Do you think David Letterman should resign?

Only if you feel that President Clinton should have done the same.

He isn’t a politician that makes laws that control my life. His bedroom is his. This isn’t a case of hypocrisy.

Was it fucked up? Yeah. But I really don’t care what/who he does in his spare time.

Isn’t it punishment enough that he had to reveal his private life to millions of Americans and has to deal with his wife knowing this?

Plus, it’s not like everyone doesn’t do this type of thing. Letterman just got caught.

“Do you think he should resign to set an example for appropriate workplace conduct?

“Or are you cool with this and think it’s fine if your boss has sex with your coworkers even if they end up getting promoted above you because of it?”

These are my only two choices? So if I feel he shouldn’t resign (which, of course, he’s not going to do) I am saying it’s okay for a boss to use sex with employees as a way of moving up?

@johnpowell What if your boss has sex with a coworker of yours and they end up getting promoted above you because of it? Wouldn’t you be pissed?

That’s just a rumor. Were you the guy blackmailing him?

@Facade It’s not a rumor. He admitted it already.

@drdoombot: The likes of President Clinton and David Letterman don’t have a private life.

Clinton represents the United States, Letterman represents CBS. Are the days of figures leading by example over?

Wasn’t it a well known fact that David Letterman was in a relationship with Merrill Markoe? So um yeah I don’t think he should resign. We also really have no idea if he gave any unearned promotions to women with whom he may have had relationships. He admitted to having sex with some female employees, not promoting anyone based on their skill in the sack.

@Noel_S_Leitmotiv Perhaps, but how often do you hear about even a celebrity’s bedroom antics, bowel movements and preferred cheese snacks?

There are always some things that remain private and having to reveal them does suck.

@AstroChuck What I’m saying is imagine if this happened where you work at the moment. Let’s say your boss had sex with a coworker of yours and then that coworker ended up getting a promotion even if you were doing a better job? Wouldn’t you be pissed? And isn’t this the same issue with whether Letterman should resign? He has betrayed the trust of his employees and CBS should insist that he should resign to make it clear that it believes in creating fairness for all of its workers.

Was this when he worked for NBC, if it is, what’s the point of resigning? He no longer works for the same people or has the same employees.

When are people going to learn that if they do something uncool anything might happen?

@drdoombot: How do bowel movements speak of ones morality or ethics? Or lack thereof?

@JollyTiger CBS will not ask Letterman to resign. He’s a big money-maker for them and for the first time in years, his ratings have gone up and he’s doing better than The Tonight Show.

@JollyTiger Do you mean resign… or resign ?

@virtualist Do I have a typo somewhere? You typed the same word twice?

@Noel_S_Leitmotiv No matter how public a person’s life might be, some privacy remains. I’d venture that this privacy would be coveted even more because of how little of it is possessed. Having to give up some of that is a form of punishment.

If my boss had a relationship with someone, and promoted them unfairly I’d have an issue with it. However, we don’t know that Letterman did, in fact, promote unfairly. All we really know is he had sex with some co-workers. That’s not reason enough to resign, in my opinion.

@drdoombot: I disagree. People make choices and compromises to achieve their aims all the time. When it comes to public life, or more importantly positions of authority, they are faced with choosing to give up their privacy and should adjust their behavior accordingly.

@augustlan True – having sex with employees is not reason enough to resign.

One???

And no, Birkitt’s a student at Cardozo Law. She’s not successful yet.

To answer your question, I don’t think he should have to resign. There is no evidence that he favoured employees based on sexual service to him. After all, his executive producer, who started as an production assistant at his NBC show, is a lesbian. I take it he didn’t get far with her (or even attempt it), and yet she’s at the top of the heap on his current program. Everyone is a consenting adult here. And frankly, I don’t think Dave’s got enough juice to out-and-out ruin careers if you don’t sex him.

Of course, if CBS wants to void their contract with him, that’s up to them. It doesn’t affect me either way.

He should resign because he’s not funny. Am I the first person to express this?

