Ronnie Polaneczky: Can't a blackmailer make a buck any more?

IFEEL A LITTLE bad for America's blackmailers. One of their best ways to make a buck has gone the way of the cassette tape.

Last week, rather than fall prey to a $2 million extortion attempt, late-night gargoyle David Letterman confessed that he had screwed around on wife Regina Lasko. His alleged extortionist, Robert Halderman, bet that Letterman would so dread the spectacle of being outed as a philanderer that he'd fork over the hush money.

Letterman ruined Halderman's plans by having him arrested.

Many have said that Halderman, a TV newsman who produced many an exposé for CBS, was an idiot not to anticipate that Letterman would call the cops. Me, I can't believe that he assumed that Letterman would fear public scorn enough to cough up the dough.

Doesn't Halderman know that sexual shame is dead in Western society?

Take John Ensign, the Nevada senator who went public in June about his affair with a female staffer after the woman's husband wanted money to compensate for what had happened. Rather than pony up the bucks, Ensign - a Promise Keeper hypocrite who'd called for Bill Clinton's resignation after the Monica Lewinsky incident - told all at a mea culpa news conference.

Closer to home, there's Atlantic City councilman and part-time minister Eugene Robinson. Back in 2006, Robinson, who's single, was secretly videotaped receiving oral sex from a hooker. A few days later, he was told that the tape would be made public if he didn't resign his Council seat.

Robinson instead went to the authorities. This week, the men accused of hiring the prostitute to seduce Robinson are scheduled for trial, at which the sex tape will be played. (All together now: Ewww.)

The fools never figured that Robinson, an ordained man of God, wouldn't care that the public might witness him experiencing a rapture quite different from the one frequently mentioned in Scripture.

I'm telling you, if potential blackmailers want to stay in business, they'll have to come up with something more dependable than a potential victim's sexual indiscretions.

It's hard to believe that society's mores were ever more genteel. If you need a reminder, "Frontline" is running a great documentary about Princess Diana that mentions the scandal caused by England's late Princess Margaret, back in the 1950s. Margaret, a gorgeous socialite, was mad for decorated war hero Peter Townsend, who was divorced.

That was the scandal. The man was . . . divorced.

The fallout from the romance between these two consenting single adults was so intense that Margaret eventually ended her relationship with Townsend, to abide by the teachings of her church and to preserve the honor of the monarchy.

Because, good heavens, if the princess were to wed a divorced man, what might a royal do next? Take a married lover?

Years later Prince Charles did just that, shagging Camilla Parker-Bowles while he was husband to Princess Diana. So it's not like Margaret's denial of her love did anything, long-term, for the monarchy's marital successes (even her own marriage, years later to the Earl of Snowden, crumbled to bitter pieces).

But it tells us something about the character of the times.

 
Letterman, I'd say, is mighty light in the character department these days. Whether he was married to Lasko or not while he carried on with chippie Stephanie Burkitt, he was enough attached to her that news of his dalliance has landed him in the doghouse at home.

As for Burkitt, well, the world is full of pretty, young maneaters who grab what they can from rich guys while they still have their looks. She and Letterman made a grotesque couple, in that Pop-Pop-and-his-favorite-granddaughter way indulged geezers like him never recognize until they've been played.

Which is not to say that Letterman deserved to be blackmailed. As the late-night host noted, a crime had occurred, and we can't let people get away with criminal behavior.

Beyond that, what consenting adults do with each other is of no concern to anyone but those they betray.

The whole thing is a shame - an old-fashioned word, I know, but it's all I've got.
 

E-mail polaner@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2217. For recent columns:

http://go.philly.com/polaneczky.

Read Ronnie's blog at:

http://go.philly. com/ronnieblog.