- Obama gets a gold medal in the prestigious Kindly Requesting The Olympics For Chicago While In Denmark event. [New York Times]
- David Letterman slept with some people on his staff and some other lady turned around and performed extortion on him! [New York Times]
- Some ex-prosecutor on the Roman Polanski case now admits that he made a bunch of shit up for some documentary about Polanski. [CNN]
- Iran has agreed to start outsourcing its uranium to other countries for enriching purposes. (David Letterman’s intern is now extorting Iran.) [WSJ]
- GE and Comcast might go halvies on NBC Universal-ownership. Everyone should please check with Tina Fey to make sure this is doable, plotwise, before doing anything. [Reuters]
- When the Labor Dept. releases its unemployment report on Friday, America might tie some 1983 unemployment Olympic record. USA! [AP]
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- Everyone Is Mad At America, But America Is Mad At Everyone Too!
{ 60 comments }
Should have learned from John McCain. Do not fuck with David Letterman. He will cut you. Or at least report you to the Manhattan DA. Have fun in jail, failed extortion plotter.
Tina Fey slept with David Letterman? Gawd!
Given a choice between Six Sigma pushing mini-me Welch assholes or Larry Dolan as uber boss, I’d rather stay with GE (sort of a choice between poisons and picking the less deadly one.)
Remember the fate of the Knicks, NBC!
Even on the night he confessed to multiple office affiars, he still made Bill Clinton and Mark Sanford jokes. Stay classy Dave.
I wonder if Dave, afer telling his mom about the affairs and the extortion attempt, heard a bit of silence over the phone, then a sigh, then — in a disappointed voice — a single word: “David.” Guilt — a mother’s greatest weapon.
“I am astonished that he has now changed his story,” Marina Zenovich, the (Polanski) documentary’s director, said in an e-mailed statement. “It is a sad day for documentary filmmakers when something like this happens.”
Yeah, a sad day for documentary filmmakers. Huh? You think maybe it’s a sad day for the 13-year-old who was raped? Did documentary filmmakers become a solemn class of inviolable truth-tellers when I wasn’t looking, or does this person have a skewed idea about their place in society?
“Top Ten Reasons not to Pay Money for Fucking” in 3…2…1…
NBC?? That’s not Comcastic!
I’m not going to imply that Comcast is a cheap company, but I hear that they are planning to replace Al Roker on the Weather Channel (Wake up with Al) with an alarm clock they picked up at a garage sale.
Dear Editors, Peggy before you go, please.
[re=425401]Johnny Zhivago[/re]: Ha. Excellent.
[re=425395]McDuff[/re]: I wonder if Dave, afer telling his mom about the affairs and the extortion attempt, heard a bit of silence over the phone, then a sigh, then — in a disappointed voice — a single word: “David.” Guilt — a mother’s greatest weapon.
Awesome funny!
Letterman couldn’t keep it in his world wide pants? I’m shocked, shocked, I tell you.
Sorry Dave,
All the celebrities are busy saving Roman Polanski and have no time to save you.
We are a country of hypocrites.
After the wingnut/MSM finish their upcoming primitive, thundering morality dance rituals at the altar of Letterman a more interesting question will remain. How long will extortion/blackmail/gotcha social behavior be tolerated as acceptable in the workplace? This kind of behavior happens all the time though not with 2 mil attached. Indeed it’s encouraged through countless “get even” cultural stories, films, etc.
Evidently Letterman was seeing this alleged extortionist guy’s live in. What was the guy to do according to accepted logic? Wave like Dave from the sidelines? Heinously, he did what goes on all the time, he tried to get even.
Juli: You wrote: “David Letterman slept with some people on his staff and one of them turned around and performed extortion on him…” Not to be a Friday BuzzKill here, but the alleged extortionist appears to have been working for “48 Hours.” He was not one of women Mr. Letterman “slept with.” None of those women have come forward. Yet…
The extortionist has an iron clad defense, which I call the Bush/Cheney Anti-Nurembourg Republican Solipsistic Defense, to wit: Hey, this all happened in the past; we need to be looking forward.
I am personally looking forward to hearing rightards using it on behalf of Roman Polanski.
looks like letterman’s getting through this unpleasantness without claiming any part of it depends on what the meaning of “is” is. this could be a good thing.
“i did have sexual relations with that woman. and with that one. and with that one over there, too. and with that one, even though she was just an intern.”
Today, we are all fucked and extorted.
So not looking forward to Palin supporters’ schadenfreude.
Iran could probably get a good deal on outsourced uranium processing from Israel.
The winner in this sad, sad David Letterman story is the wifey. She still gets to live in that big house in Connecticut with the Puerto Rican pool boy to dry her tears all day while Dave’s at work.
[re=425404]binarian[/re]: My wife says that if she could get a tape recording of her mother’s “I’m REALLY disappointed with you” sigh played at a Mid-East peace conference, there’d be a peace treaty signed within minutes.
