Dave is Dead! Long Live Dave!

I've always dreamed of appearing on David Letterman's show. My book/movie/album/diet plan would be wildly successful, and all the big talk shows would be clamoring for me. "No thanks Jay, Regis, and Barbara," I'd say (I have no idea why they'd all be on the same conference call, but fantasies can be like that), "I'm only appearing on Dave's show." Paul would play me on with "Sweet Home Alabama." My wit would be sharp and my repartee with Dave would be sparkling. The segment would be so good that Dave would invite me to come back the next night. I would accept, but that's the day I promised to go hang gliding in the Alps with my girlfriend, Keira Knightly.

Well, that dream is dead now. After reading a transcript of Dave's completely off-the-rails performance with Bill O'Reilly, I have no choice but to assume he's joined the ranks of left-wing show biz kooks. It gripes me too much to take the segment apart myself (I'll direct you to the admirable efforts of Ace of Spades, PoliPundit, and Michelle Malkin for that). Suffice it to say that it's difficult for me to respect a grown man who thinks that Cindy Sheehan should be setting foreign policy for the United States.

Thing is, I only found out about this spectacle when I read about it the next day. I haven't watched Dave in years, and I was a regular viewer well after the show had stopped being what the experts call "funny." I thought about reasons for the decline: Dave's health, the disinterest that comes from doing something every day for twenty-some-odd years. But now it looks like a possibility that the slide in quality could coincide with Dave's "growth" from awkward Midwestern everyman to elitist entertainment icon. Dave's humor -- his whole persona, really -- was built around his edgy, nervous sincerity, and that's a difficult pose to maintain when you think you're playing to an audience full of red state shmucks.

But there was a time, a long time, when Letterman was the funniest, best thing on TV, night in and night out. Nobody can take that from me, not even the 2006 version, who's been doing top 10 lists about 10 years too long and who mails it in every night that Julia Roberts or Drew Barrymore doesn't appear on the show. That's the Dave I'll remember, and in my daydreams, that's the show I'll be on.