@Noel_S_Leitmotiv I don’t disagree with you that people in power should change their behavior according to their position, but celebrities? Letterman is not someone I have elected and I don’t see how his sexual escapades affect my life, even indirectly.

Back to my main point: while famous people are expected to give up their privacy entirely in exchange for their fame, the reality is that some privacy remains, however small (there’s no such thing as 100% exposure, or there wouldn’t be a celebrity whom we haven’t seen naked, taking a dump, picking his nose, etc). So the bottom line is that what little privacy remains is treasured, and giving it up is painful. With so much out there already about Letterman, I’m betting he’s sore about having to talk about who he shtupped at work.

@holden GA :)

@drdoombot: I wasn’t suggesting that it’s cool to collect information about celebrated peoples by breaking the law (what would happen if someone got footage of one ‘taking a dump’)

Disposal of Lettermans case is up to CBS. I trust there won’t be a firing as there’s been no lying involved (not the case with Clinton).

It’s likely that CBS will make their decision based on imput from their customers (viewers) Sadly, no similar option was provided in the Clinton case.

I like Dave better than Jay Leno. Just sayin’.

If there was any unfairness in employment practices, they should be adjusted through internal employment process. It is ludicrous to believe a celebrity like Letterman would resign over such nonsense.

Comparing Dave Letterman to Jay Leno is like comparing syphilis to gonorrhea.

@Noel_S_Leitmotiv why are you so hung up on Clinton? You know there are plenty of Republicans who have had scandalous affairs, right? You remember Mark Sanford?

@holden:

My biggest problem isn’t with Clintons tasteless action. It isn’t so much with his lying to congress about what he did.

It’s with his knowing what he did, refusing to admit it till there was no other alternative while our government spent millions searching for the truth when he could have stopped the investigation by admitting his wrongdoing.

Politicians should be judged by their behavior. I was very saddened by Newt Gingrich’s affair for example.

What a Puritan society we remain. It is quite extraordinary that we still have concerns about issues that date from the 17th Century.

There was only one crime connected in conjunction with this matter, and an indictment has been issued, and the alleged criminal has been arrested.

Letterman has acted to protect the women involved (any one of whom could have filed a sexual harassment lawsuit if she had been mistreated), his family and himself, in what I consider to be a rather courageous manner. No whining, no lying, no publicity agents or lawyers handling it; he just went on TV and told the truth.

I have a higher regard for him today than I did yesterday, because frankly I don’t find him that amusing lately, and I don’t watch his program. I did however watch his entire “confession” on YouTube, and I found it to be exemplary. What else would you have him do?

I think he did the right thing (as far as I am able to know).

Given Letterman’s style I imagine his confession was anything but easy. I wish he had prefaced his statement with ‘What I’m about to describe is serious’ but his report was clean and matter of fact. He did nothing to deflect his responsibility.

I don’t watch Letterman but I appreciate his handling of the matter.

I WOULD LOVE IT. not because of this but just because i do not enjoy him in general. i like jay leno, but every time i ever watched letterman all he was talking about was bush, and after a million episodes it isn’t very funny. actually after the first one it’s not. COME TO THINK OF IT, he’s just not funny, yes he should get off tv so we can add another reality show about someone who is unimportant!!!!!!!!!!

@pdworkin So I take it tar and feathers would not be acceptable to you.

You wish to tar and feather me? Whatever have I done?

@pdworkin No, Letterman. Just kidding. I also thought his “confession” was admirably done and I have no problem with him having sex with employees. As long as he has sex with everyone.

@JollyTiger The ‘did you bring enough for everyone’ mentality? :-p

@pdworkin Wow. you pretty much just took the words out of my mouth. I wanted to comment on this but there’s nothing left for me to say. Well said, sir. Well said.

kind of you to say so

Can anyone provide me with a link to the full confession? I’m finding news reports on it, or snippets of it, but not the full actual video.

@augustlan this should do it for you.

Thanks, mouse.

