Clearly, the host of “Celebrity Apprentice” has trod some ground no expected him to, and the strong reception to his message has the Left discombobulated (to say the least).

The first problem the Left faces with Trump is that he’s a known commodity. All of America knows him and, like him or not, they know he’s not a racist or a crazed member of the political fringe. He doesn’t pretend to be what he’s not, and he’s very confident in what he is. In this latter area he is actually reminiscent of Rush Limbaugh: a man who drives the Left crazy by remaining true to himself and actually knowing what he claims to know. (The Left hates certitude.)

The next problem the Left faces with Trump is the fact he has been a success in the private sector. Thus, were he to officially declare his candidacy, one of the first things Obama’s team would have to do is figure out how they can survive presidential debates where Trump will have the opportunity to contrast his real-world, business knowledge with the failed socialism Obama has pawned off as “hope and change.”

And another problem the Left has with Trump is the fact that he is not ashamed to say things other people think but never say. From asking why Obama has been unable to produce a birth certificate to wondering aloud if Obama is a Muslim to flatly saying Obama has given us “a terrible presidency,” Trump is vocalizing things many others are afraid to vocalize for fear of the backlash (unles you’re Chris Matthews).

Proof of the Left’s fear of Trump is evident in the way they’ve responded to his line of questions and strong opinions. Instead of explaining why there’s been no birth certificate, people like Gail Collins call Trump a “birther” to try to shame him into silence. They shield Obama on the religious issue by saying he’s a Christian because he prays. (Strangely, however, he doesn’t go to church or attend National Prayer Breakfasts.) And as for the “terrible presidency,” Obama has hired the great and powerful Al Sharpton to correct our understanding there.

Notice that in all these matters, and many others, the one thing the Left hasn’t been able to do is answer Trump’s questions head-on or prove his opinions invalid.

Moreover, their tactics have failed to accomplish the goal of shaming Trump into silence. For example, far from being quiet, Trump responded to Collins’ “birther” bit by saying: “I have great respect for Ms. Collins in that she has survived so long with so little talent.”

The bottom line is this folks: Trump is taking no prisoners. Obama’s minions know it, and little yelpers like Collins figure it out quickly enough once they take a cheap shot at “The Don.”

Whether Trump runs for president or not, one thing is for sure: he’s smoking these little Lefties out of their holes and luring them into the open where they’re vulnerable to defeat at the hands of facts and evidence.

Trump is my kind of celebrity. I like what he’s doing, and I love the fact that Obama’s bunch of pinheads are quaking in their bootsies.

Looks as though the roundtable discussion will feature Dana Loesch with… Bill Maher, Obama-inspired musician John Legend, and Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos.

Hrm. Dana Loesch all alone up against those three…

They’re gonna need more guys.

Details can be found here.

In this episode, “NewsBusted” covers: President Obama’s Approval Rating, Space Shuttle Program, Iran Sanctions, Israel, Russia, Chris Matthews, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill Ayers, Rubik’s Cube, Al Sharpton, and Roman Polanski.

[Ed. Note: Starting the week of March 15th NewsBusters will be moving to its new home at Big Journalism.]

In this episode, “NewsBusted” covers: President Obama’s Popularity, Job Losses, White House Parties, Hamid Karzai, Al Franken, New York Times, Contessa Brewer, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Ralph Lauren, and the People’s Choice Awards.

After enduring another self immolating Bill Maher monologue on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Alec Baldwin was asked if Rush Limbaugh is a racist. To which Alec fell into that trap so many of his peers have in recent days:

“I think you need to always distinguish the rank and file of the Republican Party and conservatives and voters from their media representation and media stars and I believe that the people who are in the media and prominent in the media in the conservative community, speaking on behalf of the Republican Party, have a very clear racist stripe through their commentary, consistently. Not just Limbaugh but all of those people. But I don’t think that their rank and file Republicans are like that.”

Well, at least he didn’t accuse all Republicans. I guess he wanted them to keep some of them watching his show.

