How to bring the campaign to FIRE DAVID LETTERMAN to your local Tea Party

Posted byCynthiaYockey 37 Comments on How to bring the campaign to FIRE DAVID LETTERMAN to your local Tea Party

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If you want conservatives to be able to field the best and brightest candidates, there’s something you can do at your Tea Party to make that happen: send the message that sexism and attacks on the children of people you disagree with are career suicide. The way to do that is to make an example of David Letterman, who attacked Gov. Palin and her daughters on June 8 and 9, then made sneering, sham apologies on June 10 and 15. He resumed his attacks only four days later. We MUST do the work required to get David Letterman fired!

Here are two things YOU can bring to your local Tea Party to help get David Letterman fired:

  1. Copies of contact info in the file at the end of this post. It lists the top executives for CBS and three major Letterman sponsors to show people where to write to get Letterman fired.
  2. A petition to CBS to fire David Letterman for attacking the children of a politician because he disagrees with her. (The privacy statement for the petitions should let signers know that this list will only be used to present copies to CBS and Letterman sponsors and to keep them informed of the progress of this campaign.)

Whether or not Gov. Palin is your favorite candidate, if we tolerate the degrading and sexist remarks Letterman made about her as looking like a “slutty flight attendant” and his fantasizing about her daughter getting “knocked up” while attending a baseball game with her mother, we are telling every single one of our candidates that when they stand up for us they are putting their children in harm’s way. We also are telling our candidates that when they stand up for us, we will not stand up for them.

This is NOT the way to attract the best and brightest candidates. However, it IS the way to tell our ideological opponents that they can beat us up and take our lunch money whenever they want. And that message will multiply the number and viciousness of the bullies attacking us and our candidates. IT. MUST. STOP. NOW.

That is why it is important to persist in the campaign to get David Letterman fired. It is an extremely efficient and cost-effective way to improve the level of courtesy in public discourse.

If you do not know why there’s such a fuss about Letterman, here are some helpful links:

A Conservative Lesbian: “Apology, schmopology — FIRE DAVID LETTERMAN!” This post explains why Letterman’s attacks on Gov. Palin and her children affect all women and everyone Letterman disagrees with.

A Conservative Lesbian: “Your handy ‘FIRE DAVID LETTERMAN’ kit, part two.” This post explains the hierarchy of things that are the most effective to do to get Letterman fired from an e-mail to me by Sebastian Gray of HillBuzz.

A Conservative Lesbian: “Your handy ‘FIRE DAVID LETTERMAN’ kit, part one.” This post contains video of Letterman’s original insults.

HillBuzz: “Why persistence matters when facing down Corporate America, by Sebastian Gray, for Gray Matters.” This inspiring post will make you invulnerable to defeatist trolls. It explains what to do, why to do it and how persistence ultimately prevails. (Note: HillBuzz is a blog by centrist Democrat gay men in Chicago who campaigned for McCain/Palin after the nomination was stolen from Hillary Clinton. Consider them staunch friends and allies — they’ve earned our trust. Plus they have the most impressive dirt on Obama.)

HillBuzz: “How to write to corporate America.” Excellent lessons in practical activism: “If you want to get through to corporate America, this is the mindset [of persistence] your readers need to have: they will resist you, and try to ignore you, and most definitely laugh at you in their boardrooms…but if you are persistent and you keep writing them, and writing them, and writing them, then you will ultimately scare the living daylights out of them.”

HillBuzz: “We hope Republicans see that the Alinsky-Al Sharpton methods work.” The money quote: “There is absolutely nothing more important than hitting back HARD every time the opponent takes even the slightest swing at you.”

HillBuzz: “The REAL difference between Republicans and Democrats — Dems know how to work the system by Sebastian Gray for Gray Matters.” Money quote: “It will take a month to really hurt David Letterman — a month of sustained letter writing and calling to every one of his advertisers letting them know that their decision to stand with Letterman means they support the notion that statutory rape of a 14 year-old girl is ‘funny,’ and that later calling this same 14-year-old girl ‘one of Eliot Spitzer’s prostitutes’ is also funny.”

To do your part to get David Letterman fired, print and bring letters for your fellow Tea Partiers to sign calling for advertisers to drop their sponsorship of “Late Night with David Letterman” and for CBS to fire David Letterman immediately.

H/T Instapundit: to find your local Tea Party, click here and look on the right under the banner for “Find an Event.” You also can register your Tea Party to be listed there.

