Monday afternoon was the first taping of The Late Show since David Letterman dropped the bomb Thursday night. Friday’s show was pretaped on Thursday, just to clarify. On his first night back, Dave first joked, then got serious once again about the extortion attempt and his affair(s) with his staff. During the opening monologue, Letterman used the floor to discuss how upset his wife Regina Lasko was, and he apologized to her and to his staff. One of the first jokes was a zinger directed at disgraced South Carolina governor Mark Sanford: “”I’ll be honest with you folks. Right now, I would give anything to be hiking on the Appalachian Trail… I get in the car this morning and the navigation lady wasn’t speaking to me. Ouch.” Then David got serious:

“Late Show” host David Letterman spoke about his past relationships with female staffers again on tonight’s program, which taped this afternoon in midtown Manhattan. According to an audience member, Letterman said he didn’t want to talk again about his past affairs, but since “everybody wants to talk about it,” he would. He apologized to his staff, who he said were being hounded by questions from the media.

“I’m terribly sorry that I put the staff in that position,” he said, according to a transcript provided by his production company. “Inadvertently, I just wasn’t thinking ahead. And, moreover, the staff here has been wonderfully supportive to me, not just through this furor, but through all the years that we’ve been on television and especially all the years here at CBS, so, again, my thanks to the staff for, once again, putting up with something stupid I’ve gotten myself involved in.”

Letterman also noted that he had hurt his wife, who he did not mention during his original admission last week.

“Now the other thing is my wife, Regina,” he said. “She has been horribly hurt by my behavior, and when something happens like that, if you hurt a person and it’s your responsibility, you try to fix it. And at that point, there’s only two things that can happen: Either you’re going to make some progress and get it fixed, or you’re going to fall short and perhaps not get it fixed, so let me tell you folks, I got my work cut out for me.”

[From the Los Angeles Times]

I don’t really know what to say about this. It’s not like Dave cheated on me, he cheated on a woman he’s had a relationship with for twenty years – who, incidentally, was one of his staffers. I don’t really believe that Dave was gross or smarmy towards any of these women – I think they likely wanted to be with him, and everyone got treated with respect. So, for argument’s sake, this is all a convoluted story about consenting adults. That’s why I haven’t gotten too worked up over it – and yet, I still expected more from Dave, because he seemed nicer, and more decent than this image I have of him now. I think Dave realizes that his image has taken a hit in a larger sense – and he’s trying to save himself by coming out ahead of everything. And I do think he’s really sorry. But who knows? Maybe he’s secretly a bastard who treats women like crap.

David Letterman is shown smiling at a woman while jogging in St. Barths on 12/28/08 below. Credit: ENF/Fame Pictures. Letterman is also shown with wife Regina Lasko and their son, Harry, in Rome in April, 2007. Credit: Venturini/Bauergriffinonline