Are Palin supporters overplaying this one?

Late night comic David Letterman definitely crossed the line when he joked about Sarah Palin and her teenage daughter this week. Comedians love to talk about politics, and sometimes it’s funny — this time, it wasn’t. 

Letterman seemed to forget that what’s routine discourse on the comedy circuit and on cable (see: Chris Rock) is rarely OK for a larger audience (See: Wanda Sykes) on network television.

The episode has played out according to standard scripting: There was The Incident, and then the aftermath, in which Palin went on Fox and called Letterman “sexually perverted.” Feminist websites expressed dutiful outrage, even though they never liked Palin. Letterman sort of apologized, and the scolding harumphy footnote should have been the one Howard Kurtz emoted on cue this morning. The clear winner: Sarah Palin.

But politics is never about knowing when to drop it, and Palin’s supporters are trying to wring one more day out of the Letterman controversy. Risky!  “Team Sarah,” a sub-group of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, sends word that the incident illustrates why people are so cynical about politics.

“The continual presence of personal attacks on both Governor Palin and her family indicate that she remains a threat to the liberal political establishment,” said Team Sarah Co-Founder Jane Abraham. “Despite the criticism, Governor Palin’s success will endure.”

Todd Palin — Alaska’s “first dude” — did his bit to keep the story going, issuing a statement echoing the “sexually perverted” line (message discipline!) and dismissing Letterman’s sort-of apology. The PalinPac distributed to the news media the cold refusal they sent in response to Letterman’s subsequently invite for the governor to appear on his show. Sen. John McCain today also weighed in — which begs the question, how long until we hear from Dick Cheney on this?

Keeping the story in the news doesn’t help Palin if it looks like her partisans are trying to milk it for sympathy and publicity — another reason why people are so cynical about politics.