On October 22, 2005, my colleague Brent Baker reported Al Franken's disturbing joke to "Late Show" host David Letterman concerning Scooter Libby and Karl Rove being executed for their involvement in the Valerie Plame Wilson affair.

Almost two and a half years later, during an interview on CNN's "American Morning" Friday, Kiran Chetry asked the comedian turned Democrat senate candidate about this exchange.

When Franken had the gall to declare, "I didn't even say that in a joking manner," Chetry challenged him in a way that all media members should whenever a politician on either side of the aisle is so obviously disingenuous (video available here, h/t NBer Woody Boyd):

"Late Show" viewers must be starting to wonder whether David Letterman hates old people or just John McCain.

Maybe more important, is the host having a hard time hiding his support for Barack Obama?

Take for example Thursday's opening monologue. As the topic changed to the presidential campaign, Letterman focused most of his comedic attacks on the GOP frontrunner and also-ran Ralph Nader while actually not offering one joke about Barack Obama.

For those interested, here was the joke tally from Thursday's monologue:

"I like how you think, senator," cooed "Late Show" host David Letterman in agreement with John Edwards's charge that "most of what" Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly says "is crap."

Letterman had asked the former senator about his "feud" with O'Reilly over Edwards's charge that the Bush administration is failing to care for military veterans to the extent that hundreds of thousands are winding up homeless.

The exchange came in a jovial January 22 interview in which Edwards joked about having Letterman as his running mate, or at the very least as a celebrity endorser a la Oprah Winfrey.

Video (1:04): Windows Media (1.96 MB) or MP3 audio (473 kB).:

If things don't work out for Hillary with this presidential thing, she can always do stand-up out in LA. Or not. If you didn't catch her side-splitter on last night's Letterman, you can view it here, as rebroadcast on MSNBC this morning.

For those taking nitrates who might not want to risk a sudden drop in blood pressure by watching the clip, here's the text of Hillary's rib tickler:

Dave has been off the air for eight long weeks because of the writers' strike. Tonight he's back. Oh well. All good things come to an end.

Hillary, stop. You're killing me here.

Left-wing activist/actor Sean Penn rejected David Letterman's characterization that Hugo Chavez, the anti-U.S. President of Venezuela, is “nuts” and, asked about suppression of free expression, Penn used that as a hook to ridicule Fox News as run by “loons.” Penn appeared on Monday's Late Show to promote his new movie, Into the Wild. Letterman noted Penn's visit with Chavez and related how he understands Chavez “is nuts” and “wacky.” Penn retorted that “if people have oil under their ground they're called wacky”and asserted he's done “incredible things for the 80 percent of the people that are very poor there.” When Letterman raised how Chavez is “talking about nationalizing the media,” Penn defended Chavez for closing a television station before rejecting Letterman's premise: “The idea that, that there's no freedom of expression, I mean the loons on Fox News are broadcast there every day.”

Video: The Late Show with David Letterman Web site features streaming video of this exchange (on its “Big Show Highlights” page, click on “Hanging with Hugo Chavez”).

That Hillary Clinton -- what a card!

According to an email I've received from her campaign, the intrepid Hillary is venturing into the lion's den, with TV appearances scheduled tonight on Letterman and September 4 on the Ellen DeGeneres show. Daring stuff!

In any case, according to the email:

Ellen is soliciting questions from her viewers to ask of Hillary, and we want to turn it around on her. So if you have a question for Hillary to ask Ellen, submit it here.

Mika Brzezinski is so outraged that people are discussing Hillary's cleavage . . . that she hopes it helps the Dem prez candidate.

The topic arose at 6:18 A.M. EDT on today's "Morning Joe." The affable Willie Geist, a frequent panelist, is serving this morning as guest host for the absent Joe Scarborough. He broached the subject.

MORNING JOE GUEST HOST WILLIE GEIST: One of the other big stories that everybody is talking about is this Hillary Clinton cleavage thing.

MORNING JOE NEWSREADER MIKA BRZEZINSKI [in an exasperated tone]: Oh my gosh.

GEIST: . . . There's a shot of it right now; that's not so bad, I've seen much worse.

BRZEZINSKI: Are you kidding me? That's a great outfit. But what annoys me is that people wrote about it and talked about it. And if has helped her in any way I guess it doesn't bother me because that was ridiculous.

