Barack Obama and David Letterman

It was Barack Obama night on The Late Show with David Letterman.

Then again, every night is Obama night on Letterman's liberally bent show.

Letterman's monologue mocked Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin. There's a shocker.

LETTERMAN: Touch of autumn in the air. The leaves are falling. today, as a matter of fact, John McCain admitted that he doesn't know how many rakes he owns. Has no idea.

Letterman's next joke was about Hugh Hefner breaking up with his 28-year-old girlfriend. That led into another tasteless McCain joke.

LETTERMAN: But they were a... strange couple. You gotta admit, strange couple... elderly man in his robe and pajamas and a hot young babe... No, wait a minute...That's the Republican ticket.

Letterman told a couple more jokes, one about Kim Jong-Il and one about O.J. Simpson.

Then, he shifted back to presidential politics.

When Letterman said that Obama was the guest, the audience cheered enthusiastically. Of course.

LETTERMAN: Meanwhile in Virginia today, it was Sen. McCain and Sarah Palin, were campaigning in Virginia. Do you like Sarah Palin? Do you kinda like her?

(The audience boos, some applaud.)

I like her because she looks like the lady at the bakery who yells out, '44...44...45...' She looks like a real estate lady whose picture you see on the bus stop bench. That's who she looks like. She looks like the lady who has the chain of cupcake stores. And she looks like the mayor of a small town that's banned dancing.

But now, because of Sarah Palin, people are now asking the question: 'Is she ready to be president? Is Sarah Palin ready to be president?' If, God forbid, something happens to John Mcain, is Sarah Palin ready to be president? And I don't think we need to worry about that because Bush has lowered the bar so tremendously. I'm ready to be president.

After the monologue, Letterman put the audience on notice: Prepare for a love fest.

LETTERMAN: I know nothing about politics, so what you're going to see here tonight, when the senator comes out, is me sucking up to him like crazy, because if he happens to become president of the United States, I want to be able to, you know, be his buddy. And I want to go there, and you know, if you're waiting outside to get in to the Oval Office, I'll be hanging around.

Letterman made good on his promise to suck up.

After Letterman introduced him, Barack Obama strutted across the stage like a star, not a politician, not a possible president of the United States. I think he's been taking lessons from George Clooney. Seriously.

Obama began by commenting on the band. "Boy, the band was cookin'." That's such a standard opening line from a guest, pandering for applause.

Letterman started the interview with the "lipstick on a pig" controversy.

Transcript

LETTERMAN: “Let me ask you a question here. Have you ever actually put lipstick on a pig?”

OBAMA: “You know,” (audience laughs) “the answer would be no. But I think it might be fun to try.”

LETTERMAN: “I know the reaction to that was, ‘You were overreacting.’ You stand by that?”

OBAMA: “Absolutely.” (audience applauds) “Look, this is - if you - this is sort of silly season in politics - not that there’s a non-silly season in politics.” (Dave, audience laugh) “But it gets sillier. But, you know, it’s a common expression in at least Illinois, I don’t know about New York City. I don’t know where you put lipstick on here.” (audience, Dave laugh) “But in Illinois, the expression connotes the idea that if you have a bad idea, in this case I was talking about John McCain’s economic plans, that just calling them change, calling it something different, doesn’t make it better, hence, lipstick on a pig is still a pig.”

LETTERMAN: “Now what I like about this scenario is because they demanded, the Republicans demanded an apology.”

OBAMA: “Yes, they did.”

LETTERMAN: “So that means there had been a meeting at some point somewhere along the line.”

OBAMA: “All of them.”

LETTERMAN: “Yeah, they got together and they said, ‘You know what? He called our vice presidential candidate a pig.’” (audience laughs) “Well, that seems pretty unlikely, doesn’t it?”

OBAMA: “It does. But keep in mind that, technically, had I meant it that way, she would have been the lipstick, you see?” (audience, Dave laugh) “But now we’re…”

LETTERMAN: “I don’t know, you’re way ahead of me.” (audience laughs)

OBAMA: “Yeah, the failed policies of John McCain would be the pig.”

LETTERMAN: “Now, do you feel like for the last week and a half, last two weeks, that the campaign - ”

(audience laughs, Obama laughs)

OBAMA: “Now, I mean, you know, just following the logic of this illogical situation.”

