The apologies keep coming from David Letterman, said Joe Gandelman in The Moderate Voice. On Monday, the Late Show host asked for forgiveness from wife Regina Lasko, his staff, and even Sarah Palin, after confessing last week to sleeping with staffers. (watch Letterman’s monologue). It looks like Letterman's personal life will keep the press and the blogosphere busy for months to come. Less clear is whether he will be “less likable as he talks about the issue again,” or after his sex-extortion case goes to court.
That would be a shame, said Tom Shales in The Washington Post. Letterman “stands head and heart above” most of the “sexually misbehaving celebrities”—not to mention politicians and pastors—he will now be lumped with. Some will see this mess as “fit retribution for the jokes Dave has made about naughty-boy politicians,” but I hope he’ll “continue to lampoon sleazy political figures”—it’s his job as a “proverbial court jester.”
There’s nothing funny about cheating on Lasko with "junior staffers,” said Andrea Peyser in the New York Post, and “trashing the trust of their 6-year-old son, Harry.” If CBS has any “common decency,” it will "dump David Letterman. Right now.”
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Not likely, said Frazier Moore in the Associated Press. The “intensely private Letterman” surely didn’t want this “very embarrassing” publicity, but his “masterful” handling of the mess could be his greatest “professional triumph.” Ironically, it was Hugh Grant’s sex-themed apology 14 years ago that vaulted Jay Leno past Letterman for the rest of their TV rivalry. Letterman matched that “Jay-and-Hugh moment,” so pity Conan O’Brien, if anyone.
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