The Letterman "Apology"

I'm not much one for celebrity gossip, but when I heard that David Letterman was making headlines on the front pages of newspapers across America, I checked out what was going on. Turns out that the Indianapolis native had had an affair with an intern several years before and that someone was attempting to blackmail him for $2 million with this insider information. So Letterman called the attorney general, wrote the man a fake check, and the blackmailer was caught, but Letterman still had to confess to his "sin." I watched a clip of Letterman's "apology" with great interest, wondering how this late night icon of television would present himself. I shouldn't have been surprised by what I saw, but I was. Here's the clip:

What a wonderful illustration of so many aspects of our culture. Notice the following:

1) There is no apology here. This story is just played off for humor.

2) Sex outside of wedlock is not considered "immoral" or "sinful" in any way.

3) Letterman expresses not even the slightest concern for his wife or child or others he may have hurt.

4) He communicates to all of America that sex outside of wedlock is funny.

5) The audience actually applauds his behavior.

This is all truly remarkable. America has not only rejected the old-fashioned notion of monogamy as normative, we have gone beyond this and come to applaud the failures and sins of one another. We do this because it assuages our own guilt. When we hear Letterman say, "I have had sex with women on this show," we do not expect a tearful penitence; we laugh. C. S. Lewis says that evil reaches its pinnacle when we not only accept it within ourselves, but delight in it when we see it in others in order to make ourselves feel less evil. I think he has pegged our nation perfectly.