LETTERMAN: “The fact that we’re talking about this now, do you feel like within the last week and half or so, there’s been - you’re derailed a little bit and now you’re campaigning against, not necessarily the Republican ticket, but John McCain, not him, but Sarah Palin?”

OBAMA: “Well, I - look, there’s no doubt that she’s been a phenomenon. I mean, you know, as somebody who used to be on the cover of Time and Newsweek, you know.” (audience, Dave laugh)

LETTERMAN (laughs): “Those were the days.” (audience applauds)

OBAMA: “Those were the days. I had a recent offer with Popular Mechanics.” (audience laughs)

LETTERMAN: “Take it, take it.” (audience laughs)

OBAMA: “Said they had a centerfold, yeah, with a wrench, you know.” (audience, Obama laugh) “But, no, look, she’s on a wild ride and there’s no doubt that she’s energized the base. But ultimately what we’ve seen over the last week is a concession on the part of the McCain campaign that this election is going to be about change. You’ll recall, you know, for the last two years, we’ve been talking about needing to change how Washington works, how the country is managed and people were saying, ‘No, it’s about experience, experience, experience,’ and over the last week and a half I think they recognized that, no, the American people want something fundamentally different and for a good reason. Because when you travel, it doesn’t matter whether you’re here in New York City or a tiny hamlet somewhere in the Midwest, what you find is people are just having a tough time right now. The economy is not working for middle class families, incomes have gone down, people don’t have healthcare, you’ve got foreclosures all across the country, and so people want something different, and whoever makes the better case that we have had enough of the last eight years, we need something fundamentally new, whoever makes that case to the American people will be the next President.” (audience applauds)

LETTERMAN: (laughs) “You’re campaigning now, aren’t you?”

OBAMA: “I am.”

LETTERMAN: “Campaigning.”

OBAMA: “I had to throw a little - ” (audience still applauds)

LETTERMAN: “I understand.”

OBAMA: “I had to throw a little campaigning in.”

As I was watching, I was thinking that Obama is playing Americans for fools.

Does Obama really think we're willing to swallow his lame explanation about the lipstick remark?

Are we supposed to accept that he didn't realize that old expression easily, logically could be interpreted as a reference to Sarah Palin?

Is he really so out of the loop that he didn't know that women of America are getting on the McCain-Palin bandwagon, shouting "Read my lipstick" as their rallying cry?

I don't buy it. I don't buy Obama's claims of innocence on this one.

So Obama was all smiles, wearing his flag pin, laughing and joking.

I suppose that's because he was back in his element, being treated like royalty, and knowing he wouldn't have to answer any challenging questions.

King Barack was holding court. (Maybe I should call him "Lord Barack.")

Letterman began to question Obama on Sarah Palin.

LETTERMAN: “But now, Labor Day weekend, we hear that John McCain has selected Sarah Palin and nobody knows, except maybe people living in Alaska, who that is. And we think, in the beginning we think, oh my God, that’s the worst decision the man could have made. And then, subsequently, it turns out to be a pretty good decision for the man, for the party, certainly for the ticket - and calculated, no question about it, calculated. And I’m wondering, if he had picked Sarah Palin before you picked Joe Biden, is there a chance that maybe you would have selected somebody else? Would that have affected your choice?”

OBAMA: “You know, the way I thought about it was, ‘Who’s going to help me govern? Who’s the person I want in the room if we’ve got a big decision to make? Who’s going to be able to give me good counsel, good advice, who’s able to maybe have some ideas that I don’thave or give me a perspective that I haven’t seen, and I think that nobody can do that better than Joe Biden.” (audience applauds) “And I know what he cares about and what he stands for - I think he’s going to be a great choice.”

What's funny about Obama's comments regarding his running mate Joe Biden is that earlier on Wednesday Biden himself questioned Obama's judgment in selecting him.

Biden said Hillary Clinton probably would have been a better choice. He even said that she's qualified to be the president, let alone vice president.

Obama and Biden really have to get on the same page. These discrepancies are awkward.

LETTERMAN: “When word came out that it was Sarah Palin, what was your personal reaction? What was the reaction of the folks around you?”