If ya can’t fuck the people in your own office, who the hell can you fuck? You have to shit where you eat, its way too expensive to go buy two houses so you can have the dining room in one and the bathroom in the other.
[re=425407]DoctorCulturae[/re]: For as long as humans work together. As for a proper response, extortion usually isn’t a good approach for a mark with big brass balls the size of churchbells such as Dave. The extortionist will wind up in prison for a few years, and Dave will go on living a comfortable, albeit somewhat embarrassing for a while, existence. The reality isn’t usually as delicious as the countless “get even” cultural stories, films, etc. would make it seem. Life is ugly and icky frequently.
[re=425400]TGY[/re]: On the contrary, if Letterman had paid for the fucking in front, he wouldn’t be arguing about the price now.
[re=425399]hobospacejunkie[/re]: My belief in myself as a liberal is severely challenged when his compadres defend Polanski. How good a director do you have to be to be able to rape children? Could John Huston do it? How about Roger Corman?
[re=425423]V572625694[/re]: Roger Corman? Yes.
[re=425417]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: and you think his accent/i> is thick….
[re=425421]Rotundo[/re]: Agree, of course. My point is blackmail is biz as usual.
[re=425426]DoctorCulturae[/re]: Sadly true.
[re=425423]V572625694[/re]: Bigger question is who the hell wants to fuck children? And anyone who defends fucking children or tries to argue mitigating circumstances (it’s been 40 years!) shouldn’t be able to call themselves liberal. Except for Mary K. LeTourneau, cuz she was totally hot & that kid totally scored. Except now he’s married to a woman pushing 60.
[re=425437]hobospacejunkie[/re]: Mary K. LeTourneau’s dad was a semi-famous far-right wing politician…until the affair was revealed anyway.
Dave should have learned from the fine folks at American Police Force that “its not against the law to cheat but it’s a violation of trust and can drag someone down because of how hurtful it makes married couples feel.”
[re=425407]DoctorCulturae[/re]: I thought the way to get even with someone screwing your wife/girlfriend was to punch the person in the mouth, not attempt to extort $2 million.
[re=425423]V572625694[/re]: I was thinking that! Use a discreet pro, you know all the costs up front. And if his wife decides to split, I’m thinking it’s going to cost way north of 2 mil.
And as Norm McDonald said on SNL, Mary K was The Greatest Teacher in the World.
[re=425443]CorkPopper[/re]: Letterman’s wife hung around a long time before she finally got the chance to get her hooks in Dave. I’m guessing she’s not going to be brushed off this easily.
[re=425423]V572625694[/re]: Their excusing Polanski’s behavior is pretty fucking vile. I don’t see what liberalism has to do with it though. Seems more like the run-of-the-mill vulgar idiocy of defending a friend who did something terrible.
[re=425409]Tundra Grifter[/re]: You’re right about the story. But as for women coming forward… what would they come forward to say? ‘Yeah, I fucked him’. How’s that a scandal?
I wish you hadn’t mentioned Tina Fey so early on a work day. Now I will be uncomfortably inspired all day.
Woody Allen signed a petition in support of Roman Polanski.
What? David Letterman had sex with a contortionist? That is what my mother said over the phone.
hobospacejunkie: A pop in the mouth is old school, pre-Reagan macho. Blackmail is passive-aggressive, lazy, like war in a video game: watching opponent in pain better than causing it.
Celebrity has affair = “Dog Bites Man”
Family-Values Republican has affair = “Dog with ‘Man’s Best Friend’ Sign Bites Man”
[re=425437]hobospacejunkie[/re]: Perhaps there is a disconnect between “physical sexual maturity” and your definition of a “child.”
The age of consent is a rule of convenience, not a fact of nature. There is some point at which we judge people to be insufficiently mature to make free and informed decisions, too weak to resist pressure from a more mature person, and we have decided that this is either 18 or 17 or 16, not because these ages have any relation to any individual’s level of maturity, they don’t, but simply because we need a bright line, and it would be impossibly difficult to measure any given individual’s level of maturity and make a case-by-case determination.
What I do know is that you are propagandizing when you keep saying “sex with children,” it was sex with a physically sexually mature young person, which is not pedophilia.
I happen to despise men who rob the cradle, because of the power inequalities, the differenmces in life experience, etc., Jerry Seinfeld picking up Shoshanna Lonstein at her high school when he was 35, Woody Allan dating a high school girl when he was 40, then making a movie about it, and dating the 17 year old actress who played his 16 year old girlfriend, yuck. Weak men, only happy around vulnerable and weak women, afraid of women who are their equals.
But I digress. When Polanski was young, the age of consent in France was 13. Until 2 years ago, the age of consent in Canada, our civilized neighbor to the north, was 14, did you know that? And that it only was changed to comply with an international treaty on sex tourism?
Polanski is a criminal, what he did was wrong, but stop with the “child sex” thing.