[This first posted on March 15. CBS will re-run this episode tonight, Friday April 6] Appearing on Wednesday's (March 14) Late Show with David Letterman, actor Richard Gere declared: “We have a President right now who lies constantly and gets away with it apparently.” Gere's comment, which drew applause from the audience in Manhattan, came in response to Letterman asking Gere, who was on the show to promote The Hoax, a movie opening in April in which he stars as Clifford Irving who wrote and sold a bogus autobiography of the reclusive Howard Hughes: “Is this the kind of thing that can happen now?”

Gere also contended that “the second Watergate where they got caught actually had a lot to do with the material that's in this book, in the fake autobiography, because Clifford made up a lot of things about Hughes and Richard Nixon and they ended up being true. But Nixon was the only one that knew they were true and so the break-in was actually to find out how much the Democratic Party knew.”

Video clip (1:00): Real (1.8 MB) or Windows Media (2 MB), plus MP3 audio (350 KB)

FNC's Bill O'Reilly returned to the Late Show Friday night for round two with David Letterman over Iraq. In the show taped on Monday but not aired until Friday, Letterman expressed disgust with the war: "So we've made a mistake in war, so we stay there and kill as many Americans as we possibly can? That's the way you get out of a mistake?" At another point, Letterman fretted: “It's all about oil. That's why we're there. Big deal." When O'Reilly asserted that “it isn't 'We're a bad country, Bush is an evil liar.' That's not true," Letterman retorted that "I didn't say we were a bad country. I didn't say he was an evil liar" and charged: "You're putting words in my mouth just the way you put artificial facts in your head."

Unlike the January 3 confrontation, however, each time it seemed to get too personal, O'Reilly would always -- and Letterman sometimes too -- interject a humorous rejoinder to try to keep the interview from becoming too hard-edged. “We're really friends. This is all an act. We're buddies. We bowl," O'Reilly proposed in an effort to cut the tension. For a look at the January session, check my NewsBusters post of the time (with video), “Letterman Denounces Iraq War, Sheehan Critics.” My Friday night posting, “O'Reilly Returns to Late Show Friday Night, Letterman Calls Him a 'Liar,'” recounted comments Letterman made on his Thursday night show. (Partial transcript from Friday's show follows)

Video clip of the most animated portion of the O'Reilly appearance (7:10): Real (5.3 MB at 100 kbps) or Windows Media (4.5 MB at 81 kbps), plus MP3 audio (2.5 MB)

David Letterman treated FNC's Bill O'Reilly and conservative views with disdain as the two got into a bit of tempest when O'Reilly last appeared on the Late Show back on Tuesday, January 3, as detailed in my NewsBusters post of the time (with video), “Letterman Denounces Iraq War, Sheehan Critics.” O'Reilly will be a guest again on tonight's (Friday) show which was, oddly, taped on Monday and thus allowed Letterman to talk about it a bit on Thursday's program. Letterman hasn't gained any admiration for O'Reilly in the past ten months, as demonstrated by how he recalled: “The last time he was on the show I caught him lying. And I said to myself, well you better do something, you just can't sit here and let this guy lie, so I jumped all over him and there was a bit of a dust-up.” Letterman also revealed his strategy for the interview: “He's a blowhard, I'll be a blowhard too. So when he comes out what I do is I attack him. And I just make a fool of myself and, of course, I have no idea what I'm talking about and neither does he.” (Summary of Letterman's remarks back in January follow.)

Update, 8:15pm EDT: The Late Show Web site has posted (on its "Big Show Highlights" page) a 3:39 streaming Real video from Friday's show of a very heated argument between O'Reilly and Letterman, with some insults from Letterman, over Iraq.

On Wednesday's Late Show with David Letterman, guest Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's The Daily Show mimicked President Bush's news conference performance, comparing his style of answering reporters' questions to "an eight-year-old when they didn't read the book." Imitating Bush, Stewart mocked Bush's answer about Dennis Hastert: "Speaker of the House, known him ten years, his father's a coach, he has an epidermis, covers his whole body, he's a mammal..." Stewart went on to joke that while people say "I think President Bush is stupid," that in reality Bush "talks like he's talking to someone who's stupid, which means -- we're stupid." Stewart also remarked that Bush's manner was "becoming particularly odder as it goes along."