If there’s a sure fire way to look old and busted in today’s media world it’s to make the sweeping generalization that people who disagree with your politics are racist. It’s such a 20th Century argument. Calling someone a racist with no proof is hack. It’s like calling someone evil just because they don’t agree with you. Oh, wait–the race card hustlers do that too! They look for any evidence they can, no matter how vague or slight, to blow up into an incident. And if they can’t find one, well, they just make it up.

None of the quotes attributed to Limbaugh were proven and in fact, they were retracted by the people who made the accusation.

But Baldwin, ever late to the game, had to throw it out there again. Way to be current, Alec! Got any Spiro Agnew accusations while you’re at it?

But let’s not pick on poor Alec, he’s not alone in his dated and lame arguments, We can add such youthful and hip (replacement candidates) as Jimmy Carter, Charlie Rangel, Maureen Dowd, Charlie Gibson, Bill Maher, Janeane Garofalo and Maxine Waters to the race card tournament. Just to name a few.

They want us to believe that anyone who disagrees with President Obama is a racist because he’s black. Hmm…that’s odd. Only two years ago the lefties didn’t think he was. That’s the power of magical thinking. You can change people’s color or invent quotes from thin air just by wishing them to be.

But it still makes you look like fools for doing it.

Fortunately, the president wisely came out and said that the critics of his policies are mostly not attacking him because of his race. He’s correct.

But there is a racist component here. And it’s actually coming from race card holders. They’re attacking Obama’s critics because of their race. They’re assuming that they’re all white. This is wrong for two reasons.

1. Not all of them are white, so in their minds, any Black, Asian, Latinos in the mix must be “race traitors,” which is a racist term.

2. It’s racist to assume white people’s motivations are always racist when it comes to people of color. A common claim from race card hustlers.

If white people were so racist they never would have abolished slavery, in fact, it’s an insult to the many who fought and died to end slavery. Oh, and by the way, the Republican party was founded on an abolition platform. President Abe Lincoln was a Republican.

If whites were so racist, they wouldn’t have voted for civil rights. Oh, and by the way, civil rights laws wouldn’t have passed without the help of Republicans. Many Democrats voted against the bills.

Oh, and by the way, it was progressive President Woodrow Wilson who segregated our military in the early 20th Century. He was a Democrat. Don’t you hate it when that happens? So was President Johnson who enslaved a several generations to the welfare state, which among other things devastated the black family. Progressives, and their social engineering. It has fail written all over it.

Calling Republicans racist when their current leader is black is as lame as calling Limbaugh a racist based on fabricated quotes that were already retracted.

Racism used to be such a radioactive thing. But because the left has so overplayed their hand, and used the race card to the point of hilarity, they’ve almost rendered it inert. People used to be cowed by the racism charge. Now they’re fighting back. Soon they will laugh at it. They risk making it cool to be called racist, when it’s lame-os that like to throw the term around.

When the left loses one of its most potent weapons, it becomes a laughing stock. It becomes the target of backlash.

They are the establishment now. They can’t blame Republicans now. The Democrats are in charge. As such, they can no longer hide behind the skirts of the oppressed. They are the oppressors.

Let’s face it, white guilt is based on a lie. Yes, you heard that right.

No other Western nation would have voted for a black man before America did. America is the least racist nation on earth. Why else do people of every color want to flock here?

Those who keep bringing up slavery and other things from generations past conveniently ignore the fact that those conditions were everywhere. Not just America. In many instances, it was much worse than here. In fact, slavery still exists in many other nations. At least America worked hard to change and improve ourselves. We’re ahead of the world in that regard.

The next time some politician or celebrity throws out the race card, they’ve revealed their irrelevance. They are old and busted.

The new hotness is to make them regret ever using it.

Even in these times when the once unthinkable is becoming increasingly unremarkable, the current controversy over whether Rush Limbaugh is potentially worthy to be an NFL owner crosses over from the simply outrageous to the utterly infuriating. I strongly believe that it also represents a seminal moment in our cultural history as well as the sad state of free speech in this country.

