SELECTIVE OUTRAGE: MARILYN PENN
SELECTIVE OUTRAGE; MARILYN PENN
http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/topic/politics/
Robert Halderman has been sentenced to six months in jail for trying to extort money from David Letterman regarding his affairs with several women on his staff. In exchange for pleading guilty and apologizing to Letterman and the world, the Emmy award winning producer must also perform 1,000 hours of community service and remain on probation for four and a half years. David Letterman, on the other hand, has seen his ratings rise ever since he pre-empted Halderman’s threats by revealing his own pecadillos to an audience that laughed uncomfortably, unsure of whether the talk show host was joking or serious. Even though having sex with underlings is frowned upon and even punishable, no repercussions have accrued to Dave who deftly switched his role to that of injured party, with nary a peep from NOW.
In the case of Tiger Woods, feminist attorney Gloria Allred signed up several of the golfer’s bimbos and negotiated lucrative payoffs for them in exchange for their withholding their stories from the media. Oddly, this maneuver was not considered extortionary and neither Gloria nor the women are in any trouble with the law, nor frowned upon by the press pundits. Why was the district attorney involved in one case but not the other? How are we laymen to distinguish between the two sets of nearly identical circumstances – people threatening to expose details of someone else’s bad behavior unless they were compensated grandly. Had Halderman hired Gloria Allred instead of trying to do his own extorting, would he, like Rachel Uchitel and the other babes be in the money instead of in the clinker? Conversely, if Tiger Woods had reached out to the DA instead of for his wallet, would all the women have been set up for the same sting operation that nailed Halderman? Is extortion against the law in New York but okay in Florida? If a law is serious enough to warrant a jail term when it’s broken, should it matter whether the victim reports it or it simply comes to public attention some other way.
Perhaps extortion is mainly in the eye of the beholder, as sexual harassment apparently is. If the reason for not having sex with your employees is that it’s a form of manipulation, it should be irrelevant that some people are willing to be manipulated. There will always be people who are willing to work for less than minimum wage but it’s still against the law to take advantage of them. There are people who appear willing to be enslaved but their seeming compliance masks fear, guilt, bewilderment or some form of Stockholm syndrome and their kidnapers or exploiters get punished when they’re caught. David Letterman persisted in several relationships with young women he employed, one of whom was Mr. Halderman’s girlfriend. If it happened once, we might say that affairs of the heart are hard to regulate, but it happened over and over again with women who were grateful for their jobs, perhaps flattered by the boss’ attention and unwilling to jeopardize their status. David Letterman is a serial predator who has not even been admonished, much less punished.
While Mr. Halderman sits in jail and then works the city’s soup kitchens, Mr. Letterman will be traveling to work in his limo, smoking his cigar and basking in the admiration of his audience and the commendation of District Attorney Vance who stated: “I commend Mr. Letterman for making the difficult but unquestionably right decision to report this crime to my office.†The same crime, committed by Gloria Allred and Tiger’s pussycats was handily rewarded.
Comments are closed.
