Couple of quibbles here.

First the only thing that would be jaw-dropping about Letterman’s sex life would be a claim that he DIDN’T have affairs with his staff over the years, during which he was mostly single, rich, and powerful (in his sphere of influence).

His “admission” was fairly ham-handed as such things go in my opinion. As a Letterman fan from many years ago his shtick is fairly well established (and not even his invention): you set up the punch line, and then pause long enough for the audience to figure out what it is (or in many cases mentally supply a better one). Howls of laughter ensue. As one commenter suggested it has become a Pavlovian response, not requiring actual humor at all.

Even though the subject was a serious one, I’m quite sure that Letterman counted on the laughter to dilute whatever guilt his audience might have imputed to him.

My guess though is that much of the traffic these things got was due to the story being a headline on Drudge for a couple of days (and still, I think). Appearance on Drudge practically guarantee that it will be the subject of conservative talk shows.

Other than that, neither his performance, or the news itself are particularly interesting. It certainly did give a lot of Sarah Palin fans a chance to fire back at yet another liberal hypocrite (they come in all shapes and sizes and political persuasions).

By comparison The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson contains regular true admissions of past wrongdoings without a lot of excuse-making and without the necessity of being prompted by a blackmail attempt.

While I watch no TV at all for the past 8 years or so, except when visiting others, the monologue Ferguson did on the benefits of AA (without naming them) was a masterpiece by comparison to much of what is put out by the media today. I did actually see that online after being introduced to the show by a neighbor. If I watched TV at all I’d be skipping Letterman and watching Ferguson.