Howie Kurtz joins in with a hit piece on David Letterman. He manages to quote Beck/Newsmax contributor Tobe Berkowitz (who claims the “liberal-leaning” media will go easy on Letterman) and Don Imus (via Fox).
I can’t think of anything that interests me less than tv stars’ personal life. But I’m not Howie Kurtz or Tobe Berkowitz.
Update. Via Digby, People has some very incriminating details:
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.”
[….]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.”
Comrade Darkness
I can’t think of anything that interests me less than tv stars’ personal life.
Ding!
When I see those crappy magazines in the aisle at the supermarket I just want to scream at everyone who buys them: Pay more attention to your own bloody life and you won’t need to turn some poor sap you don’t even know into your own personal soap opera, complete with paparazzi stalkers!
GAh. Sorry, pet peeve.
The only vaguely interesting twist is Letterman undermining the blackmailer by going public. Good on him for that. (Okay, that’s like all I know about it, so if there is some additional twist, well, whatever.)
JK
Paragon of virtue and poster boy for moral rectitude Don Imus called David Letterman a creep.
IMHO, Don Imus can go FUCK HIMSELF. The I-Man is in no fucking position to cast judgement on anyone. He’s a scumbag who built his career by pandering to racist, sexist, homophobic, knuckle dragging neanderthals.
David Letterman’s transgressions are between his wife and himself.
MNPundit
Well it’s not very admirable to sleep with your employees. You think they’re going to say no? Many companies have policies like this for a reason too. Did Dave violate the CBS policy?
But no one is claiming it was non-consensual so it’s an internal issue for CBS if anything.
TD
I agree that this isn’t an important issue, but I do think that relationships between people with an such uneven power relationship should be frowned upon as a general rule.
I think Letterman should be censured, and possibly punished somehow. That, that obviously, is an issue for his employers is one thing. It’s not, however, unfair to apply public pressure on them to apply their own company’s rules, even to such a celebrity as DL.
max hats
Reading the nytimes this morning, my thoughts were “yep, the village is going to be all over this.” Consensual sex with someone who works for you is the greatest sin. You can torture people or start wars that get thousands killed for vanity, or worse, and still be okay. You just can’t fuck your lessors.
Typing this out, it actually makes sense to me for the first time. It’s just Victorian moralism, slightly updated. Do whatever horrible things you want to the natives, just don’t sleep with the help.
DougJ
But no one is claiming it was non-consensual so it’s an internal issue for CBS if anything.
Yes, exactly.
JK
Nice commentary by digby
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-i-never-by-digby-all-day-long.html
Howard Kurtz becomes a bigger scumbag with each passing day. His smug, holier than thou shtick is beyond nauseating. He needs to go fuck himself ASAP.
TD
I agree that this isn’t an important issue, but I do think that relationships between people with such uneven power relationships should be frowned upon as a general rule.
I think Letterman should be censured, and possibly punished somehow. That that obviously is an issue for his employers is one thing. It’s not, however, unfair to apply public pressure on them to apply their own company’s rules, even to such a celebrity as DL.
Just Some Fuckhead
That’s cuz yer obsessed with the Washington reality-show called The Village. We all got our blind spots.
leinie
Somebody remind me – was the Village all over Bill O’Reilly, when he actually ended up in a lawsuit over sexual harassment? I recall seeing that on the blogs, but I don’t remember it being a major story in the media.
They’re chasing this shiny object so they don’t have to talk about boring things like fucked unemployment numbers and people dying for lack of health care. Those things, they’re just so tedious.
Mark S.
Howie Kurtz’s sex life?
I like the celebrity comparisons Kurtz comes up with are Hugh Grant and Marv Albert. I’m surprised he didn’t mention Roman Polanski and R. Kelly.
JK
@leinie:
Certain people, like Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan, and Sean Hannity are protected by a thick coating of teflon. Short of murder, these guys can basically get away with anything.
Onihanzo
@JK:
And even the murder portion of that theory has yet to be tested.
JK
@Mark S.:
He uses an inflatable doll.
