Award-winning columnist, photographer and news writer Ellen Leahy is editor of the City Eagle in Syracuse, NY. She is the former editor of the Skaneateles Press and the Marcellus Observer, also in Central New York and is a freelance photographer and adjunct professor in food service at Onondaga Community College.
Where do I begin? A difficult subject, because David Letterman is in essence a victim. And what do we do with victims in America but victimize them endlessly.
There are questions now about what he was doing that was worth $2,000,000 in hush money?
There are all the questions circulating about the appropriateness of his behavior with his staff. How he allegedly could have been pressuring his female staffers into sexual relationships.
This is not to say that I haven’t witnessed a couple of classic hard-edge sexual harassment situations. And, it sure is bizarre, and also hard to pin down. But the one thing that I keep wondering about is that in my working-life-experience, I have often witnessed employees passionately throwing their affections in a physical and emotional way towards people in positions of power and prestige, especially toward people with a lot of dough. I’ve seen this more than I’ve experienced the deranged boss abusively using his or her position to take advantage of employees. Of course, this is just my experience, a longitudinal study of one, and not a full blown sociological experiment. But it struck me that someone had to say it, because pretty much everything else has been openly considered.
The higher ground is to never take the bait or conversely never misuse one’s power in such a way in the first place. Or, as my father would say, {Q}“You don’t get your meat, where you get your potatoes.”{Q}
Am I a Letterman fan? Sure, the old Dave, who had a crush on Terry Garr, I liked him. And, I like the new Dave, Dave the dad. Wasn’t too crazy about angry Dave before he quit drinking. I have compassion for blackmailed Dave and heart attack Dave. I guess the jury is still not all out on stud Dave. And the jury hasn’t even been selected for FBI sting Dave. Yet ultimately, it turns out a jealous rival journalist has managed to tarnish Dave’s star. But he’ll always be the son, who introduced us to Dave’s mom, and Mrs. Letterman is America through and through.
And after all this is considered, I still have to wonder, “Could he have been hypnotized?”
Ellen Leahy is the editor of the City Eagle. As a night person she has caught Letterman’s act from time to time throughout the years, and visited a live broadcast while he was still at NBC. The band is even better in person, Dave tended to just talk to the camera, but a good time was had by all.