There are so many levels of insanity with this story that it is difficult to know where to begin.

First, the facts: Limbaugh is a part of a group that wants to buy the lowly St. Louis Rams so that the team will stay in Rush’s native Missouri. The group has not even made an official bid as of yet, is one of several potential buyers, and Rush would not even be the primary owner of the team.

Despite all of this, just the mere mention of his name has caused a literal hysteria in the public dialogue. Nearly everyone even remotely associated with the NFL (as well as many who have no direct connection at all) have expressed their, often completely ignorant, opinions on whether Rush is worthy to join the highly exclusive club of NFL owners.

The overwhelming view allowed to be expressed in the mainstream media has been irrationally negative towards Rush’s potential bid. The primary “justification” for these views has been the notion that Rush is somehow a racist and that because the league has a high percentage of black players that it would be wrong to have him be a part owner of a team.

What is the basis of this incendiary claim? Well, we all know (because the media tells us so) that strong conservatives are really racists so anything they say that sounds remotely racist must be presumed to be so. Therefore, because Rush resigned in 2003 from a position at ESPN because a legitimate observation about the media coverage of a black quarterback was deemed by Rush haters to somehow be “racist,” this is all the critics need to close the loop on their laughably inane circular argument.

Just after Limbaugh’s resignation, I wrote in my book “The Death of Free Speech” that Rush had made a big mistake because he was allowing the perception to be created that he was essentially, though unintentionally, admitting (by resigning without a fight) that he was indeed a “racist” and that this narrative would come back to haunt both him and the movement. Unfortunately, it appears that I was right.

But even more infuriating than the tactic of Rush’s opponents to take his past statements out of context (or, in some cases, just flat out make them up), is the audacity of those who have chosen to be most vocal about this issue.

It should go without saying that of the 300 million people in this country that Al Sharpton should be at the very back of the line when it comes to being the moral arbiter of who is or is not worthy of owning anything. The man was found guilty in a civil court for having blatantly lied when accusing an innocent man in the infamous Tawana Brawley case. That he is given any platform to speak on this or any other matter of social importance is a damning indictment of our entire society. And yet, here he is leading the charge in the cause to keep Limbaugh from simply buying property.

If that wasn’t enough, the first owner to speak out against the theoretical Limbaugh bid was Jim Irsay of the Indianapolis Colts. Irsay claims, “Sometimes when there are comments made that are inappropriate, incendiary, insensitive… It’s bigger than football. As a nation we have to watch the words that we say.”

Forgetting for a moment that Irsay clearly has no appreciation for free speech, any such comment on who would make a proper NFL owner coming from him fails to even pass the laugh test.

Ask the people of Baltimore about Irsay who helped his alcoholic and apparently insane father (who was known to drop profanities during live televised press conferences) take the Colts to Indianapolis in moving vans under the cover of darkness. I doubt anyone there will tell you Irsay is the model NFL owner. And by the way, under these bizarre, watered down, rules for racism, why was it not “racist” for the Colts to move from Baltimore to Indianapolis where the percentage of blacks in the neighborhood was exponentially smaller? (It should also be noted that there are quite a few black people in St. Louis who would like to keep their NFL team.)

Then there is the angle of who else is already an NFL owner. Al Davis is a clearly senile crazy man who has sued the league and moved his Raiders numerous times while turning them into an utter laughing stock on the field. But Davis is just the tip of the iceberg.

The transparent hypocrisy here could not have been more starkly displayed than on the pages of Wednesday’s USA Today. On the front page of their sports section the top headline was “Irsay, Goodell speak out against Limbaugh.” Directly under that article was a cover story on how the Miami Dolphins have incorporated numerous celebrities into their ownership team. Included among them are Marc Anthony, Gloria Estefan and the Williams’ sisters.