Svensker
@TD:
Possibly, if it were an intern or much younger person (which was why I was upset by Clinton’s bjs with Monica — abuse of power relationship).
But, come on, a consensual relationship with a peer? In a pressure cooker job where everybody’s working 12-15 hours a day? It happens all the time — and most of the time, it’s not a power thing or abusive thing at all. It’s just sex for comfort and mutual horniness.
Whether his personal friends and/or family are upset about it is their business.
I also don’t think anyone in media wants to get into: OMG, they had SEX!1!1 Since nearly everyone I ever knew in media was boffing somebody not-their-SO. (Doubt it’s changed in the last 20 years.)
aimai
Digby perfectly captured the insanity–and we’ve so been here before–the right wing *as usual* can’t tell the difference between consensual sex acts and rape, between frat pranks and torture. Or, where they can tell the difference, the prefer the second set to the first every time. As long as one of their authority figures gets his rocks off no rules apply, when someone they hate has fun they look for a reason to criminalize it.
O’Reilly is the perfect comparison set. The guy was essentially obscene phone calling someone in his work place to force them to have sex with him against their will. He got sued for that. The right wing closed ranks around him and tried to smear her and denied the totally obvious abuse of power issues in the case.
In this case a person who is not clearly a “subordinate” but rather a co-worker engaged in a long term relationship with an unmarried co-worker. There is zero evidence that it was non consensual or that Letterman was even the instigator of the relationship and he is not, in fact, being sued. But they now want to hold him to an obscure, possibly not applicable, set of in house corporate rules on behalf of a victimless crime. Because shut up, that’s why.
And they are comparing it, somehow, to Roman Polanski while when Roman Polanski is, as it were, Cardinal Law they never say a word about it. Its who you are, not what you do, that matters to those fuckers.
aimai
Svensker
Fixt for obviousness.
eemom
For the first time in my life, I’m quoting Greenwald: “Is Howard Kurtz a software program?”
Put me down in the “I don’t give a shit who Letterman fucks” column.
But if you wanna talk celebs, can I just interject how utterly disgusted I am with Whoopi Goldberg? I used to like her a lot…….and then she lost me big time when she said, re Michael Vick, that dogfighting was a “cultural thing,” or something to that effect. Now she came out with this brazen idiocy that Polanski didn’t commit a “rape-rape.”
To paraphrase our President’s delightful smackdown of Ed Henry some time back, WHY is it too much to ask that people know what the fuck they’re talking about before they open their traps?
linda
the village magpies are pouncing on dave for all it’s worth — heavy on the insinuation that the sex was not consensual. and alex witless on msnbc this morning trolling concern about the ‘interns’ dave reportedly boinked — were they underage….
letterman’s gotten a tad too outspoken on political issues — which tend to be liberal. i mean, the chutzpah, as howie describes:
“And by framing the story with himself as the victim”
moe99
Maxhats,
May I quote you?
Brendan
@max hats:
FTW!
DougJ – But but but, Letterman was mean to
POW, I mean President John McCain, so that makes it OK to go after him.Ow, my head hurts!!!
Roger Moore
@max hats:
Unless you also offer their spouse a job and get your parents to pay them off afterward, like Sen. Ensign. In that case it’s just fine. Or maybe that’s just another case of IOKIYAR.
aimai
Ah, svensker, yeah. I was was thinking that too.
aimai
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
“David Letterman will rape your mouth . . . he is a verbal pedophile! Go home to your kids! They could be next!”
max hats
@ moe99
for sure, I’m flattered.
Joshua Norton
“And by framing the story with himself as the victim”
Well, duh. Of course he’s the victim. Someone was trying to blackmail him for $2 mill. How is he NOT the victim. You people and your prurient concern about what people do with their sexy bits is disgusting. Murder, war, treason, theft – all OK. Get your rocks off and the heavens rain down.
JK
@linda:
Is there a dumber anchor on MSNBC than Alex Whit? Does she even have a high school diploma?
