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]
Letterman accused O'Reilly of being full of crap, but then admitted he never watches his show. You can't really take his accusations seriously because of that.
The only President to hold two nonconsecutive terms and
also the only President to be married in the White House
(to Frances Folsom).
He put our relatives through some rough times!
Congratulations, Dave! You've just driven another longtime viewer away.Your treatment of Bill O'Reilly was contemptible. You have become an egotistical, bitter old man. When you self-righteously pontificate on political matters you clearly do not understand, nor care about enough to actually research, it does serious damage to your credibility.
It is, perhaps, the very hight of intellectual dishonesty to claim support for the men and women of the US armed services, while voicing absolute disdain for the mission to which they have pledged their lives. The men and women of the armed services are honorable and noble BECAUSE they will fight terrorists!
Did you forget that, because of this war, the citizens of Iraq are able to VOTE!? Did you forget that, because of this war, terrorists aren't flying any more airplanes into New York skyscrapers? Did you forget that, because of this war, Saddam Hussein was captured and is standing trial for decades of unspeakable horrors inflicted on his own people? Did you forget that Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton and many other Democrat politicians are on the record claiming that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction? Did you know that the intelligence that led up to the war was gathered mostly PRIOR to George W. Bush, by the Clinton administration?
Why are we there? If you can't answer that question, you have no business discussing the matter with someone who can.
For crying out loud! You made some of the most heart- wrenching, emotion-filled statements I heard on television following 9/11. Now that we are engaged in a war to defeat the very same group of people who murdered thousands of New Yorkers, you have the nerve to ask "Why the hell are we there?" It is both astounding and deeply disturbing that you cannot make that connection, Dave.
I will be a devoted Jay Leno fan in the future.
Sincerely,
Haven't been able to watch Loser Letterman or Loser Leno for a few years now, fwiw.
Those idiots are like every other "entertainment" outlet and are just trying to capture the coveted 18 to 39 year old demographic. There is a reason they call it the boob tube.
That's because creative people who are not "unhinged antiwar freak(s)" can't get a record cut, a movie made, or a piece written.
I didn't see that part in the video clip. Thanks for the info.
Just sent this to Letterman...
Dear Dave,
I was particularly impressed with your impassioned defense of Cindy Sheehan during your interview with Bill O'Reiley on your show on Tuesday, January 3, 2006.
I would love for you to give her a chance to be a guest on your show.
I would like for you to give her the whole hour to espouse her views.
I would like to hear, again, Mrs. Sheehan call the same terrorists who murdered her son, as well as thousands of innocent men, women and children, "freedom fighters", while also saying, "The biggest terrorist is George W. Bush."
I would like to hear Mrs. Sheehan reprise some of her recent comments, including,
"You tell me the truth. You tell me that my son died for oil. You tell me that my son died to make your friends rich. You tell me my son died to spread the cancer of Pax Americana, imperialism in the Middle East."
"Is there even one sane adult among us who cannot see that Donald Rumsfeld is a threat to our nation's security and to peace on our beloved earth?"
"Our country has been overtaken by murderous thugs... gangsters who lust after fortunes and power, never caring that their addictions are at the expense of our loved ones, and the blood of innocent people near and far. . Our loved ones have been buried in early graves even as these arrogant thugs parade themselves before the entire world, insisting that democracy is worth dying for, killing for, and destroying entire cities for..."
"What can we do to get him (President Bush) out of power? And I'm gonna say the 'I' word: Impeach. And we have to have everybody impeached that lied to the American public, and that's the executive branch, and any people in congress, and we got to go all the way down... to the person who picks up the dogs**t in Washington because we can't let somebody rise to the top who will pardon these war criminals. Because they need to go to prison for what they've done in this world. We can't have a pardon. They need to pay for what they've done."
"I was raised in a country by a public school system that taught us that America was good, that America was just. America has been killing people... since we first stepped on this continent; we have been responsible for death and destruction. I passed on that bulls**t to my son, and my son enlisted. I'm going all over the country telling moms this country is not worth dying for."
Perhaps you could do this show in front of an audience of veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Perhaps you could even go out into that audience and ask a few of them if “This country is not worth dying for". I wonder what their response would be?.
Please send me an E-Mail when you plan to air this show, as, after last night, I've stopped watching.
Happy New Year,
I didn't mean to insult Alan King, who I in fact referred to in an e mail to an old girlfriend from High School as a "prophet" (because when I finally bought my first house 11 years ago I too found myself obsessed with crabgrass).
I only meant to suggest that one can't hold onto one's "edge" in comedy forever. Look at George Carlin, who seems to have morphed into something barely even human, in the quest to go further and further.
Yeah, outside of Nashville, that's probably true.
A failed 70s stand up comic, who, now, it seems, in a perfect illustration of the Peter Principle, "rose to his level of incompetence" and became long-running host of a TV Show, that , FINALLY, in one fell swoop, revealed him to be about as bright as your average 15 year old, and twice as obnoxious.
No, not a decade, you're right. But it looks like she started work on this in 1997 from what I can find googling. So it's nearly a decade -- time flies!
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:3-85z6uRUR0J:www.nwhp.org/tlp/biographies/leno/leno_bio.html+mavis+leno+afghanistan&hl=en
"Leno assumed her role as Chair of the Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan in 1997 less than one year after the Taliban's brutal treatment of women began."
Letterman in his own way was a funny host for many years but basically his shtick was being a smartass who was able to deflate a lot of balloons over the years. Especially pompous Hollywood ones. That was his main appeal. Cher who is no friend of ours here on FR had Letterman pegged decades ago when she called him as the usual word for an anus on his show once.
Yess, that was a good interview, but what I always liked about Letterman was the straight ahead, commonsensical way he could conduct a difficult interview like I saw him do with Wheelchair bound Christopher Reeve several years back. Whereas Barbara Walters and others have used such circumstances as a way to prove how readily that can shed tears on Reeve's behalf (IOW, it's all about THEM), Letterman took a completely different tack, and pumped Reeve for information that he really seemed curious to get and impart to the audience. It was no nonsense, but, by God, it was EXACTLY the treatment Reeve and the issue of his paralysis were probably hungering for. So I am probably leaving Letterman and his show for good, but with at least the memory of that interview in my mind, and the fond wish that he returns to those old ways.
I thought the interview was very fair and balanced. They shook hands at the end. Letterman claimed that O'reilly was 60 percent full of crap. I suspect the number is closer to 80 percent. Both Letterman and O'reilly have EGO's bigger than reality. I hope Dave comes out with a children's book, but maybe he has a different producer.
I consider standing up to leftists like Letterman part of my duty to "defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic"!
There is nothing better than being "acknowledged" when I'm in uniform. A simple nod usually makes my day. Usually, here in New England, the locals pretend that they don't even see me- must be the camouflage... So, your generosity of buying a drink for servicemember goes a long way.
Have a great day!
Thanks for clearing that up, P. I thought that was the case. You confirmed my suspicions. Thanks again. :)
Letterman is a jerk and he's not funny. That is why Leno has been ahead for years in the ratings. Oprah would not come on the Letterman shows for years because of how rude he is.
It certainly finished him with *me*...
Me too!
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