Jigsaw Politics

In case you possibly missed it, Letterman noted that Palin had attended a New York Yankees baseball game, then said that her daughter had been "knocked up" by the team's controversy-plagued superstar Alex Rodriguez.

The joke would have been deemed in poor taste by many people even if it had zinged its intended target, 18-year-old Bristol Palin, whose out-of-wedlock pregnancy became a national news story last summer after her mother agreed to join the national Republican ticket headed by Arizona Sen. John McCain. But the daughter who accompanied Palin to the game was not Bristol but 14-year-old Willow, prompting the governor to accuse Letterman of making a "perverted" suggestion of sexual activity involving the younger girl.

There are some who have defended Letterman by arguing that Palin herself put her children in the public fishbowl. But even if you believe that's true, the proper target for criticism and satire is Palin and not her kids.

Whether they thrive or shrivel in the public spotlight, politicians' kids didn't ask to be put there. Did Bristol Palin and her teenage Romeo look comfortable to you when the Republican Party -- in a case study of situational ethics -- put them center stage and turned their 2008 convention into what briefly appeared a celebration of unwed teenage pregnancy?

Sarah Palin's personal mannerisms and the controversies that have dogged her since she burst onto the national scene should provide more than enough fodder for the stand-up crowd. There is no reason or justification for dragging her kids through the mud.

For myself, as one of the world's most pathological New York Yankees haters, my only beef with Palin is that she was at a Yankees game. Hey, the Steinbrenners -- who own the Yankees and baseball's most expensive roster -- heard that Palin is a powerful, flame-throwing righty, so they signed her to pitch for $25 million a year.

Just joking....