That’s right. Serena Williams, who recently threatened bodily harm to a lines woman on national television, is a part owner of the Dolphins. I must have missed the hand wringing from anyone associated with the NFL or the media about whether she was fit to be an NFL owner. Oh wait, I forgot. She is a black woman and is therefore beyond such scrutiny. After all, to even ask such questions would obviously be racist and, let’s face it, it’s no coincidence that the flock of celebrities picked to be Miami owners all happen to be members of strategically important minority groups.

Unfortunately, now that the momentum has started and it is more than safe (in fact, expected) for everyone involved to condemn Rush, the floodgates appear to be open. It frustrates the heck out of me that the Commissioner of the NFL has no fear at all of offending conservatives by bashing Rush. The reason? Largely because they tend to have day jobs and think for themselves, conservatives are really lousy at boycotts/protests. If a similar situation happened to say, Al Franken, the left would immediately be in attack mode and the apology would be immediate.

Quite simply, what is happening to Rush is beyond outrageous and frankly dangerous to the property and free speech rights of all Americans. This is so obvious that even Keith Olbermann (whose own appearance on Sunday night NFL telecasts should be seriously questioned) has somewhat supported Rush’s position here.

And yet my sense is that the general reaction from many conservatives is to not take this topic very seriously. Some seem to think the issue is frivolous or that Rush is doing this for publicity.

Folks, this is a huge deal. If Rush Limbaugh is not even allowed to be considered to be a minority owner of a property where his primary intent to help the community where he grew up, an incredibly dangerous precedent will have been set and the narrative that conservatism is synonymous with racist will be further cemented in the public consciousness.

Rush Limbaugh needs to fight this one right to the very end of the game, and we need to back him with everything we have.

If not, we will get what we deserve.

So sometimes, these Gregalogues write themselves.

I speak tonight of Al Sharpton, who just attacked Rush Limbaugh’s attempt to buy the St. Louis Rams (I believe it’s tetherball), sending a letter to commissioner Roger Goodell, saying the wildly popular conservative host has been “divisive.”

Divisive.

Now, I made a decision late in my odd career that any time Al Sharpton would enter the fray and make a charge like that, I would act as a one-man “Al Sharpton Historian.” My role: to give you background as to why there is no one on the planet less mentally or morally fit to make a statement about race (or anything, for that matter) than Al.

In a nutshell, he was largely responsible for the Tawana Brawley hoax. Now, if you were born in the 1980’s, you probably never heard about this 15-year-old black girl, but she went missing for four days back in 1987, eventually turning up covered in dog poop with racial slurs written all over her. She claimed she was repeatedly raped by up to six white men in the woods. One of them even had a badge. The then unknown and obese Al Sharpton saw an opportunity for quick fame (he was dead right on that one, by the by) and became an advisor to Brawley. Sharpton and his pals manipulated the event to horrific, freakish proportions, claiming Brawley had been raped 33 times by one prosecutor. Al also helped conjure up a conspiracy involving a creepy police cult that helped perpetrate the gang rape. But there was never any evidence, and the case fell apart. A grand jury called it all a hoax – and Sharpton was order to pay roughly 70 grand to the real victims. Others paid it for him.

So that concludes our “Al Sharpton History Minute.”

For the next “Al Sharpton History Minute,” wait patiently for a month or so – and whenever some kind of racial controversy arises, he’ll pop up like a blister, there to inflame but never heal.
At least he had good taste in track suits.

And if you disagree with me, then you’re probably a racist.

Tonight: Jim Norton, the lovely Anna David, Stephen Kruiser and Dr. Death himself, Michael Baden!

My whole childhood was like that. A lot of crazy stuff, a lot of running from police. Was a local sport, like train-hopping. But that’s all just the gritty side of Cambridge. And even though I’m a rank Righty today, I still love Harvard University all the way, the Square especially. It’s the Crossroads of the World. I was a total Harvard Square rat growing up. Harvard is the Bright Light of Olde Cantabrigia. Harvard was also very active in the community back then, and most likely still is today. Harvard hosted field trips to the campus from schools all over Cambridge. The Agassiz Museum was my favorite. Lots of dead bugs and dinosaur bones. That was Heaven to me. Still is.

