Letterman has enjoyed a temporary ratings boost, but there’s deeper meaning in the incident.  The cultural left lampoons Palin because her values and life are completely foreign to them. They find it bizarre that she hunts, prays and says things like “you betcha.’”  They can’t fathom that she brought a child with Down syndrome to term and that she didn’t pressure her daughter into aborting an unexpected pregnancy… [Letterman's] Palin joke backfired in part because scores of millions of Americans are living lives that more closely resemble Palin’s life than Letterman’s.

The incident did end with at least one advertiser, The Olive Garden, telling consumers that it would not buy more ads on the show this year.

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The NRCC is banging the good old culture wars drum today, sending out a raft of press releases asking if rookie Dems from conservative districts back the inclusion of anti-sexually transmitted disease programs (read: condoms and needle exchanges).

I’m … confused.

The target list includes at least a dozen congressmen and women from districts that voted for President Obama. Is opposition to anti-STD funding really burning up Connecticut’s 4th District, which Democrats just took away from former GOP Rep. Chris Shays? In Greenwich and Bridgeport? Really?

There’s a good attack line here about stimulus funding going to programs that won’t immediately benefit the economy, but Democrats really couldn’t care less about this: either the stimulus works and they’re re-elected in 2010 as the economy recovers — or it fails, and they’re defeated because it fails.

Editor’s Note: As numerous commenters have mentioned, the original headline of this post was inappropriate and unfair to Bristol Palin, a private citizen. It was intended as a joke, but after further discussion, we agree that the headline was unrelated to the content of the post and in poor taste. The headline has been changed, and The Washington Independent would like to sincerely apologize to Bristol Palin.

-Matthew DeLong, TWI Blog Editor

Similarly, there’s nothing inherently unusual or terribly controversial about a 17-year-old getting pregnant — unless her mother is a powerful politician whose position on sex education borders on Puritan. As was widely reported this week, Palin’s 2006 response to a questionnaire from the conservative Eagle Forum Alaska left little doubt why reproductive rights groups are cringing at the thought of her winning the White House:

Q: Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?

Palin: Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.

Palin is also a member of Feminists for Life, an anti-abortion group whose Web site states that, “Preconception issues including abstinence and contraception are outside of our mission.”

It’s one of those issues where America’s culture divide is very real — and neither side looks ready to give ground any time soon. Indeed, just this summer, the Bush administration proposed new rules blurring the lines between birth control and abortion.

“It-Takes-A-Family” conservatives have held tightly to the idea that public school is no place to learn the art of safe sex. Still, the experience of Bristol Palin might be evidence that the village has a role to play as well.