Letterman, O’Reilly, Tap Dancers and the Dirtiest Politics You’ve Seen in Your Life

Posted by Dan November 1st, 2006 at 09:13am In All Things TV The Funk The Gays

You may have heard about Bill O'Reilly's recent appearance on Letterman.

The two have a track record of not seeing eye-to-eye politically and sparring onstage, despite the fact that Letterman usually keeps the show apolitical.  The furthest he goes in the political arena are the requisite lame monologue jokes that are variations on the Bush=dumb and Clinton-hearts-blowjobs standards.

I ended up recording Friday's appearance because Tilly and the Wall was going to be on, not realizing that this coincided with the O'Reilly appearance.  Tilly and the Wall is a great band that you should listen to.  They have multiple singers and a tap dancer instead of a drummer.  It's very The Fifth Dimension meets Belle and Sebastian meets a band of gypsies.  Here, take a look at their performance and then we'll get to the heavy stuff after the jump. 

Anyway, the O'Reilly appearance was really remarkable, mostly because Letterman pretty much owned him.  And Letterman is no political savant, but you really can't bully David Letterman — much less on his own damned turf.  Letterman didn't try to offer bold new insights, but he just articulated the everyman's position really well.  Even though O'Reilly tried to create straw men to eviscerate, Letterman wasn't having any of it.

Take a look. 

In related news, I recently came across this political ad for the Wisconsin same-sex marriage ban that I just had to share.  If you know anyone in Wisconsin, make sure they get their dairy-filled asses to the voting booth to vote against it.  This ad is pretty horrifying for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that they used kids for it.