Sarah Palin has accepted comedian David Letterman’s apology made during Monday night’s broadcast of “The Late Show” for crude jokes made about her and her teen daughters last week.

In a statement to FOXNews.com early Tuesday, the Alaska governor said, “Of course it’s accepted on behalf of young women, like my daughters, who hope men who ‘joke’ about public displays of sexual exploitation of girls will soon evolve.”

“Letterman certainly has the right to ‘joke’ about whatever he wants to, and thankfully we have the right to express our reaction,” Palin said. “This is all thanks to our U.S. Military women and men putting their lives on the line for us to secure America’s Right to Free Speech – in this case, may that right be used to promote equality and respect.”

What the heck do “the troops” have to do with David Letterman? Why can’t Republican politicians address one subject without using it as a chance to worship the US military? The US military has nothing to do with protecting David Letterman’s “right” to make an ass of himself. American soldiers in Iraq, Kosovo, and Afghanistan are not putting their lives on the line to protect free speech in America, and I wish people would stop peddling this “noble lie.” Neither Taliban tribes in Afghanistan, nor the Ba’ath Party in Iraq, nor Serbian paramilitaries in Kosovo ever threatened freedom of speech in America. In America our freedom of speech is not threatened by terrorists or insurgents in far-flung third world nations (though they may threaten life and property in a very limited manner), but by politicians, bureaucrats, and judges in Washington D.C. It wasn’t Saddam Hussein that forced McCain-Feingold upon us, or championed such causes as the “Fairness Doctrine” or “Hate Crimes” legislation. Sarah Palin needs to dump the dishonest GOP talking points and try to exhibit a little intellectual independence for once.

And correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Palin accept the Republican nomination knowing full GD well that her oldest daughter Bristol had been, for all intents and purposes, knocked up? [She even celebrated the event publicly.] Thus she knowingly exposed her to infamy for her own personal career ambition. Nice.

Get over yourself Palin. Hardly anyone knew which daughter you dragged 3,000 miles across the country to make some appearances.

Palin has good instincts and a sinewy intelligence. She is, however, too ambitious for her own good, and has shown herself to be, unlike Ron Paul, “an easily co-opted politician, [who’ll abandon] her conservative core beliefs and restrain her political persona for a ticket and candidate that [had] neither: This [was] likely the reason for the mangled, mixed massages, absent from the governor’s Alaskan record.

Palin [also] slammed a cause she had, at one time, saluted: that of the Alaskan Independence Party. That she was once affiliated with said party speaks to her visceral feeling for freedom. That she has since denounced the IP, and seems to have imbibed no political philosophy to speak of since the McCain escapade, also speaks volumes.

You make a very important observation. Sarah Palin has demonstrated very good political instincts in the past, from supporting the Alaska Independence Party and Pat Buchanan, to saying nice things about Ron Paul during the Republican primaries (but not John McCain). Her instincts, unfortunately, are marginalized by her extreme political ambition which causes her to throw her political principles out the window and ally herself with some of the worst sort of people.

It seems that she is very interested in running for president in 2012, but she has so far demonstrated absolutely no reason for someone like myself (paleo-conservative\paleo-libertarian type)to support her should she run. Aside from South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, none of the frequently mentioned names for 2012 Republican primaries is very impressive (Bobby Jindal, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, etc.), in fact most are quite repulsive.

[I don’t think she look in the least slutty. She’s a lovely looking, modestly dressed woman in her prime.]

That said, I’m fairly sick and tired of Palin’s “folksy” manner of speech, which seems increasingly fabricated to me, rather like a character in a play who specifically cultivates that type of expression. I like the fact that she’s fiscally responsible, and has done well by Alaskans, but I’m not sure she has the intellectual hardware to be a major candidate on the national scene.