Video clip (2:00): Real (3.5 MB) or Windows Media (3.9 MB), plus MP3 audio (700 KB)

Two days after CNN founder Ted Turner told journalists at the Reuters office in Manhattan that the war in Iraq was one of the “dumbest” decisions in history, that only women should be allowed to run for office -- though he simultaneously touted the male Al Gore, a “great leader,” for President -- and argued Iran should be able to have nuclear weapons since “we have 28,000. Why can't they have ten?”, he appeared Thursday night on CBS's Late Show with David Letterman where he spouted fresh silliness.

Recalling for Letterman his activities in the 1980s, Turner implied that he ended the Cold War: “I was trying to bring the Cold War, help bring it to and end with the Goodwill Games and a bunch of our initiatives that we worked on with the Russians and it worked.” Turner described Cuba as “a wonderful place” and fretted: “I think it's crazy that we don't have relations with Cuba when we made normalized relations with Vietnam after the Vietnam war.” He argued: “If we wanted democracy to function and capitalism in Cuba, what we need to do is send a whole lot of tourists down there to get everybody materialistic like we are up here. And then we would have already, I'm sure, I believe, that communism would have been gone from there if we'd have just been friends with them.”

With Katie Couric poised to take over the CBS Evening News anchor chair on Tuesday following his departure from the network this summer, Dan Rather's era at CBS News has come to a definitive end. The coda certainly came Friday night with CBS's send-off re-airing of its Dan Rather: A Reporter Remembers special first run in March of 2005 (NewsBusters item on it.) As a holiday weekend treat from the MRC's video archive, enjoy one of Rather's wackier moments -- from the June 22, 1994 Late Show with David Letterman -- when Rather sang his version of Johnny Cash's The Wreck of the Old 97.

Video clip (1:20): Real (2.3 MB), Windows Media (2.7 MB), plus MP3 audio (400 KB)

Thursday's Late Show with David Letterman on CBS featured a “Top Ten” list announced by CNN anchor Kyra Phillips, who on Tuesday was caught with her microphone on in a CNN restroom talking over a speech by President Bush. See this NewsBusters item by Megan McCormack for a transcript and fun video. The #5 from Phillips on Letterman: “I was set up by those bastards at Fox News.” To watch video of her presentation from the stage of the Ed Sullivan Theater, go to the Late Show home page. Or, direct to the Late Show's “Big Show Highlights” page and click on the top video. Either way, the video is available only as a streaming (not downloadable) Real clip. (Text of full list follows)

I don't really expect David Letterman to challenge his political guests and, apparently, neither does Nancy Pelosi. Appearing on the Late Show on Tuesday, Pelosi got away with rhetorical murder implying that George Bush wants to "phase out" Social Security altogether, Democrats really want to secure our borders, the military barely has any combat ready units, and terrorists don't really care about killing people, they just want to instill fear and thus, George Bush is playing right into their hands.

Video available here.

Oh, and in case you weren't aware, Nancy Pelosi is the ultimate security mom.

As reported by NewsBusters, Ann Coulter recently made a rather controversial observation about former President Clinton. The writing crew of CBS’s “Late Night with David Letterman” decided to take issue with Coulter’s views on Thursday.

As this is a bit delicate in nature, the potentially offensive section – along with the video link – will be placed on the “Read More” page.

After joking with sidekick Paul Shaffer about who Coulter was, Letterman said:

TV critic Alessandra Stanley goes after host Jay Leno for not laying a glove on his Wednesday night guest Ann Coulter in Friday’s Arts review, “A Battle of Wits, And No Clear Win.”

It’s clear who the liberal Stanley is rooting for in this clash of TV talker vs. best-selling conservative titan, chastening both Leno and David Letterman for failing to verbally spank Coulter: “As his tut-tutting chat with the mean girl of the moment showed, Jay Leno is a terrible interviewer….Mr. Leno, who will be replaced by Conan O'Brien in 2009, can afford to slack off, but it is [rival TV talker David] Letterman who seems to be taking too many of his shows pass/fail. And it's a shame, because the host of CBS's ‘Late Show’ is the comedian intellectually and temperamentally most suited to taking on the conservative enfant terrible and giving her a much-deserved public swat.”