Once again, a liberal bully in the entertainment industry who made his living throwing stones at others found out that his own home was made of glass. That glass is now shattered.
David Letterman just admitted that he has had sex with more than one staffer over the years. He admitted this to prevent an extortionist from blackmailing him for two million dollars. I condemn the blackmailer, but Mr. Letterman is not much better.
While Dave has spent years treating conservatives as enemies, I looked the other way because I was a fan. I genuinely found him funny. I wrote him more than one heartfelt open letter trying to get him to be less brutal on people just because of political disagreements.
https://tygrrrrexpress.com/2009/04/dear-david-letterman/
https://tygrrrrexpress.com/2009/06/dear-david-letterman-part-ii/
Yet ideological bigotry consumed him.
Apparently so has hypocrisy.
I am not gloating over this. My heart goes out to his wife, who has been his companion for almost a quarter of a century. I feel awful for his son, who does not deserve to see his father publicly humiliated.
Yet make no mistake about it. David Letterman has spent over two decades feasting on the misery of others embroiled in sexual scandals.
He went after Dick Morris for months. He was merciless with Bill Clinton.
(Side note: The reason why the Clinton situation with Monica Lewinsky was so disturbing was not because of sex. It was because the President of the United States cannot ever put himself in a position where he is vulnerable to blackmail.)
It was not just politicians. Letterman ripped into Frank Gifford.
(His bias was clear when he gave a completely free pass to Marv Albert, a frequent guest of the show.)
Yet as much as Eliot Spitzer provided cheap and easy punch lines for him, conservative sex scandals were treated with an unrelenting fury in the name of “comedy.” Sarah Palin had to watch night after night as her lovely daughter Bristol Palin was skewered not for any sexual crime, but for having premarital sex with her own boyfriend and bringing a beautiful new life into this world. I don’t remember anybody on the right going after little Harry Letterman for being conceived in a non-traditional manner.
This is also not just a sex scandal in the same way Bill Clinton’s licentiousness was not a sex scandal. Sex cannot be consensual when the parties are unequal. David Letterman had the power to fire the staffers he slept with. In corporate America, that behavior is actionable. Just ask the former CEO of Boeing.
Sure, Dave can pull the Hillary Clinton card and blame all of this on a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, but Newt Gingrich is retired and most conservatives are less concerned with David Letterman’s sex life than we are with his abusive and hurtful nature.
When sex scandals do not provide him fodder, he goes after any politician that leads a traditional life, even if they do practice what they preach. If ever a good and decent man was victimized and stigmatized unfairly, it was Dan Quayle. Ditto for George W. Bush. If they refuse to commit sexual misconduct, Letterman just declares them morons, flahehs that toothy grin, and waits for the next sexual bombshell to erupt.
Well now it has erupted.
He will not face consequences. He makes way too much money for CBS. Plus, he is not in a position of trust like Dan Rather and Mary Mapes were. He tells jokes. The expectations are low, and he occasionally meets them without raising the bar.
This is not a good day. Even by entertainment industry standards, it is a bad day. I always thought of Letterman as a cranky bitter guy that at least was a devoted family man. Now we see that he is just another guy that tears others down while behaving badly himself.
At the risk of insulting him, for a guy that eschews Hollywood, he might now officially be a typical Hollywood celebrity.
24 hours ago he was still skewering Sarah Palin. Now he is in hot water, for reasons unconnected to her.
Yet he still doesn’t get it. His “apology,” was the same non-apology he issued after the Bristol Palin remarks. He was cavalier, and even had the nerve to say that he wanted to protect his family. Perhaps he forgot that in his own monologue only minutes earlier, he again attacked Sarah Palin.
He wants us to respect his family (which I absolutely will) while continuing to be part of the politics of personal destruction of the Palin family and other innocent families.
As for what can be said about David Letterman, there is really only one thing left to say at this point.
It figures.
eric
I’ve listened to him a couple times but just never took to his humor. Of course, when one says “GW Bush” and rolls his eyes, and people laugh, or says, “I’ve had sex with my employees” and people laugh, that explains why I never took to his humor. Heck, even if he said “Bill Clinton walked into the room with a cigar…” and people laughed, I still wouldn’t think it were funny…
Having said the above, I am not sure who has the corner on the market of infidelity and/or just plain sex. I went to my 20 year HS reunion 20 years ago, and being from a small school, I was rather surprised to learn that about a quarter of my former classmates were married, divorced, dating, having affairs, whatever with one another…and in the military, there isn’t a week to go by that some NCO isn’t sleeping with a PVT or officer with an NCO, or officer with some other officer’s wife or employee…and the utter fascination with celebrities and whether they have boobs, fat lips, cellulite, of sex with he, her, them, they or it just doesn’t get it for me. CNN may call the Letterman sex news stunning, but I think of all the people plugging up the freeways and recognize there was a whole lot of that going around before now…
Look fellow posters, Jay Leno and Conan’s ratings are slipping.
Conan’s averages are 28% below Leno’s for same period last year.
People like Letterman’s humor better.
Admittedly he is clever. At least he thinks so when he blasts
Bush continuously. His jokes against Obama and his wife are paled in
comparison.
Okay, how can we show Letterman our disgust.
Well for starters..write CBS to evict him..get him off the air.
Let him go back to Indiana to be with his mommy.
Rufus…don’t appear on his show..you are a gentleman, he is scum.
