For those who build their careers on the backs of other peoples’ failures and shortcomings, the road is rough. Unless you’re living a perfect life, there’s a good chance you’re going to end up getting the same abuse you dish out to them.
Luckily for David Letterman, his targets over the years have way more class than he does.
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says Letterman could benefit from his confession that he had affairs with women who worked on the “Late Show.” And former Florida Rep. Mark Foley says, “I feel sorry for Dave—I take no glee.”
Most of Letterman’s targets who were approached by The Associated Press refrained from jeering at his plight—or saying anything at all.
But Sanford sent Letterman warm wishes.
“Both my thoughts and my prayers are with him,” he said Tuesday after a speaking engagement at a Rotary Club meeting in Easley, S.C.
Of course, Letterman’s monologue Monday night was riddled with jokes poking fun at former targets, including Sanford and a “hiking the Appalachian Trail reference,” but nonetheless Sanford wished Letterman the best.
What about Mark Foley? He didn’t take any cheapshots either, despite Letterman’s relentless attacks on him during his paige scandal…
On Tuesday, Foley, now a talk-radio host in Florida, voiced concern for Letterman’s 5-year-old son, Harry, and for the child’s mother, Regina Lasko, whom Letterman married in March after many years together.
“You hope that somewhere along the way,” continued Foley, “somebody feels their heart beat and says, ‘God, but for the grace of God, there go I,’ and they say, ‘You, know, this isn’t funny anymore.’”
And David Vitter?
Perhaps Vitter, like many other embarrassed politicians, had set himself up for ridicule. But hasn’t Letterman set himself up for payback, now?
Vitter chose not to return fire at Letterman’s glass house.
And Gary Hart?
“Big weekend for Gary Hart,” Letterman grinned when the Hart scandal broke: “He was campaigning his brains out.”
Chris Smith, Hart’s spokeswoman at the University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs, said Hart had no comment.
Not to mention Elliot Spitzer, Bill Clinton, Larry Craig, and John Edwards. None of whom, despite being repeated targets of Letterman’s nasty attacks (including Letterman’s demand that Spitzer step down) took the opportunity when approached by the AP to pile on.
Not one of them. That says to me that his targets have infinitely more class than he does, and chose not to turn his failures into their moment in the sun, even in retribution. Mark Foley did have some final words of wisdom for our gap-toothed philanderer:
“Nobody is above making tragic mistakes,” said Foley. “Some never get discovered; some do, in a very public way.”
Letterman “can keep apologizing until the cows come home,” he added pointedly. “But he’s now found his own life the subject of late-night comedians.”
And that might be the sweetest payback of them all.