Here's a little sad detail: The New York Daily News contacted Dave's sweetheart Mom in Indiana for a reaction.
I don't think that was necessary.

Dave is great. I love the funny man.

Who cares if he is boinking a staffer?

Or multiple staffers?

Unless they were 13 year old staffer/interns, plied with champagne and Quaaludes, repeatedly saying "no, no".

Otherwise, it is mostly a private affair.

It was probably before he was even married, which was like last year or so.

Kudos to Letterman for having the intestinal fortitude to stand up to the extortion. He isn't a lying sack of crap like John Edwards who tried to buy silence. Whatever the deal is between his wife and him...is between his wife and him. I'm sure she'll do just fine if she wants a divorce, even if there was a pre-nup. It's important to focus on the fact that this didn't come into the public eye from a so-called "victim"...it came from a purported criminal extortionist looking for an easy payday.

stay classy, dave.

Whatever the deal is between his wife and him...is between his wife and him.

No, actually, sleeping with people who work for you gets you way beyond that. I would be quite surprised if this was not just the beginning of a lot of trouble over this.

Do you think the women involved are going to keep their names out of the New York papers? The supermarket tabloids? And then what?

More cowbell.

Glad the perp was nailed. Glad Letterman stood up to him. That is all.

This should make for another spike in his ratings.

As virtually everyone has opined, David is a class act. If one or more of his current or former employees wishes to initiate an action against him for harassment, then so be it. He is no hypocrite.

Actually, the NYT's story this evening is the continued unraveling of a certified hypocrite's auto-mythology:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/us/politics/02ensign.html?hp

It would appear fairly certain that laws have been broken by Mr Ensign.

Yet perhaps we will still never know all that we need to know about The Family.

This should make for another spike in his ratings.

Short-term, sure. But he's now admitted to doing something that he would have crucified other public figures for, night after night. He just lost about a quarter of his material.

Just watched the announcement. Painful stuff.

NIKE just denied reputed Letterman endorsement contract, said they just sent him one pair of irregular cashmere white socks.

Sex Sex Sex... Just another "who cares" media event...

Every place Ive worked employees were boinking or marrying people they met in the workplace... it happens all the time...

Good for you Dave...too bad for you, it had to become all of ours business...hopefully, how you handled it will take the wind out of the sails of anybody in the future who thinks this kind of thing is anybody's business but between those intimatley involved...

According to unnamed CBS sources in New York this morning, Letterman's show will now be called "Very Late Night with David Letterman."

Guess I can stop waiting for Stephanie Burkitt to reappear on the show.

If I could even tell a decent joke correctly, I would find it hard to be making jokes endlessly about others who are boinking employees, friends, wives/husbands, associates, underaged or overaged, or any of the other Letterman's joke material-when myself is doing the same.

A hypocrite? For me, yes. But I am glad he challenged the extortion attempt. Two different issues.

He just lost about a quarter of his material.

I don't think so. He's often used his own failings as fodder. I expect he'll make fun of politicians' affairs by saying things like they're no better than he is. This is a guy, after all, who regularly jokes (?) about visiting strip clubs and hookers. As Bill McD. would probably agree, it's all grist for the comedy mill.

"No, actually, sleeping with people who work for you gets you way beyond that. I would be quite surprised if this was not just the beginning of a lot of trouble over this."

I litigated sexual harassment claims on behalf of female employees over a decade ago, and I'm not up to speed on the current case law in this area so my understanding of the law may not be completely accurate. You are correct in the sense that it's not just sex when this happens in the workplace. The focus will be on whether this was consensual or not. Of course if he was the boss, and more than a co-worker, and there is any implication that the relationships were initiated or continued under duress by Mr. Letterman then he will have legal exposure. There is also the whole "hostile environment" issue as well if he was overtly sexual in his behavior towards women in the workplace. He referred to "creepy" behavior in his statement, so we will have to see what that's all about. So you are correct that there is a substantial possibility that this is more than between him and his wife. In fact, the wife may be the least of his worries. He still did the right thing by outing the extortionist. There is no suggestion at this point that the women he had sex with were complaining about his behavior before this came into the light of day. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Letterman will be experiencing two kinds of extortion. One is outside the law-the kind from his producer. The other is within the "law" (whatever that is anymore)-his coworkers and employees who can easily claim sexual harassment, hostile environment, or any other legal-mumbo.

Letterman had endless jokes about Packwood, now he'll be experiencing the same. I hope he's good at joking about himself.

The perp:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091002/ap_on_en_tv/us_tv_letterman_extortion

He could always argue that he was doing research for "48 Hours."

Letterman had endless jokes about Packwood, now he'll be experiencing the same.

The difference might lie in the fact that Packwood was making unwanted advances to a number of people, while -- at least in the case of Letterman's former assistant, Stephanie Birkitt -- she is "mortified Halderman is using her fling with Letterman to blackmail her boss" with copies of her diary, correspondence, and notes. Then, of course, there's the probablility that Birkitt's internship at "48 Hours" was where she met her ex-boyfriend Halderman, a producer at the show.

That said, I did think Jack's title was pretty funny.

Sorry to say, but Letterman's recent TV ratings are decent this fall in large part because Conan O'Brian on NBC is so utterly lame and just plain weird. Letterman is simply a bitter, over-the-hill comedian whose best years are behind him.

Letterman is a master at self-deprecation, and used it well in this performance: "Is it true that i had sex with women I work with? Yes, it is. Is this revelation embarrassing? Perhaps. Especially for the women involved."

Must respectfully disagree that Letterman's been riding high of late. The news value of his sleazoid sex with his coworkers? Worthless. The faux-contrite apology, again? Priceless.

The faux-contrite apology, again?

Spot-on, Mark. Except that there hasn't been any apology. But otherwise . . . .

Must respectfully disagree that Letterman's been riding high of late.

First in the ratings, by a wide margin. Monster guest list. This is success, by many people's standards.

Mark E. and Allan L., why should he apologize and to who? He was a single guy from the late 70s to last March 09..from what Ive read Dave's supposed girl in this situation was involved romantically with the guy that tried to extort Dave..

He found the diary of his girlfriend and thats how he found out about her involvement with Dave. So who's the victim here? Just sounds like a sordid love/lust affair between employee's.. and like I said in a previous post, who in corporate America hasnt observed inter-ofice relationships, some that lead to marriage...

Let's face it, they happen.. that's why corporate handbooks frown on them, but since when have policies got in the way of raging hormones... and wasn't Dave's wife (since March) a co-worker of Dave's also?

Why do people care so much about the adult sex lives of other people...

One thing that always got to me in the workplace, especially when I was new in the office, were the invasive personal questions.. they always began with, are you married? I always wondered just what does my response to that question conjer in their mind and what does it tell them about me... and it was always a woman who would ask that question..

Mark E. and Allan L., why should he apologize and to who?

Don't ask me. I was just pointing out (ineptly, I guess) how Mark totally made up something about an apology, which seemed kind of laughable, and then cast the made-up apology as a falsely contrite one, which seems downright moronic. There's really nothing -- blackmail and extortion aside -- to apologize for here.