Eight Feet Deep

Like prob­a­bly mil­lions of other busy­bod­ies I am, at the moment, caught up in the whole David Let­ter­man scan­dal. My inter­est is that it is a com­pelling story involv­ing a high-dollar black­mail plot against a very unique enter­tainer whom I hap­pen to like.

Also grab­bing my atten­tion is the fact that the guy who allegedly tried to extort $2 mil­lion out of Let­ter­man over the star hav­ing sex with co-workers, Robert Halde­man, is him­self an Emmy-winning tele­vi­sion pro­ducer. Infor­ma­tion from an arrest war­rant for the man also says that the sus­pect lived at one time with one of the women with whom Let­ter­man was hav­ing an affair. That woman, Stephanie Birkitt, has been seen many times on “Late Night With David Let­ter­man.” Birkitt — who hosted Win­ter Olympic cov­er­age on the show in 2002 and 2006,  is not accused of any crimes. It appears just to be a pawn in the alleged blackmail.

I have no feel­ings one way or the other about any who are involved in this saga, at least from the stand­point of their involve­ment or non-involvement. I think Let­ter­man was smart to get out in front of this. I always thought Birkitt was cute and funny cast as a faux air­head. I actu­ally thought she would one day go some­where in show business.

The prob­lem with this type of story is we will get sick of it because it will be cussed and dis­cussed ad nau­seum as the media has a propen­sity for dead horse beat­ing. The rea­son is that the media, in most cases cor­rectly, assumes the pub­lic always wants more of a great story espe­cially one involv­ing celebri­ties. Another fac­tor is that the media is lazy. It is eas­ier to con­tinue milk­ing a story for every last drop than crawl­ing around out in the trenches look­ing for news.

So I guess I will enjoy the story until it starts get­ting on my nerves. When it comes to news, one must know when to say when.