On September 24 John McCain bailed out on an appearance on Late Night With David Letterman. Dave was okay with this when McCain said it was to rush back to Washington to work on the economic crisis, but became very upset with McCain when he found that McCain really stayed in New York for twenty-three hours and appeared on other television shows instead of his. Video of Letterman criticizing McCain over this, as well as “suspension” of his campaign, was previously posted here.
Letterman remained angry, calling him “squirrely” a couple weeks later:
Now here’s this thing with John McCain…you know a couple of weeks ago, John McCain was supposed to be on the show. And at the last minute he calls me up –- and I’ve got a lot of respect…you get a call from a senator –- you get a call from a guy who is a bona fide war hero –- all of a sudden, you know, your lips start to vibrate. So I said “Sure, whatever you want.” And he says, “Look, Dave, the economy is about to crater.” It’s about to “crater,” his word. “And I have to rush back to Washington to save the economy.” And so it made me feel puny. So I said, “OK, Senator, do what you have to do. Rush right back to Washington.” And then I hung up and I felt like a patriot. I felt like I had done my part. And he was supposed to be on the show like an hour later. So now, we’re in a hole but everybody has to pull together in economic hardship times. So we all pull together and we get that guy with the big head from MSNBC. What’s his name? Keith Olbermann, yeah. Giant head. So he comes over. He’s good. He’s very good.
So now it turns out, not only did he not rush back to Washington, he spent the night here in New York City. He went on Katie Couric…he was on Conan…he was on Regis…he was everywhere. So now, in an attempt to save his campaign, they’re talking about coming back. You see what I’m saying? So we said, “Sure, we would love you to come back.” And even on the phone, he said, “I’ll bring….Sarah.” But they’re being squirrely. Politicians can be squirrely. Because we have a date picked. We do this show every afternoon at 5:30. He wants to do the show at 5. So one –- we have no guarantee he’s going to show up, period. And we’ve kind of already rearranged our schedule on his behalf to save the economy, right? By getting that big-headed kid in here to talk about the politics. You know what I’m driving at? I just don’t know if we can trust him.
And by the way, I don’t need to remind you that the road to the White House runs right through here.
While Letterman has continued to criticize McCain and Palin, this is ultimately show business and I never had any doubt that they would be able to resist the ratings of having McCain return. McCain will return to Letterman’s show on Thursday night. It will be interesting to see both how Dave greets McCain on Thursday and what he says about the show earlir in the week leading up to to visit. Joe Biden will be on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno the same night.
