Wednesday, January 04, 2006

One more reason to avoid Latenight tv

I used to love Dave, but I had to quit watching Letterman once he moved from his daytime program to the slightly less-accessible (for me) post-late-news shift. (I think, the only show for which I have fond memories, though, was the "First 4th of July Fireworks show", where he ran sound effects in the brightly-lit studio, and the audience made the appropriate "ooh... ah" sounds. I still catch myself laughing about it, twenty years later, come summertime.) I'd given him up mostly because, at the time, I was keeping some pretty jackass hours, but once I came back to being able to sleep until the crack of noon, I started trying on the late shows for size. I quickly came to the conclusion that, like Rosie O'Donnell, Dave has a sarcastic tone and seems to lack any sense of warmth on camera. I don't know if he has any when you come face-to-face, and I doubt there ever will be occasion for me to find out for myself. Still, I have found that watching him is unpleasant for me. So I missed this moment, in all its significance.

Not that I'm all that much of an O'Reilly fan. But an ill-informed, ill-prepared host who insults his guest twice -- once by his saying "...about 60 percent of what you say is crap", and the second time by admitting that he has never heard anything his guest has actually said -- that's a jackass I don't need to include in my nighttime plans.

(Malkin includes a comment from the Ace of Spades which sums up one of my more frustrating experiences with my dearest friend, as well.)

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