Hey Dave, here's what a colleague of your's thinks...
Posted on 01/03/2006 9:20:35 PM PST by PJ-Comix
Displaying a hostility to President Bush and the Iraq war similar to that expressed by Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart, on tonight’s Late Show David Letterman will go further than I’ve ever heard him in revealing his derision for President Bush’s decision to launch the Iraq war. I know this thanks to the “Big Show Highlight," a two-minute streaming-only RealPlayer preview of tonight’s program, which is now featured on the Late Show’s home page.
In the posted clip, Letterman mockingly tells guest Bill O’Reilly: "The President himself, less than a month ago said we are there because of a mistake made in intelligence. Well, whose intelligence? It was just somebody just get off a bus and handed it to him?" Letterman demands: “Why the Hell are we there to begin with?" When O’Reilly points out that the British, Russians and Egyptians also presumed Iraq had WMD, Letterman retorts: “Well then that makes it all right?" Turning unusually serious, Letterman soon lectures: “I'm very concerned about people like yourself who don't have nothing but endless sympathy for a woman like Cindy Sheehan. Honest to Christ. Honest to Christ." That prompts O’Reilly to contend: “No way a terrorist who blows up women and children is going to be called a ‘freedom fighter' on my program." To which Letterman fires back: “I have the feeling about 60 percent of what you say is crap.” After the show airs in an hour, I will update this item with more from the Letterman/O’Reilly exchange, including a video clip. (Transcript of RealPlayer excerpt follows.)
It took me a while, but I managed to take down this transcript from the two-minute streaming RealPlayer “Big Show Highlight” video clip on the Late Show home page:
David Letterman: “The President himself, less than a month ago said we are there because of a mistake made in intelligence. Well, whose intelligence? It was just somebody just get off a bus and handed it to him?”
Bill O’Reilly: “No.”
Letterman: “No, it was the intelligence gathered by his administration.”
O’Reilly: “By the CIA.”
Letterman: “Yeah, so why are we there in the first place? I agree to you, with you that we have to support the troops. They are there, they are the best and the brightest of this country. [audience applause] There’s no doubt about that. And I also agree that now we’re in it it’s going to take a long, long time. People who expect it’s going to be solved and wrapped up in a couple of years, unrealistic, it’s not going to happen. However, however, that does not eliminate the legitimate speculation and concern and questioning of ‘Why the Hell are we there to begin with?’”
O’Reilly: “If you want to question that, and then re-vamp an intelligence agency that’s obviously flawed, the CIA, okay. But remember, MI-6 in Britain said the same thing. Putin’s people in Russia said the same thing, and so did Mubarak’s intelligence agency in Egypt.”
Letterman: “Well then that makes it all right?”
O’Reilly: “No it doesn’t make it right.”
Letterman: “That intelligence agencies across the board makes it alright that we’re there?”
O’Reilly: “It doesn’t make it right.”
Letterman: “See, I’m very concerned about people like yourself who don’t have nothing but endless sympathy for a woman like Cindy Sheehan. Honest to Christ.” [audience applause]
O’Reilly: “No, I’m sorry.”
Letterman: “Honest to Christ.”
“O’Reilly: “No way. [waits for applause to die down] No way you’re going to get me, no way that a terrorist who blows up women and children.”
Letterman: “Do you have children?”
