David Letterman

Today, Katie Couric is sitting down with Joe Lieberman for the first on-air interview with the Senator since the Democrats voted on Tuesday in favor of allowing him to retain his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee.

The interview will take place in Washington and appear on tonight's CBS Evening News.

TVNewser reports that afterwards Ms. Couric will return to New York where she will be making her first appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman since her famous candid camera moment on the show, during one of the craziest days of her life back in September.

For a man who often found himself likened to Bob Dole during the presidential campaign, it's only fitting that John McCain will make his first post-election appearance on a late-night comedy show.

McCain is scheduled to appear on Jay Leno's "Tonight Show" tonight, a move that calls to mind Bob Dole's visit to David Letterman's "Late Show" just three days after losing the 1996 campaign to Bill Clinton.

Dole had actually informally declared his candidacy on Letterman's show in early 1995 – "Yeah, I'm gonna run," he admitted as the host prodded him – but grew irritated during the campaign as Letterman savagely mocked his old age (73 on Election Day) night after night.  read more »

Fox News' newly-reupped host Bill O'Reilly appeared on Late Show with David Letterman last night.

As you may recall, Mr. O'Reilly and Mr. Letterman didn't get along so well when they met in 2006, but this time, the two got on just fine, making small jokes at each others' expense but smiling the whole time.

Mr. O'Reilly told Mr. Letterman he admired vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, describing her as a "self-made woman" and offering an impersonation of ABC News' Charlie Gibson interviewing her about The Bush Doctrine.   read more »

On Thursday afternoon, during a taping of CBS's Late Show at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York, Senator John McCain apologized to David Letterman for skipping out on an interview with the late night comedian at the last minute some three weeks earlier.

"What exactly happened?" asked Mr. Letterman.

"I screwed up," said Senator McCain.  read more »

David Letterman might just have summed up last week when he said, “You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen, this doesn’t smell right." Felix Gillette and John Koblin track the billion little pieces in our new A.D.D. news cycle. PLUS: Pumping McCain.

John Koblin looks at the last days of The New York Sun. "Staffers seemed in buoyant spirits, some even laughing."

Leon Neyfakh looks at Penguin's financial crash book buying spree and wonders "Is buying three books about Wall Street a good investment?"

Plus: Toby Young... The Mad Men of New Media... Paul Newman.

In the early morning hours of Wednesday, Sept. 24, The New York Times was printing its morning editions, including a front-page story reporting that Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign manager, Rick Davis, is a principal in a lobbying firm that had been receiving $15,000 a month since 2005 from embattled mortgage giant Freddie Mac.

But before those papers hit doorsteps, the McCain campaign had responded, via its Web site. Much of the morning news cycle was spent recycling the dispute: Had McCain lied? Had his campaign manager lied to him? Was the Times story flawed? And if it wasn’t, was it an example of ‘gotcha’ journalism both Mr.  read more »

We consider ourselves something of an amateur expert on David Letterman, as we've spent an hour a day with him, five times a week, for the past two decades. And so we knew already that the big guy had a lot of affection for Paul Newman (who didn't?). Newman appeared on the Letterman show often, and was always a stellar guest -- elegant, funny, and a great sparring partner for Mr. Letterman, who clearly got a huge kick out of the actor/race-car driver/humanitarian.

Last night, Mr. Letterman was clearly emotional as he talked about his friend and fellow car nut. He told a long and funny story involving the pair's shared geekdom over car engines (Newman apparently put a Porsche engine inside his VW Rabbit).  read more »

Also in the October/November issue of Radar, Ana Marie Cox interviews John McCain about his favorite TV shows. (Good two months for them!) Mr. McCain, who David Letterman excoriated last night for bailing on his show, said that he really likes the late night talk show host in the article which is currently not online.

As Mr. McCain told Ms. Cox:

One reason I like to go on those shows, particularly ones like Leno or Letterman, is that they help you reach a wide viewing audience that otherwise would not be paying attention to the political scene—people who would never be exposed to the Sunday-morning shows or other programs that politicians are traditionally on.  read more »

David Letterman's riff on McCain tonight isn't quite as cutting as you may have heard; sure it's a bit tough but the whole thing also reads as a reaction to his getting dissed for Katie Couric and a crater. Anyway perhaps the scolds will lighten up by the time this airs tonight; the events of today were almost too absurd to be funny, but David is pretty hysterical.

Former Life Magazine managing editor Bill Shapiro sent the above cover of the magazine from September 2004 (left) to Jim Romenesko's blog as a nod to Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whom many have noted resembles Tina Fey.

