Classic Rant #103 (October 5, 2009): Not a Red Letter Day For Letterman

It consistently amazes me how seemingly smart, talented people so often get entwined in things that come back to haunt them.

The most recent case in point is CBS late-night talk show host David Letterman, who outed a producer from the show “48 Hours” as the person who had launched a plot to blackmail him with information related to affairs Letterman had supposedly had with female staffers.

The talk show host made this known to a stunned audience on his show during the night of October 1.

First of all, I have to commend Letterman for coming clean to his viewers. Word would have gotten out anyway through the tabloids, and he would have looked even stupider than he does now if that happened.

And that leads me to my next point. Whether working in an office or working on the staff of a major TV show, one of the first rules is that you don’t date anyone in the office, and you certainly don’t have a sexual relationship with them. This is just common sense.

Why did Letterman stoop so low? He has had a committed relationship to the person he eventually married for a number of years now, and has a son through that relationship. Why was he hunting around for more female flesh to conquer?

And the person who was trying to blackmail him—what were his motives? We have since learned that he had a huge child support bill to pay each month, but anybody making more than $300,000 a year like he was should have been able to afford the $72,000 or so he was paying for his two kids.

Heck, making much less, I was able to afford my payments just fine.

I think there are a lot of holes in this story that need to be filled that probably won’t be, at least for us, the general public. How many women were involved? When did this take place? For how long? Did the women cooperate with the accused? Etc., etc., etc.

A couple of women have come out, but since they were all subordinates to Letterman, I would think CBS would run some type of internal investigation of these incidents. If it is proven that Letterman used his power as "the man" to seduce these women--threaten them with a loss of their job if they didn't succumb--I would think that CBS might have to take some punitive action against the talk show host.

Although I feel some compassion for Letterman, he may be a funny guy, but he has proven himself to be not a very bright one.

Oh, I know, there are people so dedicated to Letterman that they will back him no matter what he does, but once again, if it was your daughter who he painted into a corner, wouldn't your views of him change? That is the yardstick that I use, and yes, he is not the sharpest tool in the shed based on this latest episode.

I wonder when the first tell-all book about Letterman and his show will come out--and you know it will, especially since the door has now been opened with this latest escapade.