Let’s be clear: Demeaning women for fun and profit may be legal and permissible in a free society, but it shouldn’t be acceptable. The argument that comedians fall into a different category is valid to a point, but journalists and public leaders don’t have to be parties to their act. It isn’t funny, even if some women apparently think so.

Therein lies at least half the problem. As long as women are yukking it up alongside men while women are reduced to disposable sexual objects and their children regarded as subhuman, well, we have a ways to go. And though such remarks may not hurt successful women like Van Susteren, who is the longest-sitting news anchor on cable TV, they do hurt young women and little girls.

And they also hurt young men and especially little boys, who adore their mothers and who, provided the right example, are capable of becoming the honorable and decent men everyone, including the president, hopes their daughters will marry.