Why I Never
by digby
All day long fatuous gasbags have been saying that David Letterman is in BIG trouble. Psychologists are all over the TV saying that even if the adult employees he admitted to having sex with consented, they may have been subconsciously coerced so he would have been harassing them without them knowing it.
I am a big believer in sexual harassment laws and I know from personal experience that it's a difficult problem. But if they are going to tell us now that any romantic or sexual relationships stemming from the workplace are harassment and therefore illegal, then I hope this country is ready to become a nation of monks and nuns. It is, after all, where most couples meet.
If it turns out that Letterman was coercing female employees into having sex with him, then I won't have any pity for him if he's sued. But the idea that anyone who has a romantic relationship with her boss is an unknowing victim is ridiculous. It infantilizes women and says they have no free will at all.
Limbaugh is comparing Letterman to Roman Polanski and wondering if very Republican should admit to "date rape" (which is so deeply revealing about him that I don't want to think too much about it.) And it sounds like the so-called liberal media are ready to go there too. Blitzer teased the Polanski story immediately after the Limbaugh story, but only after he asked Brian Todd a series of questions about workplace rules against sexual harrassment, as if that was actually at issue despite the fact that Letterman has never been accused of it.
Every one of these people know bosses who have dated, had affairs, married their employees and vice versa. Many of them have done it themselves. The idea that they are shocked and dismayed by Letterman's revelation and "wondering" what the rules are is totally disingenuous and is only done in order to pass on this stupid Villager pretense that they are all pious small town puritans who met their spouses in church and only have sex to procreate.
The story is that David Letterman was extorted by a successful TV producer for two million dollars. But these people don't seem to find that half as interesting as the fact that David Letterman had consensual sex. And considering how much other important news there is right now, spending any more than the time it took me to write this --- which was a couple of minutes --- is too much. Enough with the phony village moralizing, already.
Update: Here's the shocking dirt according to People magazine:
"I'm not surprised this came out," the former staffer tells PEOPLE of Letterman's admission Thursday night that he had "had sex with women who work for me on this show."
"Even the interns knew stuff like that was going on," says the source.
The former staffer says that Letterman, 62, carried on a sexual relationship with one of his "peers, a woman close to him, not an intern."
At the time the relationship didn't raise too many eyebrows, adds the source. "It wasn't a big deal because he wasn't married. And we heard he had a girlfriend (Regina Lasko, whom Letterman married in March 2009), but she never came around, so it just wasn't a big deal."
"He wasn't considered a sex symbol or anything. In fact, off the air, he came across a lot older than he was."
Various former colleagues say Letterman could be both aloof and charming – but was always extremely private.
"David is a perfectionist, but his cameramen and other staffers respect him and are loyal to him," says one source. "People on his staff genuinely like him."
Another close source, who has a long history with the Late Show, says that the program's grueling schedule – 15-hour workdays are typical – helped breed inter-office hookups.
"In politics it's the same thing," says the source. "People who live it, eat it, breathe it ... [It's] not some sort of predatory, 'Let's hire beautiful women so we can feast on them’ kind of thing. That's just not the way it works."
The former staffer adds of Letterman, "He never acted inappropriate with any of the female staff. He was very kind, and I never recall anyone saying anything at all bad about him."
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Sounds like hell on earth. Of course, those "peers" just didn't know they were being sexually harassed because women are like children who don't know that they are being exploited by a ruthless predator.
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