[re=425442]hobospacejunkie[/re]: Debra LaFave and Beth Geisel, those were better teachers than Letorneau. Geisel pulled a train in the football field press box, now thats hot!
[re=425452]magic titty[/re]: Someone will file a sexual harassment suit. Then it’s a scandal.
[re=425437]hobospacejunkie[/re]: [re=425474]Prommie[/re]:
Are there “children” in Hollywood culture? Miley Cyrus’s ten year old little sister did something like a pole dance with her friends at a public party. And Lindsay Lohan’s fifteen year old little sister is out clubbing all the time looking like the kind of woman politicians lose their job for. Men (and some women) who live in that “culture” live in that culture. I’m not excusing their behavior, just saying I think it’s the current variation of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway debating whether rich people are different or whether rich people just have money.
And I don’t know if the men are “weak” or just stupid. The young girls often posture as _empowered_ and in control of their own life and enjoying the jet set scene. It’s the man’s role to see through that superficial “strength” as the childish play-acting it is, but some guys don’t do that. I don’t think that makes the men vile or weak just either stupid or opportunistic. Or maybe they just playing too. Everyone playing. But it just seems to boil down to they are people living in a very weird culture and they are living in it.
[re=425482]shadowMark[/re]: “And I don’t know if the men are “weak” or just stupid.”
I always thought it was because men were using the penis as a brain.
Looks like, in spite of Obama’s performance, Chicago is out of the competition for the Olympics.
[re=425481]PerhapsSo[/re]: Consensual sex cannot be construed as sexual harrassment and any lawsuit of the kind will fail ingloriously.
[re=425474]Prommie[/re]: “I happen to despise men who rob the cradle, because of the power inequalities”
You didn’t digress, the main problem is that such age disparities are almost always accompanied by power disparities. It could be something as simple as “has a car and credit cards and can buy liquor,” but most of the times I see something like this ending up a newspaper, it’s generally a teacher or friend of the parents or priest or some other “authority figure” of sorts in the kid’s life. It’s hard to think up situations where such “May-December” hook-ups can happen without figuring in some venue where the adult has some sort of power; vastly different age groups tend not to hang out socially, unless someone’s actively cruising playgrounds or whatnot.
“the age of consent in Canada, our civilized neighbor to the north, was 14, did you know that?”
There are a few states with the AOC set at 14, but like Canada there’s a catch: you have to be within two years of their age. Otherwise it’s 18.
All things being equal, the upshot is that fucking teenagers means putting up with teenaged bullshit, of the sort that we’re all happy we left behind when we grew out of it. Anybody willing to put up with that for the sake of sex (and typically bad sex at that, thanks to aforementioned teenaged bullshit) needs to have their head examined.
[re=425409]Tundra Grifter[/re]: 2.0: Getting warmer. According to the reports I read, however, it was not a lady. Or a woman, for that matter. It was a He.
[re=425413]slappypaddy[/re]: Juli!~ He slept with Juli, too??
[re=425421]Rotundo[/re]: so messy!
[re=425532]Flanders[/re]: Traditionally these things happen with interns, so if the Wonkette’s involved that would mean Letterman did things with Riley.
Uh, okay, maybe Our Barry did not do so well…Chicago out on first ballot.
[re=425419]Prommie[/re]: I dunno, it could explain why he bought up half of Montana. You know, the half that wasn’t already owned by Ted Turner, and the sliver now owned by the American Police Force…
[re=425552]shadowMark[/re]: Sex scandals get one dimensional and sad—power inequalities and all that—it’s refreshing and so adult to picture Riley as Brett to Letterman’s Jake in the back of some cab as the sun also rises on them:
“Oh, Dave,” Riley said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.”
Ahead was amounted policeman in blue directing traffic. He raised his baton. The cab slowed pressing Riley against Letterman.
“Yes,” Letterman said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
[re=425515]Tundra Grifter[/re]: Juli: Of course, after his first overnight at Riker’s Island this gentleman may be less of a man – and more of a bitch.
“…and performed extortion on him!
Damn, that sounds hot. I’d like to have extortion performed on me by a Halle Berry knock-off and very, very slowly…
[re=425474]Prommie[/re]: I’m glad you know that the 13-year-old was fully sexually mature, and I’m also glad you seem to think that sexual maturity is the only thing that counts, since humans are common animals that don’t take into account mental maturity and the rest. Give me a fucking break. There is being a prude, and then on the other end there is you. This was child rape, period. I’ve always known you were foul from the tone you take on just about every issue, but you’re more foul than I even originally thought. Congratulations!
@LoweredPeninsula: I couldn’t put into words how reading Prommie made me feel. Fortunately you did put it into words. Makes me think of the ol’ “what if was your daughter” test. Wonder if Prommie would still go with the “it’s OK, she’s a sexually mature 13-year-old,” who apparently was given some ‘ludes and who knows what else.
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