So there it is. Cambridge Dark and Light. Of course, as a Harvard Square rat I ran into my fair share of elitist Harvard eggheads, both students and faculty, whose utter contempt for a lowlife Cambridge projects kid like myself could be felt with Hiroshima-like intensity. But given my many experiences on campus, and as a waif wayfarer on Harvard’s Challenge program, I believe most people at Harvard, both faculty and students, could not be more honorable or pure of heart and intent. I’m not going to smash that whole crate because of a few bad eggheads. Harvard has its troublemakers, too. Lots! Just ask former Harvard president Larry Summers. He was run out on a rail by militant feminists.

Fact is, I love Cambridge. Warts and all. Part of my heart and soul, and one of the most egalitarian cities on earth. So when news broke about Dr. Gates’ outrageous charges of racism, I immediately and most publicly called him a bold-faced liar. But not just in defense of my hometown or CPD. I called it based on personal experience. And I called it right on the money, did I not? See, some years back my brother and I, both drunk, were in a confrontation of my idiot drunken brother’s making with five Cambridge cops when I yelled “Your Mama!” at a black cop. We were arrested for disorderly conduct, cuffed, thrown into the paddy wagon and hauled off to the same jail as Dr. Skippy.

That incident took place not five blocks from Dr. Gates’ house. In short, I had experienced the exact same arrest for the exact same charge in the exact same neighborhood by the exact same PD. Who not actually there could have seen how the whole thing went down better? From yelling “Your Mama!” to cuffing to paddy wagon ride to booking in the same jail? Yet Dr. Gates’ hoax cry of racism at whom we now know is one of the state’s top racial profiling experts, President Obama’s Man Show suds-rinsing of Dr. Gates’ crime by sitting down white victim and black victimizer on an equal moral plane in sickening equivocating fashion, is not even the real monster here.

The real monster would have been if Al Sharpton brought his Traveling Racial Arsonist Show to town, which he was ready to do. Big Al lives for incidents like this to spark or fuel smoldering racially-tinged incidents into Towering Inferno proportions. Think about this. Had Officer Crowley been just some regular Officer Joe on the Beat, and not been able to provide the damning refutations of Dr. Gates’ hoax cry of racism, Cambridge, the city of my birth that I love warts and all, might at this very moment be going up in flames, both racial and literal, for Big Al’s race-mongering fun and profit. Just like Crown Heights and Freddy’s Fashion Mart. Nine dead in those two alone. And it would have all gone down over yet another foul race-baiting hoax, just like Tawana Brawley and Duke.

In my city? In my birthplace? He’ll have to kill me first! Over my dead body! Not a rare outcome when Big Al brings his racial gas cans and lighters to town. How Big Al a bullet did Cambridge just dodge? I’ll bet Big Al is breathing a sigh of relief as he watches Dr. Skippy burn in a fire of his own making, yet is even now scouring the American landscape for the Next Big Whitey Thing to torch to the skies. That’s who he is. A black David Duke, as Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe so aptly put it. What happens to the next racially-targeted innocent white police officer, his city and his peaceful neighborhoods, when said officer is NOT a racial profiling expert who teaches the subject?

Got an idea. And THAT is the monstrous 800-pound gorilla that is occupying and trashing the Obama Racial Harmony Room, to wit the all-too-profitable and most politically powerful black Lefty racial grievance-mongering Hate Whitey cottage industry in America. It’s got to go. The law, and the law alone, from the cop on the beat to the US Supreme Court, should deal with all crimes and legal matters of race, not the racists themselves. Kind of defeats the whole purpose, doesn’t it? They’re like the black radical version of the Klan, showing up with ropes and torches at even a whiff of white-on-black injustice, real or imagined, wherever it happens in America. Duke Lacrosse ring any bells?

