Letterman's Bizarre Love Triangle

For David Letterman, history repeats itself. A piece in the New York Observer points out that Letterman's affair with staffer Stephanie Birkitt was just one in a string of inter-office infidelities. When he moved to Los Angeles with wife Michelle decades earlier, his involvement with beach girls from San Diego State tore apart his marriage. For a decade ending in the ‘80s, he dated the head writer on his show, Merill Markoe, before settling down earlier this year with longtime partner and former staffer Regina Lasko. But no one has the moral high ground when it comes to Birkitt, the Observer charges, because Joe Halderman—who allegedly tried to blackmail the host—and Letterman are the same kind of man. Like Letterman, Halderman rose from obscurity to the top of his field, collected a CBS paycheck, spent weekends in Connecticut, and bedded co-workers, colleagues and subordinates. Halderman's first and second wives were co-workers and his CBS colleagues knew him as a flirt. And, of course, like Letterman, he had a relationship with co-worker Birkitt.