Watch Sarah Palin & David Letterman Giving Each Other CPR

To tell you how heated up the U.S. political space is, there is a movement dedicated to the firing of a comedian for making fun of a politician. Ok. Not just the politician, but her daughter, too.

So far three thousand people have signed a petition asking CBS to fire comedian, David LettermanDavid Letterman, for making fun of Sarah PalinSarah Palin’s daughter. Letterman has apologized, sort of. But the frenzy has not ceased.

The controversy has revived the career of David Letterman and Sarah Palin. Letterman just lost the Tonight Show job again to Conan O’Brien. Sort of. And he is facing a stiff competition from the younger host. CBS just renewed Letterman’s contract but slashed the money it pays Letterman’s Worldwide Pants, the company that produced the Letterman’s show. The cut may mean a reduction of few millions from the $30 Letterman gets each year.

Sarah Palin, since her debacle as John McCainJohn McCain’s vice presidential candidate, has not found her footing in the Republican mainstream. She is being invited and dis-invited to Republican events. Key Republicans are leaving her off the list of the party’s potential presidential candidates in 2012. Her family drama, staring her daughter and her boyfriend was the only Palin show playing out on T.V. She was as good as dead.

And then, in one joke, Mr. Letterman revived her career, and maybe saved his, too.

In a larger sense, all these bring about a return of the most fundamental of American question. Is free speech protected? And how much of it is?

In Schenck v. United States, Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell HolmesOliver Wendell Holmes stated that, "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are [...] are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent."

As the American political theater heats up, with nobody’s speech safe from scrutiny and denunciation, it won’t be time before we revisit it. In the meantime, I am sure these two are giving each other CPR. For the two, it is for fun, for survival and for rating.