In the wake of the arrest of director/rapist Roman Polanski comes the sex-with-subordinates scandal of David Letterman. The timing was a blessing for Letterman, since his aggressive excuse-makers now could quickly assert that the female employees he exploited were all adults and all gave their consent.

Letterman’s habit of engaging in sex with women who are his employees only emerged because of an ugly extortion threat from a longtime CBS News producer who lived with one of Letterman’s conquests. That’s doubly embarrassing for CBS, which has character problems coming and going. Letterman added to the embarrassment by revealing the extortion and his behavior in a jokey manner on his show. CBS had enough distaste for the explanation to have it pulled off YouTube and try to keep people from seeing it. (Wouldn’t it be nice if CBS had similar standards for its other programming, like, oh, most everything on MTV?)

In a second attempt at an apology, Letterman was more sincere. But in the morality-challenged entertainment community, Letterman knew he could surround himself with friends who found nothing to condemn, or even question.

WaPo TV critic Tom Shales [file photo] has come up with a creative new defense of Roman Polanski: Hollywood thirteen-year olds aren't really thirteen.

NB reader FT pointed us to an online exchange between a reader and Shales today that included this [emphasis added]:

Tom Shales: Hello, Dunn Loring, I didn't want to sign off without trying to answer your question. I didn't realize I had written a column defending Roman Polanski and minimized his crime - are you sure it was me? I mean, I? There is, apparently, more to this crime than it would seem, and it may sound like a hollow defense, but in Hollywood I am not sure a 13-year-old is really a 13-year-old.

Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales assembled all of his excuses for David Letterman’s sexual relations with staff subordinates in Tuesday’s paper. The website headline: "A Clown, Not a Congressman: David Letterman is going to be lumped in with other misbehaving celebrities. Is that fair?" Shales feels that comedians who makes jokes about sexually reckless politicians like Bill Clinton should not be mocked when they act exactly like Clinton. He began:

One of many sad things about recent stanzas in the ballad of David Letterman is that now, in all media, Dave will be lumped in with other sexually misbehaving celebrities, even though he stands head and heart above most of them.

The echoes of Roman Polanski swirl in the Shales piece – the keenest comic minds should be allowed to think with their traveling pants. Shales can’t grasp the elementary-school rules of mockery: a fat kid can’t exactly laugh at another kid for being fat. An old man having sex with much younger women in the office can’t make fun of Bill Clinton very effectively, either. But Shales think clowns and jesters should be free of the charge of hypocrisy:

For all that critics have hailed ABC's "Modern Family" for its non-stereotypical portrayal of a gay couple, the show itself is stereotypical Hollywood propaganda.

"Modern Family," filmed in a mock-documentary style, examines the lives of  three couples from one family. Patriarch Jay (Ed O'Neill) is married to a much-younger, feisty Colombian woman. His daughter Claire is married to Phil who treats parenting like playtime. Jay's son Mitchell, is gay, and when the show began, has just adopted a baby with his partner Cameron.

Producers treated the 12.7 million viewers who tuned in Wednesday night for the premiere to a pro-gay adoption speech within the first two minutes of the program.

Washington Post television critic Tom Shales conducts an online discussion on Tuesdays.  Today's session featured this exchange:

Dunn Loring, Va.: Re your column disparaging Liz Cheney's style, what was the last column you wrote so harshly criticizing a liberal pundit?

Tom Shales: Ah yes, it's our dear old Dunn Loringite. Dunn Loringer. Whatever. You have an ideological axe to grind and it's awfully predictable. Where do you get the idea that if someone criticizes a conservative they must also criticize a liberal? Is there some kind of "equal time" law or "fairness doctrine" that applies to everybody who says anything that is broadcast or cablecast? That's absurd. CONSERVATIVES DOMINATE THE BROADCAST AND CABLE MEDIA IN THIS COUNTRY. They have very little to complain about in terms of access to an audience. When was the last time you criticized a conservative? It's a meaningless question whichever way it is asked.

