Red Room Where the Writers Are

Just spending five minutes listening to the news today, I've realized how many lessons there are to be learned in this world.

1) If you dare to test fire missiles, produce nuclear weapons-grade materials, threaten to shoot a missile at Hawaii, and generally act like a mad man, the United States will forcefully retaliate by following your ships. Take that!

2) Kate Gosselin is a raging bitch. This has nothing to do with the fact that Jon and Kate of Jon & Kate Plus 8 fame are getting divorced or that they cheated on each other, or whatever. This has everything to do with the fact that my wife once had the show on and Kate spewed venomous, self-important, degrading bile from her mouth every time she opened it.

3) Britney and Kevin, Jessica and Nick, Hulk and Linda, almost every relationship that came out of the horrific Bachelor/Bachelorette series, and now Jon and Kate! Lesson learned: Reality TV filming every minute of your life is BAD for a marriage. Though, so is stupid people getting married. Tori and Dean, Oh God, PLEASE hold on for dear life! I don't know what I'd do if you two were to fail... Um. Sorry, just got caught up in the emotion of the moment.

4) Hypocrisy exists. I want to state something: I think what David Letterman said about Sarah Palin's daughter was despicable. I have a good sense of humor and I have no problem with comedians taking shots at public figures - if you can't take the heat, you should have stayed out of the public eye, or something like that - but Bristol Palin did not choose to be a public figure. She just so happened to be the daughter of a Vice Presidential candidate that many liberals HATED. Now, Letterman claims that when he said Sarah Palin's daughter got knocked up by A-Rod during the 7th inning stretch, that he meant Bristol and not the younger daughter who was actually at the game - that he thought Bristol was there. I believe him and I think anybody who thinks he intended to make the joke about a 14 yr old girl is grasping at straws. That doesn't make the joke right, though. What right does he have to go and basically call an 18 year old girl a whore?

Yes, she got pregnant out of wedlock and yes, her mother is a conservative who espouses Christian values, but let's face it, people make mistakes. If people didn't make mistakes, the entire Pro-Choice movement wouldn't need to exist (excluding situations of rape and incest, of course). So what exactly did this girl do wrong? Is it that she intended to marry the father? Is it that she decided to keep the baby? Would she have been less of a punch line if she'd sneaked off and had an abortion? Yet, here she is, not only being RESPONSIBLE for the choices she made, but also using it as an opportunity to go out and speak to other teenage girls about the consequences of pre-marital sex.

Yes. Truly a girl that deserves to be mocked and called a whore.

For that, I believe Letterman truly owed an apology.

Now, for the other side of the spectrum. Those on the right calling for Letterman to be fired are nothing but hypocrites. It was you who stood up when Imus had his "nappy headed ho's" comment and tore apart CBS for firing him, ridiculed his advertisers for backing out, denounced Reverend Al for calling for Imus's job.

You cried, "Freedom of speech! First amendment!"

..and I agreed with every word, and still do. Imus should NOT have been fired. And neither should Letterman. These people's jobs are to try to make people laugh. They tell jokes. Some hit, some miss, some are distasteful, but in the end they have a right to their opinion and to say what they want to say. In the end, they have a right to make a mistake - just like Bristol Palin does.

What bugs me about the whole thing is that Imus WAS fired and that if this had been a right-wing comedian making a comment about Obama's daughters or Chelsea Clinton, that comedian would have already lost his show. I've mentioned before, look at the comments Jamie Fox made about Miley Cyrus - saying she should snort coke and make a sex tape (she's 16). All he had to do was go on Leno and say I'm Sorry, but I'm just a comedian and all was forgiven. Imus apologized to everybody he could and was still fired. Therein lies the hypocrisy of the left. I don't believe any one of these comedians should have been or should be fired, but this needs to be a lessons learned point. Palin has accepted Letterman's apology and so should everybody else, but should another conservative make a comment that costs them their job (so long as it's not a call for violence or true hate speech), all hell should rain down on liberals for their hypocrisy and their attack on the first amendment.

After all, we already know based on The Durbin Amendment, exactly what Democrats think of free speech. Speech is free as long as it's the speech we want to hear.

Everybody take out your First Amendments and give them a hug. The way things look, they may soon be going away for a long, long time.

Speaking of the loss of Freedom of Speech, go HERE to read the prologue and first 10 chapters of my upcoming book, The Offensive.

J.E. Braun is the author of Paranoia, a 9/11 survivor's tale. 10% of profits from sales of Paranoia will be donated to the Twin Towers Orphan Fund (www.ttof.org). For more information, visit www.jebraun.com.