The Saff
@MNPundit: Per the NY Times today, Letterman doesn’t work for CBS. He works for Worldwide Pants.
Given the ordeal, I’m still going to watch his show because it’s usually good (he’s a lot better interviewer than either Leno or Conan). Letterman’s personal life is his own.
Shawn in ShowMe
So let’s recap what we’ve learned from today’s GOP un-math lesson.
David Letterman’s sex life = abuse of power
Strom Thurmond’s hypocritical sex life = invasion of privacy
Next lesson: How many soldiers will die in Afghanistan due to Obama’s failure to land the Olympics?
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
It’s Kurtz’s job, in part, to write about this shit. So the more you read him and link to him on a widely read blog the more he’s going to write it. So the logical step would seem to be to not read him or link to him.
SiubhanDuinne
@JK 1:51 pm. I saw her for a couple of minutes this morning and was reminded of one. ………
I
OriGuy
It was no secret that Letterman and Merill Markoe were having a relationship while she was writing for his show. From what I’ve been unable to avoid hearing about the current kerfuffle, all this happened before his recent marriage. So he wasn’t even cheating on his wife; perhaps on his fiancee, but that’s still between them.
SiubhanDuinne
Weird sorry, for some reason my screen has disappeared, I meant to say alex Witt does athing with correspndents in the field she says “thank you whoever for another great effort from th ewhite house ” as though theyare all special solympivcs reporters or somwthing. I am sorry inadbanve for any typos but I cannot see whati am typing weird balckberry.
JackieBinAZ
Oh, the delicious irony of an ad with a photo of Bill O’Reilly popping up in this thread…
SiubhanDuinne
Okay, I am going to try one more time. There, that’s better. I have no idea why, but typing on the BlackBerry a few minutes ago I had no text showing up in the comments/compose screen. Thus no visual feedback although apparently everything I actually typed was captured, I simply had no preview. Very odd.
Anyhow, re Alex Witt, she is always doing this thing of taking a throw from whomever the weekend White House reporter is and saying “Another FINE effort from the White House!” (or Capitol or Supreme Court or Yankee Stadium or wherever the hell). It’s a really annoying tic and I usually swear and change channels right away. But yeah, whenever I see her I think I’ve accidentally wandered over to Fox. She is that dumb and irritating.
mrstrailerco
I have two words for the village on this subject
Sally Quinn
I’m surprised no one has mentioned this yet.
Ash
I don’t care who he had sex with, but I am skeezed out that he apparently paid for law school for one of his side chicks/employees. I’m not a big fan of sleeping with the boss and getting nice tidy little benefits out of it.
Tuffy
It just occurred to me, Obama is very fortunate that Roman Polanski isn’t black.
Sharon
I think you’re on to something.
BDeevDad
Thee media complains that Obama has more important issues than the Olympics and yet refuse to cover those issues themselves and cover Letterman and Michael Jackson 24×7. I mean is it any wonder they are losing their audience. I makes me understand Glenn Beck’s audience a little more, since he at least consistently talks about the important issues (health care, bailouts, etc) even though it’s crazy talk.
Mrs. Peel
I’m not a big fan of sleeping with the boss and getting nice tidy little benefits out of it.
Spoken like the true jealous office gossip. If I was in a position to get such “benefits” I’d accept them in a heart-beat. At least he wasn’t married and stepping out while wifey was waiting at home with dinner on the table.
Dating your boss is pretty common. And when both parties are single it’s about as newsworthy as the sun rising in the east. The village idiots are just trying to get a little Palin payback and that’s ALL it is.
aimai
Ash, @37, I think that’s a really weird take on “paying for law school.” You know, prostitution doesn’t pay all that well and nobody important ever has to trade law school tuition to get laid. There are almost power and monetary imbalances between lovers–especially between wealthy and powerful men and younger women–that doesn’t make every gift a bribe. And a gift large enough to essentially end all need for favors? that falls into some other class entirely.
