How long should CBS put up with Charlie Sheen's shenanigans?

Charlie Sheen went on another bender last night, once again landing in the hospital. This time it was for severe stomach pains. So severe that, after hours of singing Red Hot Chile Peppers songs with porn stars into the wee hours of the night, someone (whether he or the porn stars hasn't been divulged) dialed 911 and he was taken away by ambulance.

At the recent TCA press tour, Deadline Hollywood supplied the following insight from CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler:

"We have a high level of concern, how could we not," CBS' entertainment president Nina Tassler said. "On a very basic human level, I have a concern of course - this man is a father, he has children, a family. But you cannot look at this simplistically. He is also a performer who comes to work and does his job very well... So on a personal level, we are concerned, but he has his job, he does it well, and the show is a hit." The subject was also broached after the Q&A session, with a reporter suggesting that in any other line of work, Sheen would've been fired long time ago. "For what? For going to work and doing his job?" Tassler retorted.

I admit to having a bit of an investment in this particular celebrity and his antics, because my own boyfriend was in the Pitkin County Jail for domestic violence charges when Charlie was arrested Christmas Eve 2009, and to watch the cases proceed when they were so very similar (with the exception of money and celebrity!) was quite interesting. Since then, my erstwhile boyfriend has gone to prison, while Charlie Sheen has had a pay raise to over $2 million per episode, he violated probation via binges, he has threatened yet another woman (assumption that her being a prostitute makes the threats "bearable").  Generally he continues down a path of self destruction and what would seem to be total annihilation at some point in the future. The Pitkin County DA, Arnold Mordkin, told me it was his job to protect the general public and he didn't feel Charlie Sheen was a threat to said public in comparison to my friend.  The antics of highest paid man on television with more influence in his pinky than I can hope for in a lifetime is not a threat to the general public. Interesting, isn't it?

How long can support of a man of his ilk continue? At what point do people stop enabling him in order to save his life? The time frame was much shorter for Lindsay Lohan, for example. Can't CBS find another man, equally as entertaining as Charlie, but also a decent human being? Last night, even Conan O'Brien was flushed and changed the subject as he spoke with Charlie's co-star Jon Cryer about Charlie's history. If Conan can't take it, how much longer can CBS and the American public?