Here is the “Fire David Letterman” Kit, Part 3, as a PDF file that you can print and download — feel free to make copies and distribute them at your local Tea Parties. Be sure and talk to your local Tea Party organizers to ask if you may have a few minutes at the microphone to explain why we MUST get CBS to FIRE DAVID LETTERMAN!:

How to Get David Letterman FIRED

Update, 7/03/09: Thank you, Smitty, for the “Headline” link to this post from The Other McCain.

Update, 7/03/09: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Thank you, Prof. Reynolds!

37 replies on “How to bring the campaign to FIRE DAVID LETTERMAN to your local Tea Party”

  3. Pingback: Tea Party Petitions. Sample Letter to Kellogg’s: Stop Advertising on Letterman. Cynthia Yockey has “Fire David Letterman Kit.” « Rosita the Prole

  6. Shouldn’t we just wait for his show to get canceled due to low ratings?

    I would think it’d be faster than giving him a bump with unneeded publicity.

  7. Pingback: Instapundit » Blog Archive » CYNTHIA YOCKEY: The bullies will multiply unless we get David Letterman fired. With advice on what…

  8. Keep up the fight. There are MANY of us with you.

    CBS, fire the misogynist bigot, David Letterman.

  9. Some years ago, Tammy Bruce wrote a great book called “The New Thought Police” — it was about how left-wing pressure groups had become the new oppressors of speech. I thought it was a great book….and I really don’t want to see the conservative movement go down that same path to nowhere. Al Sharpton and the like got Don Imus fired — and to what end?

    I don’t think David Letterman’s going to be fired. Whether or not he should be fired is for CBS to figure out. His Palin jokes were crude, to say the least. But I don’t see what his being fired accomplishes.

    Now, I’ll confess that Sarah Palin isn’t exactly my cup of tea as a candidate. But I’d support her if she got the Republican nod in 2012. That said, I don’t think “bullies” like Letterman are bad for her political fortunes. If anything, they help her.

    1. Scott,

      Letterman attacked Gov. Palin’s children. Others are attacking Trig, her son with Down syndrome. Attacking the children of people you disagree with to drive them out of the marketplace of ideas is absolutely intolerable. This is how crime families and dictators control their enemies. We MUST make it career suicide to attack children. Why do I have to keep explaining this? Has our nation lost its moral compass?

      Also — tolerating the sexism of the attacks on both Gov. Palin and Sec. Clinton is wrong and has to stop.

      Cynthia

  10. Letterman is a symptom, not the cause, and not a particularly important symptom. More damaging are the hacks who endlessly file bogus “ethics” complaints. Infinitely more damaging are the “journalists” who amplify these attacks while oh-so-carefully stifling any negative information about leftists.

    We have to either chose to fight on the same battlefield or chose to take the fight to a field of our choosing. Those who lust for power over us will not abandon working tactics, no matter how many of their lackeys we can force into early — and luxurious — retirement.
    .-= Rob Crawford´s last blog ..DtE: Initial Set-up =-.

  11. I don’t generally approve of firing someone on any grounds except poor performance, but I agree that something must be done. I therefore promise never to laugh at another Letterman joke. That won’t be too tough for me, since I have yet to laugh at even one.

  12. I respectfully disagree with this campaign. It helps instill the idea that someone who says something stupid and nasty should be fired if enough people complain about it. Given the Don Imus brouhaha and other similar situations, this is only going to diminish the freedom of speech which belongs to everyone, however casually vicious and unpleasant. The idea that it’s OK to do this is one reason among many others why I am a former liberal.
    I am certainly not offering any brief for Letterman; I didn’t watch him before and I am not planning on starting. For one thing I don’t think he’s very funny and I hardly have a demanding sense of humor–I think the “Police Academy” movies are gems of the art. But I would prefer not to participate in an effort to get him fired because the free speech he indulges in is vile and disrespectful.

    1. Alex,

      I understand wanting to protect freedom of speech. But there are legitimate limitations on speech. For example, “fighting words“:

      Fighting words are words intentionally directed toward another person which are so venomous and full of malice as to cause the hearer to suffer emotional distress or incite him/her to immediately retaliate physically. Fighting words are not an excuse or defense for a retaliatory assault and battery. However, if they are so threatening as to cause apprehension, they can form the basis for a lawsuit for assault, even though the words alone don’t constitute an assault.

      The utterance of fighting words is not protected by the free speech protections of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The words are often evaluated not only by the words themselves, but the context in which they are spoken. Courts generally impose a requirement that the speaker intended to cuase a breach of the peace or incite the hearer to violence.

