If David Letterman thinks muttering a few half-hearted apologies is going to save him, he’s dreaming. (NOTE: The effectiveness of a mea culpa is somewhat blunted by rimshots.) The Associated Press today has a devastating roundup of the mess he’s put himself in. You need to read the whole thing, but here are some highlights.

First, the killer opening graf:

Turns out David Letterman doesn’t just live on a TV show. He also lives in a glass house, where for years he’s hurled comedy zingers at misbehaving politicians, even as he brashly engaged in hanky-panky of his own.

Ouch! After noting his wisecracks about Eliot Spitzer, the AP observes:

But in Spitzer’s case, [Letterman] didn’t stop at lampooning. During an indignant rant, he called for the scandalized governor to step down.

“I mean, can you imagine,” said Letterman, “if this happened to me how fast they’d have my … (backside) out of here?”

As it turns out, not all that fast!

This points out the element a lot of people are overlooking: Letterman’s commentary about other people’s sex lives has carried a strong tone of moralizing. Which was creepy even before we found out about all this other stuff. Who is he to judge?

(You know… When you consider that Stephanie Birkitt was getting a paycheck from Letterman while he was having sex with her, and he even paid her law school bills, what’s the difference between her and Ashley Dupré? The exclusive contract?)

Some of Letterman’s other targets, like David Vitter and Gary Hart, had no comment for the story. Why break the guy’s fall, right? But Letterman does get some backup from a surprising quarter:

Most of the targets of Letterman’s jokes approached by the AP chose not to weigh in on the current woes of the talk-show host. But South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford offered Letterman his best wishes.

“Both my thoughts and my prayers are with him,” Sanford said Tuesday after a speaking engagement at a Rotary Club meeting in Easley, S.C….

“There’s a lot more introspection and soul-searching on the way down than there is on the way up,” said Sanford, who is under investigation by South Carolina’s Ethics Commission, in addressing his dilemma as well as Letterman’s. “He can be a better person for it.”

Guess anything’s possible. Maybe Sanford realizes that if he fires back at Letterman, it’ll remind people that he hasn’t done the right thing and resigned. Still, nice gesture.

And what does fellow Letterman foil Mark Foley think about the whole thing?

“I feel sorry for Dave, I take no glee,” Foley said Tuesday.

He voiced concern for Letterman’s 5-year-old son, Harry, and for the child’s mother, Regina Lasko, whom Letterman married in March after many years together.

“Nobody is above making tragic mistakes. Some never get discovered; some do, in a very public way,” said Foley, adding pointedly that Letterman “can keep apologizing until the cows come home. But he’s now found his own life the subject of late-night comedians.”

Does he ever.

Speaking of which, did you know it’s wrong to make fun of Letterman? So says Tom Shales of the Washington Post:

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…

Some of those who’ve seen the current Letterman mess as a golden opportunity to trash and attack him claim that it’s fit retribution for the jokes Dave has made about naughty-boy politicians and their sexual high jinks. Letterman can continue to lampoon sleazy political figures with no real fear of hypocrisy, however, because a TV comic is not an elected official responsible for the well-being of the nation or its citizenry.

Letterman’s monologue is not a nightly sermon full of moral lessons preached to politicians or the public. His stance is that of the proverbial court jester, a clownish figure with a mandate to prick the powerful — not set himself up as a model of virtue.

Even if that were true, which in recent years it’s definitely not — see Letterman’s comments on Spitzer, for one thing — it still wouldn’t get Letterman off the hook. The fact that he isn’t an elected official somehow makes him above reproach? He can’t be called a hypocrite for repeatedly condemning behavior in others that he indulges in himself?

Does David Letterman really have less power in national politics than, say, Mark Foley? Is he really more accountable to those who give him that power than, oh, Mark Sanford? I don’t remember voting to put Letterman on CBS every night. All I can do is vote with my remote.

But hey, who am I to question the absolute moral authority of Tom Shales? Here’s what the confused, corpulent critic had to say in a follow-up online chat about his moronic Letterman column (emphasis mine):

Dunn Loring, Va.: Just wondered if you’ve noticed your habit of apologizing for media figures? For example, Polanski rapes and sodomizes a drugged 13-year-old and you write a flattering article that falsely understates his crime; Letterman jokes about the statutory rape of the teenage daughter of a conservative politician and you call the joke inartfully phrased but otherwise fine; Letterman admits to affairs with subordinate employees and you state it’s alright because he’s just a media personality. Do you ever condemn anything done on TV unless it’s done by a conservative?

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? [Simon says: Yes, Tom, it was you.] 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.

And on TV, a 62-year-old who steps out on the mother of his child isn’t really a 62-year-old who steps out on the mother of his child.

For years, Letterman has been beating up guys he doesn’t like for doing stuff he really, really likes. Pardon the rest of us if we point and laugh at him now.