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Rieder: The enduring greatness of Letterman

Rem Rieder
USA TODAY
Sen. John McCain speaks to the audience while talking with CBS "Late Show" host David Letterman on Dec. 11, 2008.

It was a fascinating piece of television.

The year was 2008, and John McCain was suspending his presidential campaign to return to Washington to save the cratering economy. That also meant at the very last minute canceling his appearance on CBS' Late Show With David Letterman. Letterman was not amused, especially after he learned that, rather than running right to the airport, the GOP contender had stopped for an interview with CBS News' Katie Couric.

And so for minutes Letterman relentlessly and hilariously pummeled McCain for the snub, first to sidekick Paul Shaffer, then to broadcaster Keith Olbermann, who had filled in for McCain at the last minute. At one point, Letterman speculated someone had put something in McCain's Metamucil. And he made clear that the road to the White House went straight through the Letterman show.

The pounding continued for days. Ultimately, McCain — war hero, veteran senator, presidential candidate — came on the show to grovel.

It was as audacious as it was amazing. A talk-show guy was calling out a presidential candidate in no uncertain terms. And that's indicative of what has made David Letterman so special. It is impossible to imagine any other late-night host doing anything remotely similar.

Letterman revolutionized late night in so many ways. He brought an irreverence, a cheekiness, a sense of irony that had been wholly missing before. He made late-night hip. It's hard to imagine in today's world just how revolutionary that was.

Letterman, 68, is an unusual amalgam of very smart and supremely goofy, of charming and cranky. He got the late show off the couch and onto the roof and into Rupert Jee's Hello Deli and to all of the wacky venues to which he dispatched Biff Henderson and Co., often with very funny results.

There were Top 10 lists galore and Stupid Pet Tricks, Will It Float? and Know Your Cuts of Meat. And awestruck interviews with beautiful women, lots of them.

After a stunning total of 6,028 shows, Wednesday night's marks the end of Letterman on late night. I'll miss the hell out of him.

Yes, yes, I know the counternarrative. That he's been mailing it in for years. That his shtick is tired. That's it's time for a new generation to take over (see: Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel and, soon, Stephen Colbert).

There's no doubt the latter is true, and Letterman knew it. The world of viral content is not one Letterman wanted to play in. As for the first two, Letterman to me on a bad night was often better than most people on a good one.

One of the things that differentiated Letterman was his underlying seriousness. You could sense that in his approach to politics.

Pop culture can play a huge and defining role in how we view politicians. It's doubtful all the astute analysis in the world had the impact of Tina Fey's Saturday Night Live take on Sarah Palin. And I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happens with Kate McKinnon's devastating and dead-on Hillary Clinton on SNL.

Go back and watch again some Great Moments in Presidential Speeches and some Bush Top 10s and you'll realize how much Letterman reinforced the notion of President George W. Bush as completely clueless. Yet you always got the impression that Letterman's distaste for W. was rooted not in personal animus but outrage over the president's performance and the sense that he was completely in over his head.

And while Letterman's politics are clearly liberal, he could be very tough on Democrats as well. Just ask Bill Clinton.

Speaking of Bill Clinton, Letterman had his lows as well as his highs, prime among them the sex scandal that engulfed him in 2009, over which, he said recently, CBS had good reason to fire him. But unlike so many politicians and celebrities, rather than bob and weave, deny and deflect, Letterman confronted the issue forthrightly on his own show.

Soon it will be Colbert's turn. He did such a good job in character on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report; it will be fascinating to see what emerges as he plays himself. He and the Jimmys will no doubt continue to bring new vitality to the late-night scene.

So the ride is over. But what a remarkable ride it has been.

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