      What Letterman did was attack teenage girls about their sexuality and hold them up to world ridicule. I do not think the Founders would object to saying that he crossed a line and must pay with his career. You also have to understand that this truly was a form of terrorism to young women. And it is a form of terrorism to every parent thinking of entering the political arena — their children will be destroyed with impunity by their foes because their friends will not stand up for them.

      Think of the French killing all the young boys in camp after the Battle of Agincourt in Henry V. This is what Letterman and Vanity Fair and the Trig Truthers are doing. We must strike back. We are fighting for the life of this country. Our candidates must know we will not let anyone go after their children because we will destroy their careers instantly if they do.

      Oh, by the way, the person I would most like to see take the place of Letterman is — wait for it — Don Imus.

      Cynthia

  13. Somebody’s idea of punishing bad behaviour is to get Dave Letterman fired? No. I’d bet major money that Todd Palin’s first impulse was to get on a plane for NYC and whup Dave’s ass 7 or 8 different ways. And that’s exactly what he should have done, against the advice of his wife’s handlers, I’m sure. When a weasel attacks your kid on national TV, you’re gonna gin up a letter-writing campaign to get him fired? Check Andrew Jackson and Aron Burr for much better ideas. Of course they lived in the original, free America, not today’s version, where most male behaviour is prohibited by law.

  14. I guess your right about the problem with it hurting finding good candidates. This lefty bullying keeps conservatives out of politics… They even slime high ranking people working in the campaigns…

  15. IMO decency in politics has just died. Governor Palin has no national political future, and this will be blamed on the vicious attacks on her children, i.e., we will see such attacks over and over again now that it has succeeded the first time. More importantly, it succeeded with minimal (or not) attempts by the media and the party which benefited from the attacks to decry the viciousness at the time. No female candidate with minor children will be safe from this in the future – their children will be targets for attack. From now it will be “Just win, baby,” and “The only rule is there are no rules.”

    1. Tom Holsinger,

      Gov. Palin totally has a national political future. Of the four candidates in the race for president in 2008, she was by far the most qualified to be president. If she had started campaigning when Obama did, she would have pounded him into the ground.

      Obama will clear the field of any potential Democratic rivals. I don’t think Sec. Clinton will ever get the stink of being associated with him off her career. So it’s really only Obama on the Democratic side. For the Republicans, Gov. Palin still is the most qualified and charismatic candidate we have. I just have to repeat, she was FAR more qualified to take the oath of office on Jan. 20 than Obama was. AND, if Gov. Palin were president right now, she would not have quadrupled our deficit, or nationalized the car industry, and the stock market would be above 10,000 and unemployment below 8 percent because business people would know they could trust her grasp of capitalism and they could plan for the future. The economy is in a death spiral of stagnation under Obama because he hates capitalism and business people can’t plan for the future because they don’t like what they do know of Obama’s plans for the economy and they are afraid of what they don’t know about all the other abominations he’s got up his sleeve. But if Gov. Palin were president right now, our economy would be well on the way to recovery. Plus, Kim Jung Il would not be screwing with a president who’s been able to blow the head off the Easter bunny since she was 10.

      If Teddy Kennedy can survive murdering his mistress, Gov. Palin can come back after a couple of bad interviews. We need her. For God’s sake, if there’s something conservatives think she needs to make her a better candidate, we should be giving it to her or creating the conditions where she can obtain it.

      Cynthia

  16. Cynthia,

    IMO Governor Palin’s resignation is a game-ender for her national elective career, though even now she would be a great Energy Secretary in a Republican administration. I’ve been politically involved for 41 years (first managed a campaign, a county presidential primary one, in 1968, and won it with the second biggest margin in the state for my guy), and gave up a prospective career as a campaign consultant because I didn’t have the belly for it. Winning one campaign required that I break up my candidate’s marriage because his wife was killing his chances, and I was friends with both of them.

    Governor Palin had been well-positioned to be Romney’s running mate in 2012, and to get the nomination in her own right thereafter. But not after this, I’m afraid. This is not the place for a discussion of Republican Party politics and political styles. She’s toast.

    And the country is in for an awful time with the lesson the successful attacks on her family has taught. I recommend you study Spanish history 1919-36.

    1. Tom Holsinger,

      With respect, I’m not buying it. Gov. Palin has a great future before her. Instapundit linked Daily Pundit here, who explains how Gov. Palin can go forward to the presidency.

      This is the beginning.

