Hank Williams Jr., sporting a Joaquin Phoenix look à la the actor’s I’m Still Here-related appearance, is in hot water for this Fox News interview::
It’s a bit hard to take someone who isn’t blind and wears sunglasses indoors too seriously. Williams compared Obama to Hitler, in reference to Obama’s golf outing with Speaker of the House John Boehner, evoking another instance of a TV variant of Godwin’s Law.
ESPN pulled Williams’ Monday Night Football theme and Hank Jr. offered a statement, but not an apology::
“Some of us have strong opinions and are often misunderstood. My analogy was extreme — but it was to make a point. I was simply trying to explain how stupid it seemed to me – how ludicrous that pairing was.”
Fox News was eager to leverage Williams’ celebrity and get his 2¢ on the 2012 Presidential candidates, billing him as a pundit of sorts who knows “a little bit about politics.” I’m not sure which would be the more cynical move. Having Williams on the show with the high likelihood that he would bash the Democrats or having him on knowing he might self-immolate, providing fodder for viral video and subsequent ratings boosts.
In a Politico article, according to Sherri Bruen, the company’s guest relations manager::
“We apologize that Mr. Letterman’s mistake, which was not consistent with our standards and values, left you with a bad impression of Olive Garden.
but, this HotAir postfinished the paragraph with this::
“There will be no more Olive Garden ads scheduled for The Late Show with David Letterman in this year’s broadcast schedule.
We have not yet finalized next year’s advertising plan but will consider our valued guests’ opinions when doing so.”
The context being that the contract was already allowed to expire and no ads were planned. So, they caved to pressure. Or, did they? Apparently, the sources confirming the pulling of the ad sponsorship weren’t authorized to speak for the company and the NY Times reported there was no such decision. The Politico article was updated and the title revised from this::
to “Olive Garden Backtracks on David Letterman Ads.” Well, as the story d/evolved, quel surprise, comments from the Twittersphere started to trickle in, some defending Olive Garden, some critical of the chain, and a handful advocating a boycott for allegedly pulling the ads {recent} and for sponsoring Dave {2+ days ago}::
Olive Garden is in a tough PR spot. If their online demos {Quantcast} are fairly similar to their customer base, their market trends towards being white, female, 18-49, with 0-2 kids, making under $60K, and with some college. In other words, moderates.
Dave. Well, he’s getting a bounce from all of this. According to the NYTimes Media Decoder blog{16 June}::
“In preliminary national ratings, Mr. Letterman pulled in 700,000 more viewers than Mr. O’Brien Monday night, 3.9 million to 3.2 million, his biggest margin yet over his new competitor. Mr. Letterman routinely trailed the former ‘Tonight’ host Jay Leno by a million viewers or more.”
O’Brien still owns the coveted younger demos.
Update:: Video of Fire Letterman Protest from New York magazine