Media Mob was just struck by how similar Ms. Fey's pose is to the most recent cover of Rolling Stone (right), which features the 30 Rock star along with Chris Rock and David Letterman.

As we told you earlier in the week, on Tuesday, Brooklyn's most beloved indie band, the Hold Steady, released its new album, Stay Positive. And tonight, the band is the musical guest on the Late Show With David Letterman. Pitchfork reports that the Hold Steady will also star on in a taped segment on tonight's show: "Apparently, Letterman's crew followed the Hold Steady on the road for a few days earlier this year, and captured what it's like to be in 'America's Rock Band'. The segment is about five minutes long, and it will air tonight before Letterman's Top 10 List."  read more »

The Hills' notorious duo, Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag, went on the Late Show with David Letterman Friday night to promote... Well, themselves. In the clip above, Mr. Pratt discloses his and Brody Jenner's evil plan to date the girls of The Hills that got him onto the show and tells Mr. Letterman that he now gets $100K for public appearances and reps the "future Jay-Z," who's currently 12-years-old.

Watch to see Mr. Pratt reduced to an uncharacteristic awkwardness as Mr. Letterman laughs as most of the things he says.  read more »

SOUTH BEND -- Barack Obama could probably use some levity, apparently.

Here's a Daily Show correspondent taping segments with some more traditional correspondents at an event here.

Also, tonight the candidate will read a top 10 list on David Letterman (a native Hoosier!).

Here it is, as released by the campaign:  read more »

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Before John Edwards let David Letterman mess up his hair on the Late Show last night, the former Senator was at a private fund-raiser in midtown Manhattan, also attended by Kevin Bacon, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and Alex Forger—one of the co-executors of the Jackie Onassis estate.

A reader who attended the event—held in the Fifth Avenue home of Edwards contributor Joseph Bondi—emailed me last night with this report of Edwards' remarks:  read more »

History has shown that a political movement is merely an idea until it finds a badge, a recognizable symbol of solidarity in strife. Women’s Lib had burning braziers; Environmentalists have the color green; the French Revolution is known for its guillotine; and Socialism waves a red flag. The Writers Guild Strike, now in its third month, has its own emblème, too—the strike beard.

But unlike with most political movements, the act of relinquishing a strike beard has also taken on a kind of symbolism. Just ask Diane Wood, the 26-year-old daughter of Adrian Wood, who owns Paul Molé, an old-school Upper East Side barbershop that’s been shaving faces since 1913. After all, Ms. Wood shaved David Letterman’s beard yesterday, less than a week after the late-night talk show host returned to the air, having recently reached an agreement with the W.G.A.  read more »

In this week’s New Yorker, Ben McGrath writes a Talk of the Town about, well, beards. In days of yore, the piece points out, facial fuzz was de rigueur among a certain set of powerful gents—Confucius, Abraham Lincoln and Rasputin among them.

But now, it seems, there’s begun a resurgence of the bearded-bigwig milieu—particularly those ‘working’ in film and television. The reason for this trend, of course, has more to do with the extended W.G.A. strike than anything else. Now famous personalities—many of which heretofore seemed peach fuzz-free, let alone capable of generating thick cheek rugs—have started to cultivate beards of their own. Take, as the item does, Conan O’Brien, who had reportedly spent the last 44 years of his life with a clean, baby-smooth shave. Not so any more; the pompadour’d late-night talk show host now has what he bills “a hobby on my face.”  read more »

As the Media Mob told us this morning, there were reports of late-night shows possibly returning by Jan. 2. Those rumors have been confirmed by NBC this morning, according to The New York Times.

NBC officially announced today that its two late-night stars, Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien, will return to the air on Jan. 2 even if the strike against networks and studios by entertainment writers is not resolved by then.  read more »

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There may be no end in sight to the writers strike, but the late-night shows could soon be back on the air anyway.

The Writers Guild said over the weekend that it would be willing to sign individual agreements with media companies, and the independent company that owns The Late Show with David Letterman said it plans to take advantage of that move to work towards a deal, according to several reports.  read more »

David Letterman is winning the battle of the re-runs, the New York Post reports.

