On last night’s “Late Show with David Letterman,” the CBS host said he was “stunned” and “fascinated” by Anthony Weiner’s predicament. He then said the following: “Honest to God, is this the kind of behavior you’d expect from a congressman! No. In simple terms, no. It is not the kind of behavior you’d expect from a congressman. It is the kind of behavior you’d expect from a priest.”
Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:
In addition to Rep. Weiner, the following members of Congress have been involved in cases of sexual improprieties in recent years: Rep. Chris Lee, Rep. Mark Souder, Rep. Eric Massa, Rep. Vito Fossella, Rep. Mark Foley, Rep. Gerry Studds, Rep. Barney Frank, Rep. Daniel Crane, Sen. Larry Craig, Sen. David Vitter, Sen. John Edwards and Sen. John Ensign. In addition, the following governors have a sordid record: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gov. Jim Gibbons, Gov. Jim McGreevey, Gov. Eliot Spitzer, Gov. Mark Sanford and Gov. Bob Wise. President Bill Clinton was similarly compromised.
Regarding priests, 149 of them are responsible for 27 percent of all the alleged cases of abuse over the past half-century—out of a total of 100,000 priests. More important, almost no priests today are the subject of allegations.
We know one thing for sure: the average person working for David Letterman is far more likely to have been the subject of sexual harassment—by him, no less—than those working for a priest. Perhaps the next time he will be more accurate and compare himself to Weiner. But he should note one caveat: Weiner, so far as we know, is unlike Letterman in this respect—he did not commit adultery, never mind serial adultery.
Contact Kimberly Izzo-Emmet, director of “Late Night” publicity: krizzo@cbs.com
