I became a Letterman fan while living in Barrow back in the day when our network programming came out of Chicago. That meant what was on a 1 AM Chicago time was on at 10 PM in Barrow. Letterman was my primetime viewing.
I remember when Letterman featured the woman who kept the unfortunate diary entries detailing their affair in many on air bits. I find it difficult to believe that anyone wasn’t aware that something was happening given the obvious looks that passed between them. Also, it was painfully clear she hadn’t been chosen because of her sparkling personality.
Letterman is not someone I would hold up as a paragon of virtue. Given that he is the host of a late night comedy show, I’m not sure that idea would actually have ever occurred to me. So I find it difficult to understand people saying he is somehow two faced for doing exactly that which he mocked elected officials doing for years. Have our elected officials really fallen so far in our estimation that we hold them to no higher standards than we hold someone who showcases Stupid Human Tricks? (Feel free to make your own joke here about many elected officials being engaged in one long Stupid Human Trick.)
If you want to compare Letterman and disgraced politicians, then you might also want to note that Letterman acknowledged the wrong he did, took complete responsibility for it, never asked his wife to be publicly humiliated by standing next to him at a press conference, and has so far not had one staff member of either sex sell him out to the tabloids. Would that our elected officials could achieve such grace under pressure or engender such loyalty in staff.
Instead, our elected officials tend to lie, cheat, lie some more, cheat some more, announce they have some addiction that clouded their judgment, haul their families into the picture, give out endless self-serving interviews in which “poor me” seems to be the major emphasis and then end it all by announcing their renewed commitment to their marriage and family. Letterman graciously skipped all the “pity me” moments and went straight to the surprisingly refreshing statement that he’d hurt his family and had a lot of work to do to regain his wife’s trust.
As I watched South Carolina’s governor refuse to resign and allow dignity to be restored to that state’s executive branch; as I watched Senator Larry Craig explain he had a wide stance in the men’s room; as I watched Governor Spitzer resign with his wife in such obvious pain by his side; as I watched all these elected officials who had asked the public to trust them to be honorable people who would carry out the people’s business honorably, I felt slimed and dirty.
When David Letterman looked at the camera and said that someone tried to blackmail him and it was his own fault for giving them the ammunition by his own bad behavior, and then apologized to his wife and staff while taking full responsibility on his own shoulders, I was saddened and disappointed but I didn’t feel like I was in the presence of something that crawled out from underneath a rock.
Too bad I can’t say the same thing about politicians caught in similar situations.