Since the writers strike began over a month ago, forcing both Mr. Letterman of CBS and his late-night rival, Jay Leno of NBC, into re-runs, Mr. Letterman's numbers are down only around 21 percent, whle Mr. Leno's are off by 40 percent. Mr. Leno still leads, but, says the Post, "Letterman hasn't been this close to Leno in years."  read more »

The suburbs haven’t dulled David Letterman’s grumpiest—and funniest—guest.  read more »

“There will be no ‘Tonight Show’ tonight,” said Joe Meceiros, the show’s head writer, outside NBC Studios in Burbank, California today, according to the New York Times' TV Decoder blog.

Celebrity guests won’t feel the same financial pinch as writers, of course, but some authors and performers [scheduled to appear on late-night talk shows] will undoubtedly miss out on what might have been rare opportunities at national exposure.

Garth Brooks was expected to perform on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” tonight, in his “first late-night television performance since announcing his retirement nine years ago,” NBC said last week. But Mr. Brooks’ appearance is on hold, along with the late-night programming on NBC, CBS and Comedy Central.

In a strange way, ABC may benefit from the postponement of “The Tonight Show” and “The Late Show with David Letterman,” because its news program “Nightline” will be live and original tonight. However, “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” which airs at 12:05 a.m., will revert to a repeat tonight. “We will take it day by day,” an ABC spokeswoman confirmed today.

Barack Obama is going to be on David Letterman tonight. So, I went to City Hall Park to hear what people thought might happen.

Gloria Tate, who works at a criminal non-profit in the Woolworth Buidling, put her sandwich down long enough to say she doubts there'll be many Hillary Clinton jokes because, you know, they're going to be on the same ticket, she said.

Great. What kind of top ten is he going to do then?

-- Azi Paybarah

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Liza Minelli eats Mayor Bloomberg's inauguration alive. The Transom: 20 Real New Yorker's Oh-So-Real New Year's Eves. The nightclub where the Frenchies in New York go to do it. Our Media Mensches of 2005. (And no, it's not David Letterman again this year.) Johnny Damon is now out hunting for the perfect Yankee apartment. 'The biggest offenders in truth-in-advertising are in political advertising.'--Shelly Lazarus, chief executive of Ogilvy & Mather. How to blow off work in 2006. Simon Doonan: What about the gay cowboy hairdressers? (No one had the courage to tell him that his new favorite show and Logo's only piece of original programming, Noah's Arc, has already, tragically, been killed by the network. The U.S. Attorney's Office has experienced a much bigger defection to private practice this year than expected.  read more »

On Monday, May 2, the actor Martin Short was the lead guest on Late Show with David Letterman.  read more »

Love All the People: Letters, Lyrics, Routines, by Bill Hicks. Soft Skull Press, 308 pages, $16.95.  read more »

Paul Shaffer, David Letterman's longstanding musical sidekick, has doubled his West Side real-estate  read more »

"Am I boring you?" asked Craig Kilborn for the third time. "Is this going well?  read more »

David Letterman's stealthy, whirlwind Christmas visit to U.S.  read more »

The calendar said Election 2002, but across the television dial, Nov.  read more »

Conan O'Brien, the 39-year-old talk-show host with a giant orange coxcomb of hair, was citing Master  read more »

Wednesday, July 24Last year's Emmys were the Emmys that almost weren't-the always enthralling TV bac  read more »

If he did it his way, Zach Galifianakis would have called his VH1 late- night talk show Do You Like  read more »

Not long ago, Rob Burnett, the president of Worldwide Pants,David Letterman's production company, wa  read more »

Not longago, Rob Burnett, the president of Worldwide Pants, David Letterman's  read more »

WEDNESDAY, MAR. 6"We very much hope that David Letterman stays at CBS," Leslie Moonves said.  read more »

Negligent Canine Owner Avoids Doghouse by a Hairbreadth Mayor Bloomberg has made a lot of noise abou  read more »

David Letterman's somber return to television on Sept.  read more »

There she was, Daljit Dhaliwal, glam news anchor on the verge, woman they love, Letterman muse, lace  read more »

Wednesday, March 28A month from now, if you start to notice more bespectacled, scruffy-cheeked guys  read more »

On Sunday, Nov. 5, at 9 p.m., actual Presidential candidates George W.  read more »

Has David Letterman killed all the lawyers?Like Knicks seats and tables at Le Cirque, tickets to the  read more »

Mr.  read more »

I'm not much of a late-night television viewer, but it is hard to work where I do and not be aware o  read more »

Best wishes on a speedy recovery. Sure was a great run up to the operation. Top form with Hillary.  read more »

If television is a mirror for the culture that watches it, then New York dreams about money more tha  read more »

Daniel Kellison, executive producer of The Man Show , pointed to the stacks of boxes filled with bab  read more »