OBAMA: “You know, we didn’t know much about her, and I think that, obviously, she’s a skilled politician and you know, she has energized their party. But, what I think are pretty confident about - we’ll know, you know, if she does more interviews with people and talks to them - about what her ideas are. I think what we’re going to see is she shares John McCain’s view that the policies of George W. Bush have worked pretty well. All right, so McCain has said we’ve made great economic progress, the economy’s fundamentally sound - you haven’t seen any separation between them and what we’ve seen over the last eight years. And so the bottom line is if you think the last eight years haven’t worked, if you think that the government can do a better job creating jobs, building the economy, making sure kids that can go to college, providing healthcare to people who don’t have it, then it’s hard to figure why you would want four more years of exactly the same policy.” (audience applauds)

Hmmm.

Obama didn't talk about Palin's make-up, nor did he call McCain an "old fish."

Interesting. This was a different approach than the war-like one Obama adopted recently, a kinder, gentler approach.

That was the end of the first segment.

Next up was talk of 9/11.

LETTERMAN: “All right, Barack Obama is here. Had a lot of time to think about people, you know, when Washington was attacked, when New York City was attacked, and for us in the Northeast, it was, I think, more about Rudy Giuliani - he was our savior here in this city - than it was about George Bush and the national strategy. But now, this is stuff you’ve got to think about. You have to think about it. What would you have done then? What kind of a situation would we be in now if you had been the President?”

If Obama had been president on 9/11, the great statesman and military genius Obama would have captured Osama bin Laden and achieved world peace by now. Everyone knows that, right?

Obama babbled the way he usually does when it comes to the War on Terror. I don't have confidence in him when it comes to national security matters. I think of Jimmy Carter. Scary.

Then, out of nowhere, Letterman turns to asking Obama about his first trip to the mainland U.S.

The only transition Letterman made was saying that his head hurt from the previous discussion.

So Obama talked about Disneyland, the Grand Canyon, and going to Chicago, visiting the Field Museum, and seeing shrunken human heads. The shrunken heads appealed to the 10- or 11-year-old Obama.

If President Bush ever said he liked real shrunken heads, even as a kid, I'm sure he would have been ridiculed as some kind of weirdo.

That ended the second segment.

In the third, Obama talked about Africa. The interview seemed to be very carefully choreographed.

LETTERMAN: “Well, it’s pretty short now. Just a couple of months and there will be the election and the inauguration in January. Do you ever think about going to Kenya as president of the United States?”

OBAMA: “You know, I do think about that. I went there a couple of years ago after I’d been elected senator and, you know, it was moving for me to see people’s response. You know, sometimes we forget how people overseas look at America. They place so much hope in the United States, and that’s something I think we’ve forgotten because we always hear bad news about how, you know, people don’t like Americans anymore. That’s not true. They’re disappointed precisely because they’ve got high expectations, and obviously, given that my father’s from Kenya, there was a special connection, so we were just seeing these enormous crowds, and you know, I went up to the village where my grandmother lives and folks were lining the roads for miles. And, you know, we took an AIDS test because the CDC, which is doing great work - this is something that George Bush has done well is work on AIDS issues in Africa, he has made a serious commitment to it and I give him credit for it. But the CDC that’s working over there, they asked Michelle and I to take a test because they said just the act of you as a married couple taking a test, potentially a million people will see it, and you can save thousands of lives just by people getting tested. So it was a great trip. I can only imagine what it would be like if I were president, but we have 55 more days of work before we get to that point.”

Letterman acts as if Obama's victory in the election is a done deal. Obama does, too. Only at the very end of his lengthy answer does he tack on that he's got 55 more days before he officially wins the election.

It's weird. Obama is so arrogant and yet so lacking in depth.

The fourth and final segment was miscellaneous chitchat.

Overall, the interview was boring. It was predictable. It went on way too long. Letterman didn't ask any challenging questions at all. Of course, this is a late night talk show. It's supposed to be entertaining. It's not a news program. I wouldn't expect Letterman to grill Obama.

What I didn't like about the interview was that there seemed to be a real lack of spontaneity. It seemed as orchestrated as the Obama-palooza event at Invesco Field. It was too scripted and dull.

My review: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