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Dump depraved Dave now, CBS!

CBS has got to dump David Letterman. Right now.

If the Tiffany Network continues to coddle the crotchety king of late night, it will rightly be known as the destination of choice for any girl who jiggles, giggles and puts out repeatedly for a man old enough to be her father.

Dave must go. If not, CBS will have lost any remaining shred of credibility, not to mention common decency.

PHOTOS: LETTERMAN’S EXTORTION PLOT

By his own admission, the married Letterman has bedded any number of women working under His Highness. Problem is, he doesn’t seem to know precisely how many. And brass has long looked the other way.

Letterman’s dream life came crashing to earth when an ex-boyfriend of one of his conquests allegedly attempted to extort him for $2 million to keep the affairs quiet. This development certainly makes Dave a victim — a victim of his own recklessness.

The very livelihoods of the young women who caught Dave’s fancy depend on making Letterman happy. But Letterman, 62, certainly knew what he was doing.

This is a full-grown adult who made a grown-up choice. And he chose to sleep with junior staffers rather than take the standard route and walk to the corner bar to conduct a sad, ordinary affair. Instead, he’s working out some twisted Freudian issues on dewy-eyed underlings.

Letterman is guilty of cheating on the woman he eventually married after a 20-year relationship and trashing the trust of their 6-year-old son, Harry. This was not one little slip-up, but a deviant pattern. And when Letterman got lazy, egotistical and sloppy, he became a ticking time bomb — a walking, breathing, sexual-harassment lawsuit waiting to happen.

The man who has been famously stalked in the past intentionally made himself into stalker-bait. Worse, he became the punch line in one of his own Monica Lewinsky jokes, which Dave told with such glee not so long ago.

A former staffer at “Late Show” described to me a “toxic” atmosphere in the studio. She said women flirt mightily with the man. Sometimes, it works in their favor.

Everyone inside the program knows what it takes to get ahead.

In recent years, Dave’s comedic chops have taken on a mean streak, as well. He has shown a wicked hatred of Republicans, which reached a climax when he joked about Sarah Palin’s 14-year-old daughter, Willow, getting “knocked up” in the seventh inning of a Yankee game by Alex Rodriguez.

CBS brass could have taken that gag as a sign that Letterman was slipping. Instead, bosses chose to ignore it.

The network rescued Letterman from a future of obscurity in 1993, when NBC denied him his dream promotion as host of the “Tonight” show. CBS dusted off the Ed Sullivan Theater in Midtown for Dave and made him rich beyond his wildest dreams.

But Letterman became the ratings champ of his 11:35 p.m. time slot this year only by default — after NBC stupidly replaced Jay Leno with the dreadful Conan O’Brien. Who knows if Dave will remain a winner?

Dave has repeatedly whined publicly about CBS’s failure to bow down to him. Now, the network has a chance to strike back at this ungrateful wretch.

Americans would not stand for this kind of behavior from a government official. Should a jock act in a like manner, his morals clause would likely kick in.

Letterman’s contract expires at the end of next year. I count on CBS to pull Letterman off the air, then kick him to the curb.

It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

APPLE’S ‘CORE’ CONSERVATIVE VALUES

ARE there stealth conservatives lurking inside Apple computer?

The folks at Apple, who launched, and then pulled, an iPhone application in which users got to shake a baby to death — funny! — now want to deny the injured infant expensive, government-funded health care.

A tiny, earthy-crunchy publishing company, Chelsea Green of Vermont, is crying, “Censorship!” That’s because Apple long delayed the release of an iPhone application aimed at promoting Chelsea’s pro-health-care screed, “Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform.”

For the uninitiated, lefties have discovered the power of the app to help make it appear as if a few radicals speak for the majority of Americans. The health-care app gives users the phone numbers of representatives in Washington, encouraging every activist with an iPhone to harangue Congress in favor of their pet agenda.

But while approving an app typically takes two weeks, Apple waited more than two months, until summer’s end, to give the green light — and Congress was by then in recess.

“It messed up our launch,” said Margot Baldwin, Chelsea’s president and publisher. “It’s weird. Censorship can happen at any time.”

She learned Apple wasn’t backing a leftist agenda when she read in Wired that another pro-health-care app was rejected outright for being “too political.”

Apple reps failed to get back to me.


Frown$ for the clowns

Don’t be surprised if the clowns have a lot less juice to squirt at each other this year. I’m not talking about state government. I’m talking about the real circus.

That New York institution, the Big Apple Circus, has slashed its budget. Employees took two-week furloughs in July, 10 percent of front-office jobs were lost, and salaries were reduced, said public-relations manager Philip Thurston. Tanking corporate sales have sliced into the not-for-profit big top.

Sadly, three hard-hit hospitals have pulled out of “Clown Care,” a program in which funny guys make bedside visits to cheer up sick kids. For the circus to remain competitive with behemoth Ringling Bros., salaries for most performers have remained untouched, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Grandma the Clown grows a few more gray hairs.

To sooth the pain, clown Bello Nock, who rejoins Big Apple on Oct. 22, will perform a high-wire walk at Lincoln Center tomorrow at 2. One thing that won’t be cut is Bello’s upright hair, a style he says he maintains through copious use of Viagra.

This Met fan way off base

From the reaction, you’d think I’d advocated for puppy sacrifice. I just urged New Yorkers, depressed by the woes of our beloved Mets, to root for the Yankees in the postseason.

Big mistake.

“Please never again claim to be a huge Met fan when you can actually say the Yanks have a place in your heart,” Drew Lawsky of Queens e-mailed. “The true die-hard Met fan despises the Yankees no matter what, and seeing them play well is even harder to take. You should be ashamed.”

“Oh, Andrea . . don’t let it happen,” beseeched Ward Fennelly of Jersey. “Once they get their hooks in you, you’ll never get out. I will help you through this temporary loss of sanity, if you let me.”

“You are a traitor to all decent Met fans,” declared José Garrido.

To decent Met fans everywhere — including in my family — I plead temporary brain damage. I will never again make such a huge error in
judgment. Go Mets!