Comedians' Reactions to Letterman Scandal

After October 1, when David Letterman told the story of the alleged attempted extortion involving his affairs with women who worked for him, I wondered how his fellow comedians would react.

This blog from The Huffington Post and this article from the AP tell of what other comedians have been saying about Dave as of the weekend after his confession. It seems most are being easy on him or not talking about it at all. Jay Leno (The Jay Leno Show), Jimmy Fallon (Late Night), Seth Meyers (Saturday Night Live), and Craig Ferguson (The Late Late Show) have made jokes and comments about Dave’s scandal, but none of them were mean about it (towards Dave, that is; some were rightfully mean toward Robert "Joe" Halderman, the alleged blackmailer), which makes me happy.

In the week since Dave’s confession, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert didn’t say a word about Letterman on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, so they're with Conan O’Brien (The Tonight Show) and Jimmy Kimmel (Jimmy Kimmel Live!) in not talking about it, which also makes me happy.

I was very interested to know what Howard Stern thinks about Dave’s scandal.

If you read this article from The Examiner, you would think Howard Stern was hateful, and it almost sounds like Howard was screaming about how horrible Dave is. The article doesn’t misquote Howard, but it takes his statements out of context. If I hadn’t heard Howard myself and if I had only read that article, I would seriously hate Howard, and I’m a fan of Howard.

Since I did hear Howard talking about Dave, I can continue to love Howard (and Dave). As I expected and hoped for from Howard, he was completely honest about his thoughts about the situation. He made it clear that he likes Dave, and credits Letterman for always being supportive of him. He also said that Dave came out with this stuff in a brilliant way, and noted that he's a great communicator. But Howard felt that Dave screwing interns creates a really bad work environment where women feel they have to screw the boss to get ahead and men feel like they can't get ahead because they lack the necessary equipment. He also said if his daughters were taken advantage of as interns like that, he would cut off Dave's winkie. All these things are completely understandable, assuming that his affairs were, in fact with interns (I know Holly Hester came forward as having an affair with Dave while she was an intern), and if other interns and staff members were aware of those affairs at the time, and also assuming that Dave was abusing his position of power in the affairs, which we can't be sure of. I don't feel that Howard was mean-spirited towards Dave at all, as the Examiner article above might imply.

And finally, Dave’s reaction to himself was probably the funniest reaction of all the comedians. On the Monday after the confession, Dave spent almost the whole monologue cracking jokes about himself. He followed this hilarious monologue with another heartfelt statement apologizing to his staff and his wife for hurting them, as well as affirming that he did the right thing in confessing. Of course he ended the string of apologies with another apology to Sarah Palin, because it couldn’t hurt.

Dave has really been handling his scandal well. As both Howard Stern and Steve Martin have said, this scandal really does show us that Dave is human, and as Steve Martin noted, we really weren’t sure of that before.

I think the keep-quiet attitude and the lack of mean-spirited jokes from his fellow comedians show the reigning king of late night the respect that he still deserves, particularly since David Letterman is a victim of a felony.

Poor Dave

When I heard about the alleged extortion of David Letterman and his confession, my initial reaction was “Poor Dave.” This was followed by, “Wow, Dave’s a slut, who knew…But Poor slutty Dave.”

Obviously I’m talking about David Letterman’s recent confession of affair(s) he had with women who work for him and the blackmail involving that by Robert “Joe” Halderman, a producer of 48 Hours Mystery.

I first heard about it from my sister, because I had missed Thursday night’s Late Show containing his confession, and I had somehow not been exposed to any media most of yesterday.

I’ve been a fan of Dave’s since I was 14 or 15, and I’ve had a crush on him for most of that time (it dwindled in my early-to-mid twenties when he announced that his then-girlfriend and now-wife was pregnant). After seeing his confession on YouTube, and after reading this article from the AP, not only do I not hate him as some people now do, but my crush seems to be back. At first I thought this resulted from the reminder of his brooding self-criticism and the terrible things that have happened to him (such as the attempted kidnapping of his son and the crazy stalker) that the AP article spoke of.

But as I watched last night’s episode of The Late Show, and watched as the audience still loves him, I realized it was more than that. It was his honesty.

He could have easily played the victim – obviously he is a victim of alleged attempted extortion, but I mean he could have played the victim in ways that he is not – he could have, after explaining what happened with the attempted blackmail, proceeded to say “None of this is true; I did not have sexual relations with those women.” But he didn’t; he admitted that he had sexual relations with women who work for him. It’s not entirely surprising that his affairs would be with women who work for him, since both the woman he dated in the 1980s and his current wife were women who worked for him. (Much like the rest of the world seems to have assumed, I am assuming that there was no sexual harassment or other non-consensual behavior; if that assumption is proved untrue, that would change everything.)

As many have noted, including some blogging people on CNN, he doesn’t state when these things happened. The affairs could have, and probably did, happen before he got married in March, and perhaps even before his now-wife birthed his son. As the people on CNN say, we don’t know the nature of Dave and his now-wife’s relationship. Furthermore, even if he was cheating on her, we don’t know if she forgave him. And, as the bloggy people on CNN say, it’s really not our business.

It’s interesting that I wouldn’t hate someone who’s cheated on their significant other. Generally, I’m not a fan of cheating, and personally, I would never take part in any kind of infidelity. But we don’t’ know for sure that Dave’s actions constitute cheating, and even if they do, his honesty allows me to maintain my respect and love for him, and remain a fan, perhaps with enhanced fan-ness. His honesty doesn’t make cheating right, but it allows us as fans to maintain our love and respect for him. His confession also reminds us that his personal life, beyond what he chooses to reveal to us, is not our business.

While Dave’s celebrity status places him in the public eye, he has kept much of his personal life private. He is not an elected official who is trying to legislate morality (again, I think the bloggy people on CNN, the AP, and probably many others said something along those lines as well). He’s a comedian, and therefore, not a hypocrite for his countless jokes about politicians and other celebrities and their indiscretions, because his job is to make jokes. His personal life and his hypocrisy (if you believe he is a hypocrite) are not relevant to those jokes.

I can’t help but wonder if I would feel the same way if this were happening to a celebrity whom I don’t love. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m biased, but I think I would feel similarly, if not as strongly, if it were someone I hated, because the extortion involved is wrong – I mean more wrong than the potential infidelity.

Fun side note about my little Dave obsession: Before watching the blogging people on CNN, upon hearing that Dave’s affairs were with women who work for him, I immediately speculatively concluded that one of them (or perhaps the only one) must have been his assistant who’s made on-air appearances over the years. I won’t say her name here, because that wouldn’t be right, but one of the bloggers on the CNN thing confirms my suspicion, I assume speculatively. Before I knew she existed, when I was a teenager, I dreamed of having her job – so it should have been me…hahahaha, just kidding….maybe….no, no, I am kidding.