'I'm Not Sorry' for Vets' Joke, Writes Comedian

Empty public apologies are all the rage these days, but comedian Natasha Leggero is taking a different route. "I'm not sorry," she wrote on her Tumblr after taking heat for a joke she made on NBC on New Year's Eve about World War II vets. "I don’t think the amazing courage of American veterans and specifically those who survived Pearl Harbor is in any way diminished by a comedian making a joke about dentures on television." She wonders: "Do we really believe" vets who fought the Nazis can't take a joke about SpaghettiOs?

Background on the joke: Leggero and others were dissing SpaghettiOs for a company tweet featuring a smiling mascot commemorating Pearl Harbor. During that discussion, Leggero said, "I mean, it sucks that the only survivors of Pearl Harbor are being mocked by the only food they can still chew." Cue the "creatively misspelled death threats, rape fantasies and most of all repeated use of the the C word" that followed, writes Leggero. Instead of apologizing, Leggero made a donation to the Disabled American Veterans foundation, and encourages all her new "fans" to do the same. Read her full post. (More apology stories.)