The Worse You Do . . .

David Letterman's admission last week to sleeping with women on his staff to thwart a blackmailer was both shockingly embarrassing and embarrassingly shocking. He not only demonstrated that he's a philanderer, but kind of a creepy one as well. But then Letterman always had a reckless side, as evidence by his tickets for speeding on the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut. (I've traveled on that road; trust me, it's pretty dangerous to go past the speed limit there!)

But get this. Letterman's actually getting moral support from his audience, and his ratings are up.

Meanwhile, President Obama hasn't gotten a climate change bill through the Senate, the economy is still reeling from last year's Wall Street crash, and if Obama signs a health care reform bill, it will more likely than not lack a public option. That said, his approval rating went up six points from last month, to 56 percent.

These two stories correspond to what I call the Bay of Pigs rule, named for the failed 1961 U.S.-backed counter-coup against Fidel Castro by Cuban exiles. The rule states that one's standing among others increases proportionally to how many times one screws up. President John F. Kennedy, remember, approved the Bay of Pigs invasion. After it failed spectacularly, he admitted the U.S's role in the Bay of Pigs operation and accepted full responsibility, and his poll ratings went up to 83 percent.

"Jesus," he was quoted as saying. "The worse you do, the better they like you."