I can’t tell you how many men have told me that men are idiots. It doesn’t come in response to any prompting (”Hey Reid/Neil/Dave/Tom, do you think men are idiots?” “Why yes, I do”). No, it’s made as a declaration of fact that’s accepted as universal truth. In any normal conversation that turns to male behavior, it’s the catchall phrase that’s bound to come out. They don’t really say it with apologies — more by way of explanation. “Well, men are idiots” — shrug, take a swig of beer.

When you break it down, the statement has plenty of nuanced meaning: “We don’t know how to handle conflict.” “We don’t know how to tell women the truth since we’re afraid of pissing them off.” “We don’t know how not to be selfish.” But mostly what they’re saying is “We will do just about anything for sex. Including get rich and famous. And once we do achieve something that gets us laid, we will take advantage of it as much as possible. It is what it is. There’s really no changing it. This is how we’ve evolved. Take it or leave it.” All this, handily encapsulated in three words.

Which is why I just can’t bring myself to get all that worked up about this Letterman thing (and the nonstop deluge of other sex scandals that hit the news). Was it sleazy and gross that he used his fame and position to create a personal office brothel? I guess. Was he causing pain by disrespecting and lying to the woman he was living with? Absolutely. (”Oh, but they weren’t married,” people say. If you’re financially and emotionally tied to someone, regardless of whether you’ve had blood tests and been to a justice of the peace, it hurts like hell when they screw around — trust me, I know.)

But at the end of the day, what’s the big deal? He did what men do, or what most of them say they want to do — he got himself rich and famous and ultra-charming and found he was desirable to women because of it, so he took full advantage. Some might call that stupidity or depravity, others might call it brilliance. All depends on your point of view. We can pass all the judgment we want — it won’t change the fact that there are millions of men dying for a chance to do exactly what he did.

Of course, thinking he’d never get caught — THAT was friggin dumb. Knowledge of the fact that actions have consequences: It’s really the key tenet of being an adult. This idea that you can bang half the women in your office and get away with it scott-free is severely out of touch with reality.

Then again, men ARE idiots — or so they tell me.