are characterized by:

(a) rapid response consensus development of goals and tactics
(b) transparent real time communication between project colleagues
(c) rapid implementation of tactics by a core group of the most engaged project colleagues
(d) whose personal conduct is guided by the principles of project servant-leadership.

14. Once you have earned a seat at the table, you have a right to participate in the development of a consensus. But if you don’t show up to participate, you lose the right to complain about decisions made by the group in your absence. The process drives forward relentlessly on a 24-7 time clock

15. When conflict arises within your self organized project, and the conflict is not resolvable, leave the project, start your own new project with those who are of like mind, and wish your former project colleagues Godspeed.

Copyright 2009 by Michael Patrick Leahy

To be included in my new book Rules for Conservative Radicals, to be published by C-Rad Press on July 31, 2009

9 Tactical Rules from Saul Alinsky that are as relevant for today’s Conservative Radicals as they are for today’s Left Wing Radicals

1. Never go outside the experience of your project colleagues

2. Wherever possible, go outside the experience of the opposition

3. Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.

4. A good tactic is one that your project colleagues enjoy.

5. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag

6. Keep the pressure on

7. The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.

8. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

9. Make the opposition live up to their own book of rules.

Note: I have changed the word “people” in rules 1 and 4 to the words “project colleagues”, and the word “enemy” in rules 2 and 9 to “opposition”.

Source: Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky, 1971

Obama Has "Created or Saved" 140 Million Jobs! (Orwellian Translation: He's LOST 3.5 million jobs since the end of 2008)

President Obama's Orwellian use of the English language continues to astound.

Obama doesn't merely "create" jobs -- he "creates or saves" them.

What exactly does that mean ?

It means he counts as a "victory" a job that isn't lost.

Total civilian employment in the last quarter of 2008 was 144 million. Total civilian employment in May 2009 was down to 140.5 million.

Obama Orwellian Translation:

Even though I can't run a lemonade stand, I know how to count. I will claim victory by claiming I've "created or saved" 140.5 million jobs. It would be too embarassing to admit that my foolish and irresponsible stimulus policies have actually LOST 3.5 million jobs !

A very weak argument against the Bill of Federalism

A blogger associated with the John Birch Society has criticized the "riskiness" of the Bill of Federalism, which calls on state legislatures to petition Congress to hold a Constitutional Convention to consider ratification of 10 amendments to restore the original intent of the Constitution.

Here's the preferred strategy this blogger recommends:


Our strategy for lowering taxes and reducing the size and cost of government is to create enough grassroots pressure to force Congress to adhere to the Constitution as it is now

As Dr. Phil might ask, "How's that working for you?"