David Letterman veers to the left

CBS latenight host's politics have evolved

By BRIAN LOWRY

'Late Show' host David Letterman, who soured on President Bush and had a run-in with Sarah Palin, seemed comfortable chatting with President Obama and President Clinton on consecutive nights last week.

David Letterman has undergone a significant change, one that goes well beyond his late-in-life marriage and fatherhood. The impetus behind the CBS latenight host's renewed vigor, moreover, appears to owe an unacknowledged debt to George W. Bush.

Call it the political education of David Letterman.

For most of his career, Letterman was never overtly political. He rather followed his idol Johnny Carson's "don't let them know your politics" philosophy -- though if anything, his scorn toward then-President Clinton throughout the 1990s at times hinted at a hidden conservative streak.

Few comics were more bruising to Clinton than Letterman who regularly characterized the prexy as a gluttonous, horny hillbilly. By contrast, Letterman exhibited genuine respect and admiration for conservative figures such as wounded war veterans Bob Dole and John McCain.

The press-shy host has clearly experienced a shift -- one that thrust him into the headlines when he was forced to apologize to Sarah Palin. And the roots of that evolution -- which saw him kick off the new season by hosting President Obama and Clinton on back-to-back nights -- can be witnessed in how the CBS star conspicuously soured on President Bush.

Flash back to the Sept. 11 attacks, when Letterman returned with the same sense of patriotic fervor and pain that gripped the nation -- commiserating on air with a tearful Dan Rather.

During the ensuing years, however, Letterman appeared to mirror the country's growing doubts about the war in Iraq, and his antagonism toward Bush began to go deeper than the barbs that latenight comedians customarily hurl at politicians. Letterman's "Great moments in presidential speeches" -- a recurring gag using video snippets of Bush mangling the English language juxtaposed with oratory by the likes of JFK and FDR -- coalesced into an image that fed misgivings about the administration's competence.

In hindsight, though, the real turning point came in 2006, when Letterman hosted Bill O'Reilly. The two engaged in a tough exchange over the Fox News Channel host's criticism of anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, with Letterman wondering how O'Reilly could feel anything but sympathy for a woman who had lost her son in the Iraq war.

"I'm not smart enough to debate you point to point on this," Letterman concluded tartly, "but I have the feeling about 60 percent of what you say is crap." A wounded O'Reilly subsequently attributed the slap to Letterman being a liberal, but that surely would have come as news to much of his audience.

Then-GOP presidential standard-bearer McCain -- for years a favorite Letterman guest -- selected Palin as his running mate. To make matters worse, he abruptly canceled a "Late Show" appearance -- saying he was suspending his campaign -- then instead showed up on "The CBS Evening News."

Letterman's retaliation -- "What are you going to do if you're elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We've got a guy like that now!" -- was swift, brutal and extremely funny.

In the year since, Letterman has done little to hide his disdain for Palin and former Vice President Dick Cheney. A sloppy joke about Palin's daughter becoming pregnant unleashed a vehement response from the former Alaska governor's defenders that caught him off guard, but once silenced, that contretemps has only provided additional fodder for Letterman's act.

Nor did Letterman hide his approval of Obama -- sounding like a fan in telling him, "I can't tell you how satisfying it is to watch you work." Yet the unspoken finish to that sentence might have been "compared to the last guy," which could also help explain his fawning over Clinton's humanitarian efforts the next night.

New York magazine recently lauded Letterman's maturity, favorably comparing his edgier material to longtime rival Jay Leno, whose "weightless political attacks have made him a risk-free franchise."

Whatever past protocol, these are not weightless times, where comics must offend every side equally. Jon Stewart and Bill Maher have emerged as serious voices in the political conversation. And Letterman's gradual move into a more partisan posture, while sure to alienate some viewers (Rush Limbaugh not surprisingly derided his soft touch with Obama), has both sharpened his focus and seems well-suited to his irascible wit.

So David Letterman's program (if not the actual guy) has put on some weight. And however improbably, he has George Bush to thank for that.