I think I respect Dave and his lovers more for being able to not only have consensual sex but have an adult, fond, mentoring relationship afterwards. Helping someone of lower social/economic status into a higher class status by helping them get an education simply doesn’t fall under the heading of exploitation as far as I can see. You don’t do it for people you are exploiting, and doing it means they will never have to be exploited again.
aimai
namekarB
@Just Some Fuckhead:
John is also obsessed with American
gladiatorser,opiate of the massesum, I mean sports. Definitely a blind spot for a majority of the American male population.Svensker
@namekarB:
Don’t forget us girls! Me likee the football. Huddle! (Specially with the spandex pants.) Go Jets!
Stefan McGrath
Reading the nytimes this morning, my thoughts were “yep, the village is going to be all over this.” Consensual sex with someone who works for you is the greatest sin. You can torture people or start wars that get thousands killed for vanity, or worse, and still be okay.
Seconded.
Brachiator
@mrstrailerco:
Good one. It is also odd that both Sally Quinn’s and Ben Bradlee’s Wikipedia entries softpedal the fact that Bradlee, Washington Post editor, dumped his wife and married Quinn after a long affair. You also have to wonder the degree to which Bradlee championed Quinn’s reporting career.
I agree with you here. If a powerful person, male or female (and yeah, I’m talking about you Madonna, and your toyboys) simply gives money or buys a house, etc., for a lover, it might simply encourage dependency. But to pay for a lover’s education, and to continue to do so when the affair is over, strikes me as more far more generous.
dr. luba
@max hats:
This obviously does not apply to Congress…..or at least senators from the state of Nevada (R).
Will
@MNPundit:
I’m prob not the first to remind people of this, but David Letterman is not an employee of CBS. He is an employee of his own company, Worldwide Pants. And a spokesperson for his company said last night that he had not violated their own sexual harassment policy. They have an explicit provision allowing employees to date one another.
Yeah, he’s a pretty smart guy…
Andrew J. Lazarus
My guess is we’ll find out Letterman was cuckolding the guy who tried to blackmail him. I won’t be voting for Gavin Newsom; even when the sex is consensual, there are things a man shouldn’t do.
JK
The last time I checked David Letterman was not running for President, Senator, Governor, or Pope. So long as these affairs were not coercive, it’s nobody’s goddamn business and that includes the Inspector Clousseau of media critics, Howard Kurtz.
Obviously, a lot of the coverage is fueled by the fact that wingnuts got their feelings hurt when Dave made jokes about Saint Sarah Palin.
Hopefully, the MSM will turn its focus to more weighty matters in coming days like Jon and Kate, Roman Polanski, and Tom Delay’s performance on Dancing with the Stars.
Matt T.
I agree that this isn’t an important issue, but I do think that relationships between people with such uneven power relationships should be frowned upon as a general rule.
Well, then, perhaps you should never engage in such a relationship and otherwise mind your own damn business. Sweet leapin’ Elvis, I can’t believe this country sometimes. Apparently, two people who weren’t married had sex and it’s something I have hear about. Frankly, I think Dave earned serious kudos for calling some filthy dirtbag’s bluff when he could’ve easily paid ’em off. And he had the sack to go on national television, his own show, and tell America he let a woman not sundered unto him by God touch his penis before anyone else had heard about.
Would that more of us had that kind of testicular fortitude and honesty.
Nethead Jay
@Matt T.: You win the thread for this comment, as far as I’m concerned. Talk about not pulling your punches.
J
With you Matt #51. To be sure, there are potential problems, as there are everywhere in life, but it should never be forgotten that romantic/sexual relationships are one of the most fulfilling things in people’s lives, and that the attractions and affinities that draw people to each other are very hard to legislate. A good part of the great art of most past eras is about the conflict between love/desire/attraction and the rules or expectations about what would be suitable. We can’t go back to the era of arranged marriages, which I suspect often didn’t work all that well in any case.
Martin
Meh. The right just wants to have to give their approval for everything. That’s why they go on and on about the nanny state – they’re pissed the government is butting in on their gig.
We’ll know soon enough if this is a problem – the free market will decide and pull their ads or not. Boy, won’t Beck be pissed if they don’t…