David Letterman’s ‘inner slut’

"And through all of the heartache, and the attention, and the embarrassment, I still feel like I did the right thing, and now also — because what can it hurt? — once again I'd like to apologize to the former governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. I'm terribly, terribly sorry. So there we go," he added to cheers from the crowd.
— on CNN’s Political Ticker

But there is something missing in the center when the late-night comic, in apologizing again about the insult he hurled at Sarah Plain, uses these two phrases in the same sentence: "I still feel like I did the right thing" and "once again I’d like to apologize to the former governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin.”

Because if he still feels he did the right thing, there is no need to apologize and apologizing would be wrong. Sarah Palin wouldn’t.

I hope Letterman is watching this season’s "House," in which Dr. Gregory House is sent to a psychiatric hospital to find a way out of the obsessions that have plagued him, made it impossible for him to have family and loving relationships, destroyed his career and crippled him. Because besides the fact that Letterman is a clown and Dr. House is a genius, they are quite similar characters. Both are plagued and occupied by the generational curse of infantilism and are unable to cross the river into the fuller life and the ordinary life of adults. House, after an endless world of hurt to others, needs to find a way to get away from the child of poisonous innocence that guides his every move like a border collie worrying sheep and speaking through him to the world outside, but speaking eventually in hysteria and madness.

The truth is that Sarah Palin vividly represents to Letterman something that he has clearly not found: responsible, child-bearing adulthood. House seems to be doing all right. He’s getting into a quiet zen thing. He is letting the beast pass him by. He is learning how to cook with a Chinese guide. But he had to quit his job to leave his obsessions behind. Letterman might try looking for another line of work himself. One without an adoring audience.

Visit Mr. Quigley's website at http://quigleyblog.blogspot.com.