In fact, black Lefty racial grievance-mongering is a HUGE business in America today. With a black President in a 72% white-majority nation, how sad is that? In this Obama Age of Racial Harmony, in particular? Tell me truly. What legal resources and avenues of redress do any and all minority Americans NOT have? The federal and state EEOCs, the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and a million other NGOs and government agencies exist, and even live, to redress real racial grievances to the fullest measure and extent of the law. As they should. For ALL races of Americans!

Since news on Dr. Gates first broke, I have been neck-deep in it. It has been my mission in life since to bring him down, and as many of his fellow career race-baiters and grievance-mongers who jumped all over this race-hoax abomination from the word go. Anderson Cooper’s AC360 show called me about my first damning oped on Dr. Gates. The Cambridge Chronicle is reprinting it Thursday. My reports are all on file at my article folder at Digital Journal, including one manic thirty-hour stretch when news was breaking insanely fast and furious.

Lots more deep background on Cambridge, and some very unsavory stuff on Dr. Gates et al. But this has all been a very unsavory episode, hasn’t it?

That monster is growing, people. Worst of all, with President Obama’s direct aiding an abetting by giving Get-Out-Of-Terrorizing-White-Voters-Free cards to the three Black Panther thugs whom career DOJ lawyers wanted to skin alive, and had default convictions in hand to do just that. Why did Obama do it? Aren’t white voters just as protected by the law as blacks in the Jim Crow South? Or are we witnessing a regression of the law in favor of black radicals? When you throw in Obama’s equivocation of Dr. Gates’ crime of yelling racial “Fire!” in a crowded country, it doesn’t look good.

A lot more background in my DJ reports, but here’s two related news items you may find interesting.

AL SHARPTON’S NIECE WANTS REPERCUSSIONS FOR SNITCH WHO CALLED 911

That would be Ms. Lucia Whalen, the woman who placed the 911 call, whom Brittany Sharpton wants revenge served cold on. Ms. Whalen has been insanely persecuted ever since that call, even though she never mentioned race until asked by CPD. Great. Rile up some whack job black racists to terrorize an elderly woman for doing a public service, even for Dr. Gates has it been a real break-in like the one he recently suffered. Like Uncle, Like Niece.

Here are some delightful insights from Facebook on NBBP poll watcher thug-in-chief Jerry Jackson, who will be right back terrorizing, er, I mean watching the polls in Philly:

DISTURBING CONTENT ON NBBP JERRY JACKSON’S FACE BOOK PAGE

‘Killin’ Crakkkas’ is very high on Mr. Jackson’s To-Do List. He also has a very welcoming sign at his home in Philadelphia: “COLORED ONLY: NO WHITES ALLOWED”

I have to tell you, people. I may not be black. But with all that’s going on lately, I’m starting to get an idea of how it felt to be a black man in the Jim Crow South. Tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way. Racial injustice knows no color, people. And Hate is as Equal Opportunity as it gets. Stop The H8!

The most unsettling news story of the last week came out of Philadelphia, where a group of black and Hispanic children of elementary-school age paid for the right to swim at a private suburban club and were denied the experience without cause and publicly humiliated in the process.

While the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton cry racism too often and make a mockery of their cause by exploiting events for their personal gain, sometimes old-fashioned bigotry does rear its ugly head in America.

In this instance, the Valley Club’s president confirmed our worst fears when he offered something far from an exculpatory explanation. “There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club,” John Duesler said in his initial statement.

Some campers claim to have overheard at least one parent fretting about the sudden influx of 65 minority children at the mostly white club.

True or not, these children were clearly wronged and it’s hard to believe that race didn’t play a significant part in their being tossed from the suburban club on their very first field trip.

Bigotry is not a partisan issue, and to be sickened by this story is the proper human response. America’s original sin of slavery and the stain of Jim Crow make a bad situation almost viscerally unbearable – and warrant a conclusive remedy. This, unfortunately, is our country’s long-term burden.

