I am a little surprised at how much of the reaction has been "what a creepy sleaze-ball Dave is" (not on this list so much, but in much of the online commentary). The crime (based on what we know so far) is extortion, and Dave is the victim. From what we know so far, the affairs happened before Dave was married, and before his son was born. We have no evidence that the sexual partners were under 18, that the sex was in exchange for money, or that there was anything illegal involved. If we have all decided that fornication is a sleazy and unforgivable sin, I wonder why we started with Dave? I suspect there are quite a few fornicators our there for us to get outraged about. I thought Dave handled it well, in his usual style. The only creepy moment was when he said he had had sex with employees and the crowd applauded and laughed, but Dave had not done anything to provoke that kind of response (he did later make the joke to the effect "I know you are saying to yourself 'wait a minute, Dave has had sex'"?).
It is not exactly news that Dave has had sex with employees of his show - it was well known that he was romantically involved with Merrill Markoe, and I guess I have always assumed Lasko worked for the show at one time (though I don't know that for a fact). It is not illegal to have sex with employees; it does make one vulnerable to civil litigation, so we shall see if anyone wants to pursue that option. If one of these women provided her blackmailing boyfriend with photographs or videotapes to help him extort Dave, I think it will probably undermine any civil suit she might want to bring. I don't like being in the position of having to defend statutory rapists and fornicators. I suspect that in my personal life I am more conservative than most people on this list. But moralistic outrage has become so automatic in this country that people seem not to feel any need to even justify it. I am more interested in how this plays out in both his own act and the act of other comedians. Will he start making jokes about it himself, as he did with the Palin thing? Will Leno and Conan and TDS/CR make jokes about it? I suppose they have to, but will they give it as much play as they would if it were almost anyone else? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