O’Reilly: “Yes I do. I have a son the same age as yours. No way a terrorist who blows up women and children is going to be called a ‘freedom fighter’ on my program.” [mild audience applause]
Letterman: “I’m not smart enough to debate you point to point on this, but I have the feeling, I have the feeling about 60 percent of what you say is crap. [audience laughter] But I don’t know that for a fact. [more audience applause]
I sent a FEEDBACK e mail too, thanks to that link, but my lengthy and spontaneous response was mainly on the theme of how lowdown and unethical , sneaky and pathetic it was to invite a guest on the pretext of actually talking about something, and then holding him up to ridicule with the cheapest of cheap shots, playing all the while to his own captive audience, and probably hoping that it would all be taken as "entertaianment" ,or TV showmanship, when it was in fact the most disgraceful exercise of immaturity I have ever seen on Network television. I am surprised O Reilly did'/t walk off, but it would have served Letterman right, and would inevitably have thrown Letterman's little stunt in the harsh light it was meant to cast on O'Reilly. I told CBS and Letterman that I would be watching NEITHER of them ever again, and I meant it.While I am far from BORs biggest fan, at least he is a serious person---Letterman is the same age as BOR, but somehow made it to that milestone while having NO OPINIONS of his own, just the usual Leftish "feelings" ( which are always supposed to count for a lot more. I ended my feedback with the sentence "Letterman showed himself to be an ethical Slob and an intellectual Boob. "Bye, Dave....and Bye, CBS."
I think my instincts are correct in assuming that there will be some kind of apology tendered by Letterman Weds.night, when CBS gets an earful of feedback like mine.
Either way, Letterman loses in my book---unless the apology looks and sounds heartfelt and his own idea, it will have been put on him by the CBS brass. And in that case it will even more prove what a weakling he has turned out to be. It seems that his late-blooming fatherhood has
its downside too. I can never look at him the same way again.
Email the show:
http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/show_info/ls_show_info_pop_feedback.shtml
Letterman's agent:
lswdl@aol.com
Letterman's intelligence spans little more than the gap between his two front teeth.
Craig Ferguson (right after Letterman) makes Letterman look beyond pathetic. He just sucks next to the excellence that is that Scottish man.
I hope his son born out of wedlock to a much younger woman grows up to be a strong conservative and spends Daddys money on conservative causes. Oh a that great big house he has out west becomes a haven for hunters and rednecks.
According to an interview of his that I watched he had no input and everyone of his staff/crew who stayed on at the Tonight Show was given their walking papers by the Leno crowd.
This is about the only direct email I can find:
esalzhauer@cbs.com
Then, this guy is the stupid pet tricks guy:
bill.langworthy@tvc.cbs.com
You could try things like sbirkitt@cbs.com (she is a staffer who is on the show sometimes).
Hey Dave, here's what a colleague of your's thinks...
God love you for that .. and thank you, especially for your service. May God extend His protection and blessings to you and your troops.
Letterman's ''audience'' would likely be ''entertained'' by a Stupid Pet Tricks segment purporting to demonstrate that dogs and/or cats commit suicide under CBS-controlled conditions.
How come the terrorist training camps and links to Al Quaeda and Saddam often forgotten?
Letterman was wildly entertaining....twenty years ago.
He jumped the shark when he took the walk to black rock.
I like a good political joke as much as the next guy… no matter who it pokes fun at.
I’m not the biggest fan of Bill BUT…
To David Letterman. You have lost touch. It's sad, because I used to like you. I grew up with you. Your irrational, uninformed jabs at US policy and blind one sided attacks at our President and our country have pushed me away.
Bush, Clinton, UK, Putin... everyone had the same intelligence. The bottom line is, it was Saddam's burden to prove he had disarmed... he did not prove it!
The intelligence issue is moot. We wouldn’t have needed intelligence at all if Saddam had abided by UN resolutions!!!!!
Goodbye Dave... Hello Jay and Conan!
Given the hard feelings over Leno getting the job, probably wise he axed Carson's crowd that might seek to sabotage him. May not be fair to the ones without agenda, but we've seen what Clinton holdovers have done.
Anyway, I'm not an O'Reilly fan.
But given what's been related about the show, hasn't aired yet here, I congratulate him. Sounds like Letterman made more of a fool of himself then he usually does, and Bill stun especially with labeling terrorists freedom fighters.
I heard it differently. Number two was:
2. Shut your f***ing piehole.
''Well, I love my cigar, but I take it out once in a while.'' -- Groucho, on 'You Bet Your Life', December 1958, as said to a contestant, a carpenter from Akron, Ohio, who said ''I love my job and I love my wife and we have 17 children, Groucho.''
Not one peep. Mum's the word. Stifled.
That's using your head.
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