Shales disparages the questioner for having an ideological axe to grind, something he no doubt has never been accused of himself .  Later, there's a follow up question:

Liz Cheney fans got to see quite a faceoff between her and Sam Donaldson on Sunday's "This Week."

As the panel discussion turned to Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to investigate the terrorist interrogation procedures of the CIA, Cheney and Donaldson predictably shared opposing views.

Despite both parties being guilty of interrupting and stepping on one another, television critic Tom Shales, in a column published by the Washington Post Tuesday, felt Cheney was "intentionally rude" while employing "guerrilla rhetoric."  

Not surprisingly, Shales had nothing negative to say about Donaldson's behavior (highlights below the fold with video of the exchange, h/t Jennifer Rubin):

Washington Post TV reviewer Tom Shales offered yet another sappy A to President Obama after the latest prime-time press conference. He wrapped it up this way:

Though polls show his popularity in slight decline, Obama did nothing at the news conference -- other than preempt or delay some prime-time shows -- that would seem potentially harmful to his image. About the most justifiable criticism that could likely be made: "Barack Obama still seems too good to be true."

The headline was "Obama Goes Off-Topic, Clearly." That referred to Obama’s last answer saying the cops in Cambridge, Massachusetts acted "stupidly" in dealing with the screaming and yelling Harvard historian Henry Louis Gates. Shales thought it might require a little damage control, but he found it "refreshingly blunt."

New Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander addressed the question of a liberal bias for the first time on Sunday, and the subject was the goopy "smartest kid in class" Tom Shales review of the Obama 100-days press conference. Alexander seemed to insult the readers he’s dealing with:

To "disbelievers" who accuse Obama of wanting to expand the size of government, Shales said "many are just the predictable strident voices of the kind of partisan pedantry that Obama has said he abhors."

Some of those "predictable strident voices" contacted the ombudsman in a rage, citing Shales's piece as evidence that The Post is in the tank for the president.

Alexander underlined that the Post didn’t identify Shales with an explicit "critic" or "commentary" label (although regular readers should know that the writer’s name in bold capital letters above the title says "column.") But Alexander strangely let Shales deny he discusses policy, which he explicitly did in the passage Alexander had just quoted:

As Tim Graham mentioned earlier, Washington Post Style-page columnist/TV critic Tom Shales went completely rhapsodic over President Obama's speech last night.  It's a bizzaro read, actually.  Starting with the headline, "Obama's Enchanting Quizfest" and continuing with descriptors like "earnestly," "disarmingly," "enchantingly" (again), "comfortingly cool and collected," "truly flabbergasting" (in a good way, pretty sure he means), and so on.  Shales even compares Obama to a comic-book hero.  The level of abject fawning and slobbering on the part of Shales is itself truly flabbergasting (in not a good way, I mean).  What possessed him to lose sense of appropriate professional tone in covering an elected official?  Fine, you think the man is doing a great job in office.  But as a journalist, why write it that way?  Especially in the wake of Obama's massive government expansion and take-over of the US economy, Shales really does a disservice to WaPo readers by abandoning a more balanced, detached and critical write-up of the Obama 100-day presser. 

Blond, witchy, mindlessly politically correct, and throwing nasty tantrums? Does that bring Elisabeth Hasselbeck to mind? It does to Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales (who just hailed Barack Obama as "every inch President Wonderful" yesterday.) His review of the new ABC sitcom In The Motherhood hailed comic actresses Cheryl Hines and Megan Mullally, but there’s a third star to be saluted:

But there's one more funny mother involved: Jessica St. Clair as Emily, blond and, well, witchy. This character comes across as less likable than the other two, perhaps because she's depicted as adhering mindlessly to political correctness and also throws nasty tantrums when something ticks her off.

She looks and acts a little like Elizabeth Hasselbeck of "The View." In fact, "In the Motherhood" is sort of "The View" with mommies, and a script.

Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales basked in the glow of President Obama in what you cannot call a "critique" of the president's second prime-time press conference. Headlined "The Very Face of Victory," Shales began with a gush:

Most of the facets of President Obama's personality that have made him intensely popular were on display last night during his second prime-time news conference, and so he emerged from it still every inch "President Wonderful," as it were, untouched and intact.

Shales noticed the president looked tired, but suggested that’s what the people want, someone who’s working overtime on fixing this "ruinous recession." He noticed "Once or twice, Obama also seemed somewhat defensive. He was even a bit snippy -- though justifiably so, it appeared," on the AIG bonus controversy:

Why did it take a couple of days, reporter Ed Henry wanted to know. "It took a couple of days because I like to know what I am talking about before I speak." Whack! It was a little like an old-fashioned teacher rapping a naughty student's knuckles with a ruler.

Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales trashed President Bush’s farewell address in the Thursday newspaper. Shales was so harsh in his review – headlined "A President’s Parting Words – Convincing, at Least to Himself" – that he thought it was "delusion and denial" that Bush could claim credit for keeping America safe from terrorist attacks after 9/11. Who’s having trouble with reality in this evaluation? Shales began:

Only his remaining ardent supporters would probably classify last night's TV appearance by President Bush as reality television. On the other hand, detractors -- a sizable group, judging by popularity polls -- would likely say George W. Bush's farewell to the nation, delivered from the East Room of the White House, had the aura of delusion and denial.

America is suffering what is commonly being called the most serious economic crisis since the Great Depression, for example. Yet in Bush's speech, that crisis was euphemized into "challenges to our prosperity," as Bush took credit for bold steps to remedy the situation.

Then there's Bush's view of Afghanistan. He included the implication that America's presence there helped it go from a sexist to a feminist state.

CNN is airing a special called "Scream Bloody Murder" on Thursday night, and Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales previewed it Thursday morning as powerful, even as he suggested the show's host, foreign correspondent Christiane Amanpour, is too blatantly patting herself on the back:

CNN is celebrating 25 years of reports by star reporter Amanpour, although to attach a documentary on genocide to anything resembling a "celebration" is not very good form. Nor is it encouraging to hear Amanpour implicitly praising herself and her own courage when dealing with genocide of recent years: "Day after day, I reported the story," she says of one crisis -- and later, she notes of the shelling of Sarajevo, "I was there, reporting on the scene."

Amanpour is the heroine of the special, and the politicians who allowed genocide to occur are the villains. Don't wait for CNN to consider that if politicians can be blamed for letting it happen, so can journalists, can't they? Shales explains:

Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales offered his own endorsement of Obama for President with an oozy review of Obama’s half-hour infomercial, which he called "Obamavision." That certainly was supposed to carry more than one meaning, including a tribute to Obama’s visionary politics. It wasn’t hidden in tiny type on the home page like yesterday’s sleaze-Internet-cash story. It stood out in bold lettering: "An Appeal to the Masses | Poetic and practical, Obama's paid political broadcast was a montage of montages." Shales was more syrupy than that in the full text:

Somehow both poetic and practical, spiritual and sensible, the paid political broadcast, which aired on seven major cable and broadcast networks (on Univision, it was identified as "Historias Americanas"), was a montage of montages, a series of seamlessly blended segments interweaving the stories of embattled Americans with visions of their deliverer, Guess Who.

While there was some rhetoric about the horrid last eight years, Shales later admitted, "Most of the talk was conversational in that laid-back, not-to-worry, calmly passionate, defiantly hopeful Obaman way."

In his Thursday morning debate review, Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales demonstrated he seems to think that any friendship or relationship between Obama and bomber Bill Ayers is purely fictional: "McCain brought up tired old charges against Obama of being pals with '60s radical William Ayers even though those claims have been shot down time and time again by the Obama campaign."

He didn’t tell the reader that Schieffer urged on the subject, and McCain had to be dragged to the subject of Ayers.

