The Letterman nonscandal scandal

Minus the extortion attempt and the presumable tumult at home, David Letterman has exactly what he wants: a national spotlight and a huge ratings boost. And he didn't even have to fawn obsequiously over a sitting President to get it.

He did, however, have to admit to cavorting all over town (and in the secret love shack above the Ed Sullivan Theater, apparently) with various staffers years ago.

Even though he wasn't married at the time, it's still a pretty unseemly scene - a wildly successful and powerful public figure, secretly dating young girls who worked for him (while in a committed relationship with his current wife), who then goes onstage to flippantly harangue other public figures for doing the very same thing. Ironic, sure. And probably a little hypocritical. It might even amount to sexual harassment. But at the very least, we can all agree it's "creepy," as Letterman put it himself.

In return for giving us all a much-needed break from the suffocating, manure-sodden circus tent that is national politics at the moment, the media have given Letterman the greatest gift on Earth: "scandal" status.

But for all the unease and disgust the image of David LettermanDavid Letterman cavorting with anyone conjures up, I'm failing to understand the shock and outrage.

A scandal connotes some kind of impropriety that damages a person's character or reputation. Anyone who's managed to catch but a minute of the swaggering talk show host's nightly bit - which is predicated on a careful balance of glib condescension, a fratty, boys' club sense of untouchability, and, as of late, a bizarre foray into political-theory-by-US Weekly - would be hard-pressed to assert that Letterman actually has a reputation to damage.

The New York Post's Andrea Peyser called for CBS to fire Letterman. "Dave must go," she declared in a maudlin plea for justice that, in a Capra film, would have been cute. "If not, CBS will have lost any remaining shred of credibility, not to mention common decency."

Hold on a second. Just over a year after this guy called the first female governor of Alaska a "slutty flight attendant" and suggested her daughter would be raped by both Client No. 9 and a famous baseball player, anyone who is actually outraged that Letterman is a bit of a cad should probably "earmuff" it during any adult conversation about Santa Claus.

USA Today also asked, with adorable earnestness, "Did Letterman Ruin His Image?" The better question is, "What image?" If anything, he simply solidified it.

The coverage of the Letterman "scandal" reveals more about the media's celebrity worship than it does about him. Letterman's defenders in the press acrobatically vacillate between lionizing him as a modern-day Jonathan Swift and downplaying the implications of his stage insults, insisting, "He's just a comedian."

Proof that much of the media live in Neverland is that they think we actually like Letterman and fret that this might change our perception of him. We may enjoy his television performances, but did anyone on the planet ever actually suggest he was a role model?

A MediaCurves.com poll shows the "scandal" in fact did not change the perception of most Letterman viewers. No surprise. Despite Dave's regular attempts at mocking their intelligence, his viewers aren't stupid.

They saw what was clear to everyone without gills: David Letterman is a sexist and a sleaze. That we now have a public admission is incidental. Sorry, media - this scandal's old news to everyone but you.