President Obama tapes an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York May 4, 2015. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
David Letterman says goodbye to late night television tonight after spending more than three decades redefining the form.
Letterman's departure has launched, literally, a thousand takes -- covering everything from his impact on the current crop of late-night hosts, his battle against celebrity stupidity and questions about his relationships with women.
What has barely been touched amid all of these words is Letterman's politics. He commanded a huge audience for much of his 33 years in late night and virtually every politician who ever considered running for or served in national office sat on his couch. And yet, despite that perch, people are generally hard pressed to give any sort of assessment of Letterman's personal politics.
"He was pretty tough on [Hillary Rodham Clinton] in 1999/2000 until she appeared on the show," recalled Howard Wolfson, who was a longtime Clinton confidant. "I always found him very substantive in his political interviews. I didn't really detect an ideology."
Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC's "Hardball" drew the same conclusion on Tuesday. "It reminds me of Johnny Carson, who I watched, another guy for 30 years, and Carson never talked politics," Matthews said. "Nobody could read his politics like we can't read Letterman's, I don't know what Letterman's politics are."
Not everyone feels that way, of course. There's this list of "David Letterman's Top 10 Most Liberal Outbursts" by the conservative Media Research Center and a piece over at Mediaite, which was originally published in 2012, that proclaims Letterman as "Late Night's Liberal." Writes Andrew Kirell:
Letterman’s partisanship has become particularly obvious in recent years. Bush jokes were easy, sure, but it’s arguable that since the Obama election, Letterman has become even more comfortable with his biases (occasionally at the expense of being funny). He spends a great deal of time in his monologues with yawn-inducing jokes about Romney’s silver-spoon background, and, as you may recall, strange attacks on Sarah Palin‘s daughter. From someone who makes north of $30 million a year, the rich-guy jokes seem shallow, if not hypocritical.
Part of the problem in determining Letterman's politics is that he so rarely speaks about them publicly. The closest you get to Letterman talking personal politics is this May 2012 interview with Regis Philbin, who was, at the time, guest hosting on Piers Morgan's now-canceled CNN show.
"It may appear to people that we have a slant one way or the other," Letterman acknowledges in the interview although he still uses the term "we" rather than "me." (Presumably the "we" he is talking about is the show.) "But if a guy straps his dog to the roof of his car or the guy gets a shoe thrown at him this is where the material is going to be." The first "guy" is a reference to Mitt Romney, the second is George W. Bush.
"A case could be made we are leaning one side than the other but it's not driven by anything other than who's easier to make fun of," concluded Letterman.
In that same interview with Philbin, Letterman makes a point of noting that he is a registered independent. The Fix's own Philip Bump, king of the Internet, did a quick check and found that Letterman was telling the truth, according to records at the New York State Board of Elections.
A search of Letterman's political donations -- courtesy of the Center for Responsive Politics -- produces only four contributions. Letterman gave $2,300 to then Minnesota candidate Al Franken in the 2008 primary and general election. He then gave another $2,500 to Franken in 2011 and $5,200 to Win Minnesota PAC, a super PAC supporting Franken, in late July 2014. (Franken was running for -- and won -- a second term in 2014.)
Yes, Franken is a Democrat. But Franken, a former comedian and cast member of "Saturday Night Live", and Letterman have also known each other for years. The donations seem better read as support for a friend as opposed to a broad endorsement of a Democratic worldview.
(Sidebar: Franken, during an appearance on "Late Show" in April, suggested that Letterman should consider running for the open seat created by the retirement of Indiana Republican Sen. Dan Coats in 2016. Letterman laughed.)
The simple fact is that there are very few, well, facts that suggest that Letterman is an out and out Democrat and/or pushing a hidden liberal agenda. (Letterman did tell Howard Stern earlier this year that he had never voted for a Republican.) Is Letterman more tilted toward the Democratic worldview than the Republican one? Probably, although the degree of that tilt largely lies in the eye of the beholder. Might Letterman, after tonight freed from the endless ratings chase, feel liberated to speak more freely about his political views down the road? Maybe.
I liked this assessment of Letterman's politics from Bill Kenyon, the political director of the Republican media firm Strategic Perception: "He was definitely a liberal, although more aggressive than many at poking at both sides...He was without question one of the greats."