Many members of the private swim club, removed from its director’s idiotic move, now find themselves in the unenviable position of working round-the-clock to defend themselves and their previously unblemished club. Even neighbors of the institution have taken to the media to distance themselves from the awful act.

“I think they’re knuckleheads up there,” said John Fenton, a local. “I don’t know how you can do that to little kids.”

Whenever legitimate acts of bigotry occur, they should be exposed to the light of day. The media and the legal system – fueled by public outrage – can do the rest. In this case, substantial national and even international news coverage of the Valley Club incident is beginning the process of making the campers whole.

You can read the column in full here.

A friend of mine sent a link to a website that advocates CBS firing late-night host David Letterman for his over-the-top jokes about Sarah Palin and her children. The site tells readers what they can do to help make this firing happen.

But should Letterman be fired?

His so-called jokes were crass and tasteless. Not only did he refer to Palin herself as being “slutty,” but he used a crude sexual reference to Palin’s 14-year-old daughter Willow, whose only sins are the fact that she is a Palin and she attended a Yankees game with her mother in NYC.

Letterman’s first attempt at an apology was half-witted and half-hearted. His excuse that he mistook the 14-year-old Willow for 18-year-old Bristol was disingenuous at best. Does the fact that Bristol is now (barely) of age and an unwed mother make it OK to attack her thusly?

Now a new, lengthier apology is out, with Letterman saying that “if you have to explain the joke, it’s not a very good joke.” Hmmm…his audience that night guffawed right along with him. However, the Palin family has graciously accepted his apology.

Regardless of whether you agree that it’s OK to drag Sarah Palin’s children through the political mud (I have seen arguments for and against), again, I ask the question: should Letterman be fired?

I would say no. And here’s why:

No, I am not a David Letterman fan. I think he’s smarmy, smug, and seriously un-funny. But neither am I a Don Imus fan and I didn’t think he deserved to be fired for his “nappy haired ho’s” comment about the Rutgers ladies’ basketball team a couple of years back.

There are a few differences between the Letterman and Imus flaps. Letterman’s jokes were scripted and went through the stages of writing, rewriting, and final approval before the taping of the show. A lot of people saw them and thought they were just fine. Imus made an off the cuff comment during a live broadcast. Tasteless, yes, but not something he thought about previously. The apology process was a lot more different too. While Letterman first tried to justify his jokes about Willow by saying he was “confused” about which daughter really attended the game – and then asked Sarah Palin to “come on the show” – Imus not only apologized on air, but visited the Rutgers team to apologize in person and even sucked up to self-proclaimed spokesman for black people, Al Sharpton. Imus got fired anyway.

The reason, of course, is that an old white guy making any kind of slur against a protected minority group is verboten. But an old liberal white guy making crude sexual jokes about the young daughter of a conservative politician is fine, because who the hell cares what those knuckle-dragging conservatives think? Considering the relative paucity of criticism from like thinkers on the left, who would have been up in arms had a similar joke been made about Obama’s children (heaven forbid, I might add), is telling.

The double standard is astounding. However, both are examples of freedom of speech in America – not to mention examples of how low societal standards of humor have sunk. We all have the right to criticize what we don’t agree with – that’s also free speech – but to demand that Letterman be fired for exercising his rights, no matter how distasteful, smacks of totalitarianism.

If you’d like to see Letterman out on his rear, by all means vote with your remote and your wallet. Don’t watch the show and don’t patronize its sponsors. If Letterman’s ratings fall far enough, the suits at CBS will take appropriate action. And, with his most recent “mea culpa,” it’s possible that some pressure is being brought to bear – perhaps by network brass upset with the loss of some lucrative advertising sponsorship.

The same applies to Bill Maher, who took an even uglier shot at Palin and her family on his HBO weekly show Real Time with Bill Maher. Crass, vulgar, disgusting – all of those superlatives apply. But he broke no laws except those of common decency. Not that common decency often matters in the world of entertainment anymore.