I mean, he slept with his staff, while fathering an illegitiate child
and dating his wife.
What kind of human being is he? He goes up in front of 5m people nightly
with his mid-west brand of humor. He is a liar ( hear that Joe Wilson).
He should be called before Congress and made to apologize to the US people as was Wilson.
But the Democrats love this guy..with his cute remarks.
Or, simply watch Conan.and Jay Leno before him (who has some
good stints).
But then again, when Kid Rock gets up in front of millions and
castigates we whites..I don’t know?
How many whites make fun of an generalize about blacks?
There is an interesting article in today’s LA Times (a liberal paper).
There is a prognosis that in 2010, more elderaly people will vote..the baby boomers than in 2008. This could mean trouble for Obama’s democrats.
Everyone, must ask yourselves..what has Obama wrought?
There is also an article about Republicans and religion…with no
policy, the Republicans have linked US to religious beliefs.
The Torah is against same sex marriages. I am against same sex marriages.
Let’s face it, the Democrats have nothing to offer, but socialism.
Isn’t that the truth. At least we Republicans have our God.
You take the Democrats and Pelosi, Schumer, Reid and the liberal left..I’ll take God.
I’m with Eagle. I never cared for Letterman’s humor. He seemed to me to be full of himself. He is a multi-millionaire and the Dems love him, so he has nothing to worry about. Except his wife and son, if he cares about them.
Toma
Why is it that when conservative entertainers bloviate partisan vitriol and yet their own houses are in disarray that’s just markets and human frailty in action, but when liberals do what you consider the same thing, it’s “ideological bigotry.”
I’m sorry, but I’m buying this “ideoligical bigotry” thing less and less every day. Seems more like selective judgementalism to me.
David Lettermen is a successful entertainer and he is one because he knows his audience, he knows their demos, and he’s funny. Why you are complaining about any of this is beyond me. Disappointingly pointless.
JMJ
” I am not gloating over this.”
I am gloating, big time.
I never liked the snide little prick or his superioristic demeanor.
I hope his audience fails to the point where he has to do Viagra or reverse mortgage commercials for a living
Jersey.
You could say this about politics and turn it into some argument over the presence of ideological bigotry but its really not about that, unless you’re David Letterman.
Its about a huge freeking hypocrite who just happens to be a moonbat with no sense of the values he always espoused.
“Seems more like selective judgementalism to me.”
If any statement applies to Letterman, that would be it
Micky, when our good hosts writes about John Ensign, then I’ll think he truly subscribes to his own “ideological bigotry” theory. In the meantime, the only hypocrites I see are the conservatives gloating over every American’s mishap these days.
Letterman, I guarantee you, will turn this on himself every chance he gets. His self-deprication is just as famous as his caustic critiques. If only conservaive were that self-depricating (though our good host would definitely be an exception to that rule!).
JMJ
“the only hypocrites I see are the conservatives gloating over every American’s mishap these days.”
Then moonbat applies accurately in your case. Blind as a bat as I could easely drum up a million examples of liberal hypocrisy.
You sound like a 5th grader when you bring up lame arguments like that.
Dave, sell me some little blue pills and shut up
“will turn this on himself every chance he gets. ”
And you think I’ll laugh ?
“If only conservaive were that self-depricating ”
We dont give ourselves half the opportunities to be in that position because we dont espouse promiscuity with anything thats not tied down
What gets me angry is the fact that people (liberals) like Letterman,
Clinton (Bill), the former gov of New York, etc., get on their stage and
preach to the rest of US about morality.
I can think of a few Evangelicals with the same piour attitude.
Most people are basically honest, God fearing, church goers, work hard
for a living, take care of their families, and want to live a clean life.
Yet now and then you get people like B. Madoff and Dav Letterman.
Who does he think he is anyway? To this very day, he is blasting
and ridiculing Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney, as witnessed this past week.
I am not aware that both the above have done anything immoral.
Dick Cheney is a neo-con..conservative, but what else is new.
He was voted into office, all of US knowing his background.
He was instrumental in freeing 50m Muslims..in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The rest was up to them..sorrowfully.
But his intentions were RIGHT.
Sarah Palin did not suggest dividing Iraq into 3 parts, Kurds, Shias
and Sunnia. True, her mouth, is similar to our current VP.
So what?
It’s what she stood for. She was tricked by the liberal CBS and others..
who are very good at that game..lots of experience.
Read Michael Moore’s latest diatribe on capitalism. What does this
super liberal want anyway..Communism, NAZIsm, socialism?
He is for universal health coverage..w/o saying who will pay for it.
He says 3 economists were behind the sub-prime mortgage debacle.
They weren’t..the laws were there.
Wha happened folks was that 10m people, wanting pie in the sky,
and that 4 bedroom house in the suburbs, AND 3 cars and a boat,
bought homes..thinking they could pay for it over 30 years.
Well they didn’t do the math,..and were wishful thinking.
If not for the credit swaps and mortgage backed securities, Freddie
Mack and Fanny Mae…they would still be living in the cities..sweltering,
confined to public housing, or cheap housing.
Maybe we should have built more public housing..I don’t know?
They have had some bad experiences as we all know.
There is no easy answer. But to blame 3 or 4 brilliant economists,
and people from academia..is absurd.
Maybe we should try Moore’s solution…or Waxmans, or Boxers,
or Reids. or Pelosis…take from those that can provide and give
to those who care less.