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When it comes to political jokers, David Letterman beats Jay Leno and critics’ darling Jon Stewart hands down.
It makes sense that the late-night talk-show wars, just passing their 10-year anniversary, would continue to consume audience interest. With each passing day, David Letterman — who seems to have developed a comfort level at CBS, even as he continues to make ironic detachment a way of life for several generations of fans — becomes ever more honest and human, allowing for a darker, more mature side to his comic’s take on life. More grounded than the competition, there’s genuine power to his words, particularly since his recovery from heart surgery.
Jay Leno, meanwhile, remains the guy who will do anything for ratings, most obviously when it involves some degree of political partisanship, like the kind that gave Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recall-candidacy, last year, the shove it needed to take California’s governorship.
In a recent article published in L.A. Weekly, Nikke Finke (an archive of her work is available as a link, to your left, under Cinema) writes …
Late Show has the brass balls to go where the cowardly White House news corps and corporate suck-up Leno fear to tread: presenting Dubya in all his dumb-ass glory.
Finke’s article is well worth a read.
As always, Slate continues to publish regular Bushisms, a malaprop version of the U.S. president’s accidental wit and wisdom.