I could not care less what he does in his private life. I never watch the show anyway, and his piccadilloes are of not interest. His wife may have a different view.

i read on the internet today (AOL i believe) that his wife was a former employee also. hey, to me, what he does with his personal life is his business. it was apparently before he was married, so nobody could say he cheated on his wife. i love david letterman. i have never been a big jay leno fan. to me, letterman is more goofy, offbeat, and i do think for an older guy he’s kind of cute in a nerdy way.

If there was preferential treatment, then maybe Dave should pay the appropriate government fines. But this is really no bigger deal than any time a person gets promoted within a large global company.

Very rarely is it due to someone having higher talent than others in the pool, and almost always, it’s preferential treatment of some sort. Not usually sexually based, though. But sometimes. It’s usually just personality based… who the person in charge “feels” that he or she “trusts” the best. I don’t see a huge difference.

And like jca said above, the fact Dave married a former staffer brings up the exact same issues.

Letterman > Leno

He didn’t sleep with one woman, he had several affairs with members of his staff. So he cheated on his partner/wife.

No need for him to resign, it’s good enough that the public can remember his jokes about Sarah Palin and her daughters.

@Jack_Haas The news reports say that all of the relationships were prior to his marriage. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know.

@augustlan Sure but he and his partner were together for 16 years before they got married. If they were together it’s cheating imo, married or not.

And it was Regina Lasko, not us, who judged whether or not to stay with him. We’re not in a romantic relationship with him, he’s not a politician and he isn’t our boss. It’s unfortunate that he had to talk about this on the air in order to keep the tabloids off his back, but we have no idea what sort of understanding he and his now-wife have. It’s not like she’s stupid; I’m sure, after a couple of years, at least, she knew what sort of relationship she was getting herself into. The general public are in no position to judge his behavior unless he committed a crime.

I hope we recognize that. What he did has nothing to do with any of our lives, but is between him, his wife, his ex-paramours, his blackmailer and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

if he cheated on his wife that’s his business and does not concern me in any way. my impression from the news that i’ve seen on tv and internet is that it was years ago, when he was not married. maybe that’s why he put off getting married for so long. that’s his business, not mine. even if he did cheat on his spouse, would he be the first person in history to do so?

Does anyone know what the law about sexual harassment is? I’m pretty sure that if there is some penalty, it can only happen if the victim files a complaint. It would be interesting to hear these women’s stories to see how they thought they were being treated.

As far as Letterman’s private life—we only care because he’s rich and famous and in the public eye most nights. We only care because someone believes it is actually possible to blackmail him. Other than that, it’s just another case of people being human and engaging in the kinds of behaviors that many people think are immoral—at least in the U.S. Not all cultures are so moralistic about this kind of behavior.

Part of it is also the prurient imaginations of the public and the jealousy about the lives of the rich and famous.

Whether it’s a tempest in a teapot or not, I can’t say. Nor can I judge him. I think the blackmailer was the truly immoral person. He should get rehabilitation, but he probably won’t be changed by the experience. In any case, he should be the object of our derision and scorn.

This may be a little off the subject, but frankly I don’t care if Dave resigns or not. What I want to know is, where does he get that sex drive? I’m twenty years younger than him and I don’t think about sex even a tenth as much as I did when I was eighteen. I used to always wake up in a horny mood. Now when I wake up, my member is like a Tootsie Roll, left on a black-topped highway in Death Valley, at high noon, during the last week of July.

It’s soft, is what I’m sayin’. So is Dave popping Viagra all day, or what? I’m impressed.

Related to that, I was always curious as to how people could not have a constant sex drive. I’m 53, and if anything, it’s stronger than when I was 18. It really bothers me, because it takes my mind from things I would rather think about. It’s obsessive is what it is. It may also be a symptom of mental illness.

So, no. You don’t need to pop viagra all the time. It is also true that bipolar folk are often very creative. Not to say that Dave is bipolar or anything. But mania is associated with an increase in sexual desire. In any case, @jw67, I wouldn’t mind trading a bit of my desire for a bit of your lack thereof.