      Cynthia

  17. Mr. Letterman made an error in judgment and told a bad joke. Not the first time, won’t be the last. He didn’t “attack” anyone. Stop being so melodramatic. Republicans have much bigger issues to worry about than a late night TV host making a joke about a politician’s offspring.

  18. With all due respect Cynthia, former Gov. Palin hasn’t the intelligence, aptitude or experience to successfully run for President. Especially after quitting mid-term of her first term of Governor.

    Republicans needs to shake off this aversion to intelligence and field a candidate that can move the country forward with some new ideas. I wish I could name one…

    1. Chris,

      With all due respect, Camille Paglia, who knows from smart, deems Gov. Palin an extremely intelligent woman. She also says Katie Couric is dumber than a box of rocks.

      Just so you know.

      Cynthia

  19. Pingback: The Wide Awake Cafe » “It’s Sickening, Lenny”

  20. Cynthia: Great site, and inspiring words. Have a latte/sandwich on me.

    I just finished an e-mail exchange with a hard left Lib re Letterman. His closing comment was:

    “As for poor Willow, I’m going to knock one off for her this weekend while drinking a PBR. Is this a great country or what?”

    I understand the sentiments of some of your correspondents…it’s difficult to comprehend the depth of the hate, and you don’t really want to harsh yer mellow like that. But the truth is, some of these people are just like jihadists. They WANT destruction. We can talk all we want about “not wanting to be like them” but that won’t do much good if they get their way. Right now, the Clint Eastwood solution is the best solution. Thanks for your activism on this — I appreciate it.

  21. Cynthia,

    I immediately called my local CBS affiliate and told the General Manager he should get on the air and say he does not support the views of letterman, otherwise, I and my friends/family will call (and I read all his local advertisers on the local site) his bread and butter.

    Getting to CBS is good, but continuing the heat on local GM’s who carry a lot of clout (they pay CBS for programming) will do a lot of good as well.

    Media Bias can be addressed this way going forward. Local affiliates have a duty and responsibility to their communities—ABC, CBS, and NBC now have a duty to Obama and attacking Conservatives. They could care less about you, me, the folks reading here and obviously made Palin-bashing a [liberal] sport.

    1. Media Bias 101,

      Protesting to the local CBS affiliates does help, which is why I included in my PDF a URL to a Web site that lists their contact info. But there are over 200 local television markets, so be sure to contact both the national and local affiliate CBS executives. The easy way to do this is, when you write to a national executive of CBS or a sponsor, include the top executives from your local CBS affiliate in the cc list and send them copies of your letters. This makes them afraid of dismissing you. Click the link to the HillBuzz post, “How to write to corporate America,” for more details.

      Cynthia

  22. Pingback: One of Us? « From the Second Balcony

  23. It’s over. You lost.

    Fork, stick it in, done, etc.

    Letterman is here to stay.

  25. I don’t know. Would it be better to hasten the downfall of CBS by continuing to pay him an absurd salary and budget for his clown act or get him off the air? On the other hand, my favorite program, NCIS, is on CBS as well and making it money.

    I really don’t see much sense in making Letterman a martyr for the left. I don’t think that they would learn much from it if he did get fired. If the American people haven’t gotten the point by now, I don’t think there’s much hope for them.

    1. AST,

      I love “NCIS” and feel your pain.

      Letterman cannot be allowed to get away with destroying people he doesn’t like by going after their children. He cannot be allowed to get away with vicious sexism. He’ll never pull off the martyr act once people know just how much he stinks.

  26. I hope Letterman gets fired. Absolutely. Positively. Fired, never to work again.

    However, it ain’t gonna happen, at least, not by attacking Letterman. CBS will keep him employed because Letterman represents the views of CBS. NBC will keep Olberman because he represents the views of NBC. They have plenty of money because we continue to give it them. Conservatives subsidize the instruments of our own destruction.

    We do business with companies that advertise on local ABC, NBC, and CBS affiliates, which they in turn pass on to the national offices. If we/you/anyone wants to hurt these companies, we have to cut off their revenue at the source: local advertising.

    How long would these companies stay in business if 25% of their local affiliates went out of business? 33%? Act locally, hurt them globally. Stop subsidizing our own destruction.

  27. Regarding David Letterman and his smart aleck remarks. I filed a complaint with the FCC. Easy to do, fyi, Here’s the web address –
    http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm

    If there’s one thing a network does not want, it’s complaints about them to the FCC. The airwaves belong to the people, and if enough of us complain about Letterman, that will get both CBS and the FCC attention!

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