Driving traffic to Sarah Palin’s Facebook page

Well, Dave Letterman has stepped in it again. For a public figure who guards his privacy as zealously as he does, it’s always Letterman who’s being held up to public scrutiny. Whether its stalkers repeatedly breaking into his home or Madonna dropping the F-bomb 17 times or being flashed by Drew Barrymore or raising the ire of Sarah Palin, the crazies are just drawn to this guy in droves.

Here’s my take: Letterman is a guy who lives, eats and breathes his show. If he didn’t meet women on the job he would literally never meet women. If there was a medical name for this phenomenon I would fall into the same category. I met my wife and, prior to that, all but one of my previous girlfriends through the auspices of my place of employment.

But he’s the boss and that puts him in a sticky situation, ethically. I had an extremely cute little gal working for me once and I never even allowed myself to flirt with the idea. Let alone her. Plus she was engaged, but man, if she had been in editorial instead of production…

But I digress.

It’s telling that it wasn’t any of the young ladies in question who decided to stab Letterman in the back, it was a third-party. It suggests to me that these affairs – and as yet, we’re only assuming there was more than one of them — were mutually consensual and the young lady(ies) walked away with their careers undamaged when the relationship(s) ended.

But we’ll see what the weekend brings. This could fill up a lot of dead air on the cable news nets (except MSNBC because Letterman is neither in maximum-security lock-up nor an online pedophile about to meet an NBC employee on camera).

The one young lady the press seems to be focusing on in this bizarre scheme is a former occasional onscreen foil of the talk-show host, a young lady whose current boyfriend is the fellow who has been arrested for trying to shake down Letterman. According to online accounts (and you may judge their veracity thusly), the young woman is described as “mortified” that her current beau went digging through her possessions to compile the box of black-mailable evidence he allegedly left in Letterman’s car.

Of course, the full extent of the ‘dirt’ on Dave is unknown as yet and that’s why I wanted to get this post out now. I wanted to go on record supporting Letterman. Whatever ugly truths are revealed as a result of this, I think they will pale in comparison to the shake-down attempt that brought them to light.

And maybe my prejudice as someone else who always had to troll the office pool for women to date is showing. When all you have is your job and a social-anxiety disorder, there is one way to meet women, period.

Plus, Letterman is a funny guy, wealthy and powerful. This is a combination of characteristics that I have observed many women find attractive in men. I can’t imagine he ever had to play the ‘Boss’ card with his conquest(s) and as of this posting, no such allegations have emerged.

I’ll tell you two things for sure, though. One, his mea culpa made for riveting television. And two, Conan might as well air a “Best Of TV Test Patterns” show on Monday. The only good thing to come out of this will be watching how Dave handles it on-air.