How are wheat, corn and gossip alike?
Lost among the other news events of the holiday season — health care legislation, foiled terror plots, whatever Lindsey Lohan had for Christmas dinner, etc. — was this story about an interesting legal filing by the lawyer defending the guy who allegedly tried to blackmail David Letterman:
David Letterman’s accused blackmailer took a wild slice at getting his case dismissed Tuesday by invoking the Tiger Woods scandal.
In court papers, Robert Halderman’s lawyer argued that if it’s not a crime for mistresses to seek payoffs from the golf great, his client shouldn’t be punished for trying to make a deal with Letterman.
Defense lawyer Gerald Shargel cited reports that women linked to Woods, including Rachel Uchitel, were paid for their silence.
“Their behavior was capitalist, not criminal,” Shargel wrote in papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“[The] reality is that evidence of celebrity misdeeds has a significant fair market value.”
You know what? I think this lawyer is onto something. In our celebrity-obsessed culture, the idea of blackmail is laughably quaint. You don’t “blackmail” anybody famous. You invite them to join the bidding. Or if you’re exceptionally courteous, you give the celebrity first crack at buying the information. If he or she declines, or gives you a lowball offer, there’s always the National Enquirer. That’s a commodities market at work. The legal system shouldn’t even be involved.
After all, if it’s legal to accept money to tell what you know about a famous person, why is it illegal to accept money not to tell what you know?
January 6th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
I agree, but that isn’t why I write you. I have a question about your word choice.
In your last sentence you write “accept money not to tell.” I would have written “to not tell.” Would you be willing to discuss what you see as the difference and why you chose that particular order?
I know, given your blog title, advising people on word choice is something you usually get paid to do, but I’m hoping this small example can be an erxception.
January 6th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
JMP: Either way would work, but putting the “not” between “to” and “tell” makes it a split infinitive. There’s debate over how much of a crime against grammar that is, but the consensus seems to be: not much.
I’ve split many an infinitive in my day, and still do when I’m careless. If I charged you for this lesson, you’d have lifetime rights to mock me every time you saw me do so. So we’ll call this a freebie. Besides, you probably can’t afford my hourly rate.
January 6th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
Interesting perspective. So is your position that it should not be a crime if the disclosure has some outside marketable value or are you saying that the crime of blackmail should not exist? The Letterman case is pretty much the textbook definition of blackmail. Blackmail is considered criminal even if the victim would prefer to pay the money (or whatever the demand happens to be) which, by itself, would constitute a market. It has never been a crime to reveal something unseemly about someone else (as long as it is substantially true) even if doing so causes irreparable harm to the individual. It’s only a crime when there is some demand for withholding the disclosure. If it’s perfectly legal to tell the world that someone is cheating on their spouse, why wouldn’t it be legal to get paid for doing it?
If you did want to make the argument to do away with blackmail as a crime you would also have to decriminalize the payment of hush money which adds some complication to the issue.
January 6th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Funny you should match up those two GD, as I have been thinking of the their similarities recently, or perhaps more accruately, their lack there of. I haven’t seen anything in the media comparing the two situations either (but in all honesty, given all the time I spend listening to Rush and attending John Locke meetings, is it really any wonder?).
The way I see it, the moral offenses committed by both Letterman and Tiger are essentially equivalent. Both make their livings via the public spotlight (true, while Letterman is an Entertainer, Tiger is an athlete, however while not negating the obvious relationship, it is the entertainment value {of those who pay to be entertained watching him play golf} from which he derives his wealth). Tiger has also acheived the celebrity status where (like Michael Jordan and Dale Earnheart) he actually makes more money from endorsments that from his athletic field.
But the consequences to each could not be more different. Letterman’s ratings (and thus his “value”) actually went up, while Tiger’s sank into the cellar. Why is that?
I believe it is because Letterman lives in an essentially protected environment. It reminds me of Sean Penn saying he was being black balled because, while no one argued with his supreme skills as an actor, he found it more and more difficult to get work because of his outspoken political views, and the economic effect they were having on some movies he was in. He had no interest in whether the movie was successful or not because he was already paid, regardless of its box office success. Thus, he was shielded from the consequences of his actions. He felt that anything less was simply unfair.
The same is essentially true for those in academia and unions, where protected status is a job benefit. Hence, this is why so many Liberals are found in these fields as contrasted with the general public. Liberals can only exist to any great percentages within environments where a protected status exists.
But then, John Locke already QED’d that one. (there’s some juicy meat for ya NIT, have at it!)
January 6th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
Arena, not sure what you think is going to get my juices flowing. Frankly, I’m a lot less liberal than you probably believe. I don’t really have much trouble with your post short of you saying the sins of Tiger and Letterman are equal (or essentially equivalent to use your words). I didn’t really follow either of these stories closely but I’m pretty sure Letterman was neither married nor a daddy when the behavior which invited the shakedown occurred. He was guilty of sleeping with the help but not necessarily cheating on his wife and the mother of his child. I would argue that is substantially different than doing the Tiger romp with at least a dozen other women and carrying on some sort of loose relationship with many of them throughout his marriage and during the birth of his 2 children. I would say Tiger’s behavior is a little worse.
Also, I’m not quite sure I get the Sean Penn/Letterman comparison. I comprehend the point you make with Penn and I can see logic in that argument but exactly how does Letterman enjoy that sort of protection? You begin by citing Letterman’s ratings rose. I didn’t realize his ratings were protected.
January 6th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
NTI: I think it’s silly to call blackmail a crime when a celebrity is involved. We have an established legal procedure, based in contract law, that seeks to limit the malicious spreading of information. They’re called non-disclosure agreements, and they’re routinely used when executives leave companies under less-than-happy circumstances. (Basically, an executive agrees to not trash his former employer in return for a fat departure fee.) Why is it a crime if a celebrity and a private party enter into a similar agreement?
And if a celebrity doesn’t wish to enter in such an agreement (as Letterman clearly didn’t) and instead complains to the police, it seems to me that a cop’s appropriate response would be: “Hey, buddy, that’s between you and him.”
January 6th, 2010 at 6:20 pm
Fair enough GD, but is the cop/judge supposed to be the arbiter of celebrity status? Would the threshold be similar to the qualifications on the celebrity golf tour where people you never heard of — who could never compete with regular professional golfers — play for big money because they played a professional sport for 1 season?
I’m not saying your position doesn’t make sense but, in my opinion, such a distinction would only serve to enrich the real scourge of our society — trial attorneys! Therefore, I don’t like your idea.