Letterman, Clinton and Messing Around in the Payroll

I love David Letterman and I love the way he handled the blackmail attempt recently by coming "clean" about his office sexual exploits.

But I have one problem.

It's lousy, probably fire-able, workplace practice. Technically, Letterman is like a CEO and in some places, like Israel for instance, screwing around at work is not only immoral, and poisoning to the workplace (think how the non-participants feel?) it's illegal.

The work world is littered with the corpses of corporate execs who have leered or else used their position (unconsciously or otherwise) to "have their way" with staff members.

Sexual relations among consenting adults aside, here are the workplace issues:

• Were women hired, or promoted, on this show on the basis of whether they put out with its host?


• Were women fired, or demoted, because they didn't?


• Since this was probably common knowledge, how did this motivate women to seduce the host? Or other execs? Was there sharing....Or pregnancies or payoffs to leave? Or emotional hard feelings? Or talent lost because she couldn't continue to be around Letterman?

I'm as liberal as the next gal, but this begs a lot more answers. Unlike Clinton, who hid and lied, Letterman poisoned his workplace by fooling around with the underlings.