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Maureen Dowd: Letterman is no Clinton or Polanski

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By Maureen Dowd 5:27 PM Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Some things have changed since the “Mad Men” era.

The elevator operator isn’t the only black face in the building. Executives no longer sip amber highballs and puff Lucky Strikes all day long.

And other things have not changed.

Some women still wriggle into girdles (now called Spanx). And some men still gravitate toward interns, nannies and secretaries (now called personal assistants).

A few years ago, I wrote that 40 years of feminism had done nothing to alter the fact that older men often see young women in staff support as sirens. For some men, it’s the very inequality of the relationship that’s alluring, the way these women revolve around them and make life easier, the way they treat Himself like the sunrise and sunset of their universe.

In terms of evolutionary biology, it could be rooted in the fear that aggressive females would be more likely to cheat and the males could end up raising offspring that were not their own.

In romantic terms, it could simply be the erotic pull of proximity. You covet what you see every day, as Hannibal Lecter said, and it can be seductive to get involved with someone who’s already orbiting around you, bringing you pizza with your favorite toppings late at night.

Office romances abound in life and art (“The Office” has its intra-office wedding this week), and sometimes young staffers are attracted to the boss, and vice versa. Les Moonves, who heads CBS, and Robert Iger, who heads ABC as the chief of Disney, both married lovely young correspondents on their networks. Barack Obama fell in love with a superior mentoring him at his law firm.

On his last late-night show, Jay Leno brought out all the kids spawned from “Tonight Show” romances.

In an ideal world, bosses would refrain from sleeping with subordinates, so as not to cause jealousy and tension in the office. But we’re not in an ideal world. Otherwise, we’d already have health care for everyone and Glenn Beck wouldn’t have any influence over the White House.

After David Letterman acknowledged that he’d had flings with young assistants, some commentators talked about it in the same breath as Roman Polanski, who drugged and sodomized a 13-year-old. That’s outrageous.

Sexual harassment entails pressuring or penalizing a staffer or making the office atmosphere hostile. Despite the blustering of the attorney of the alleged execrable extortionist, Joe Halderman, there’s no evidence yet that Letterman was guilty of that.

Working for a boss as anti-social and self-critical as Letterman, whose world is circumscribed by his show, would not be easy. (The man is obviously not joking when he goes off on his self-loathing shticks; otherwise, he would have dated some of those gorgeous actresses flirting with him on air over the decades.)

But we haven’t heard that the curmudgeonly comedian, who has never lost his streak of Midwest primness, forced any staffers to listen to tales of pubic hairs on Cokes or of Long Dong Silver.

From what we know so far, and that may not be everything, the women who got involved with Letterman were not pressured. One former intern, Holly Hester, said she had wanted to marry him but that he broke it off because of their age disparity.

Stephanie Birkitt, his assistant and former lover, described herself as his best friend. She was not punished but rewarded with a recurring on-air starring role — despite the fact that she wasn’t funny or charming. As usual, Letterman was living out loud on the show, showing the audience his crush. His company reportedly footed the tab for Birkitt to go to law school; it says it did the same for some other staffers who wanted to pursue higher education.

On Monday night, when Letterman joked that he might be the first talk-show host to be impeached, Birkitt’s name was still listed in the show credits.

Letterman’s talent doesn’t give him a free pass — he described his own behavior as “creepy” — and his wife (a former staffer at NBC) has a right to be deeply hurt and furious.

But it’s absurd to compare a jester (unmarried at the time) to Bill Clinton and other philandering pols. Officeholders run as devoted family men upholding old-fashioned values. They have ambitious public agendas and loyal acolytes whose futures depend on whether these leaders succumb to reckless dalliances.

As Craig Ferguson, whose show is produced by Letterman, joked: “If we are now holding late-night talk-show hosts to the same moral accountability as we hold politicians or clergymen, I’m out.”

The main thing Letterman and Clinton had in common was that the danger of a secret affair exploding is enhanced when the staffer is immature enough to scrawl confessions in her diary, as Birkitt did, or go prattling to a prat like Linda Tripp.

Unlike Clinton, Letterman trusted the public — and his bond with them — enough to tell the truth.

Maureen Dowd writes for The New York Times.

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Find who is in charge or the most powerful in any job/organization and F*** him/her first. It potentially increases job security, enhances upward mobility, and adds greatly to your bargaining tools for raises/educational perks. You Go Girl(or Guy)!!! (and don't forget to write the BOOK!)

JobAssets!
3:37 PM, 10/11/2009

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Ask him why he didn't marry Birkitt.

Bridget
12:32 AM, 10/11/2009

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Harry is going to grow up some day. He's going to find the truth about all this and he's going to be on his mothers side. What are you going to do about that?

chet
12:55 AM, 10/10/2009

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WOW miss Dowd is still holding a grudge over Linda Tripp after how many years?? I guess you expected her to perjure herself for the common good , and keep a serial rapist from getting impeached..I realize you socalled reporters of the Alpphabet soup media have NOOOO problem lying to America as long as it accomplishes YOUR goals.but some people put PERSONAL ENTEGRITY ahead of all else, I wish they were all called Republicans, but their are tooo many rinos in congress to suit me.

Philman
9:27 PM, 10/8/2009

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So much money. No one will care.

Dave'slittleman
6:51 PM, 10/8/2009

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