Speaking of the possibly fictional, Shales laid into violence-prone Republican rally audiences, and then turned it into another example of McCain's alleged anger management problems:

Without mentioning GOP vice presidential candidate and famous Alaskan hockey mom Sarah Palin by name, Obama referred to McCain's "running mate" and the raucous rallies at which she has spoken, with Obama looking askance at rally rowdies who shouted out "terrorist" when Obama's name was mentioned and even the unnerving and obscene "Kill him!" McCain got huffy, as he does with barely a moment's notice, and said he was "proud of the people who come to our rallies."

Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales lamented a boring debate in Nashville, and tried to begin on a nonpartisan note that neither candidate "gave a particularly electrifying performance," but Shales eventually offered an electrically negative take on McCain's "snarled" and "mean old Scrooge" description of Obama as "that one," repeating the hypersensitivity of Jeff Greenfield at CBS:

During the debate, McCain made another of his seemingly demeaning, nasty references to Obama. Describing legislation that had been backed by President Bush, McCain rhetorically asked, "Guess who voted for it?" and then answered his own question: "That one," he said, gesturing toward Obama. On CBS, commentator Jeff Greenfield thought "that one" would be "the major headline sound bite" of the debate, which goes to show, in part, how insubstantial the debate was.

Like most liberal-media reviewers, Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales was forced by events to concede Sarah Palin wowed the crowd last night. It was "the night that John McCain’s brilliantly screwy choice for a running mate changed from laughingstock to national star." But Shales also lamented the "demagoguery" of mocking the liberal media, especially the idea that President Reagan was attacked by the media, when he enjoyed "a virtual love affair with the press." A long MRC rebuttal is here. To Shales:  

It's unfortunate considering the strong showing of Palin that the Republicans have again decided to run against "the media" as well as against the Democrats, and to portray themselves as poor, abused victims of media aggression. Giuliani, who has made a second career of courting the press, referred sneeringly to "the left-wing media."

Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales heaped loads of praise on Helen Thomas even as he lamented that documentarian Rory Kennedy will present HBO viewers tonight with"A Story With a Few Holes." Shales found it disappointing that Thomas's affinity for Israel's enemies was left untouched in Kennedy's "Thank You, Mr. President."

Shales started by insisting that "[o]ne can't help wondering if the film was shortened in the final edit to obscure a blemish or two on Thomas's celebrated career-- the documentary equivalent of cosmetic surgery." [Keep it civil, comments thread!]

Even so, Shales himself gussied up "Hell No" Helen in his review, insisting she's a reporter who "can't be accused of party partisanship" and who was "brave enough to chastise fellow journalists -- for supporting the Iraq war in the aftermath of Sept. 11 and abetting what she considers the right-wing persecution of Bill Clinton." Nah, the Hearst columnist sure doesn't sound like a left-wing partisan hack to me.

 Washington Post Style TV columnist Tom Shales blames the FCC because tonight's premiere of CBS's "Swingtown" doesn't show enough skin to suit him.

"Swingtown," a drama set in the free-loving, drug-hazed summer of 1976, lacks the "kind of intimacy and even eroticism that is common on HBO," Shales complains. 

In his June 5 review he writes:

It's conceivable that ‘Swingtown' will prompt complaints to the FCC about its relatively explicit sexual depictions. But there's no nudity, and that seems to be the thing that gets those FCC commissioners' panties in a bunch. Perhaps soon, the bureaucratic busybodies will steal away into the night and television will be relieved of what has been an ineffective and hypocritical anti-smut crusade.

Apparently it never occurred to Shales that the reason there's no nudity on this show is because the FCC's "anti-smut campaign" has in fact, been effective in keeping at least that largely off the broadcast networks.

In a Sunday review of the HBO film "Recount," Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales raves over the film, and over how much greater America would have been with President Gore:

If the mess in Florida had been resolved with as much skill and savvy as went into the making of the movie, the world might be a different place today -- presumably a better one, although no one can say for sure.

Little or nothing is ever accomplished by games of what-if, but it's hard to resist speculating how history, and not just political history, might have been different since the year 2000 with regard to such monumental events as the reaction to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11; response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina; and the war in Iraq, including whether there would have been one and whether a single American life would have been lost.