Back in 2004 on his CBS show, David Letterman got himself into a little scuffle with CNN and the White House of George W. Bush. I admired the hell out of Dave when he was on NBC, in particular for his skill at connecting with his audience and finding humor in places where no one else could. In one interview once, he said something about how it was an exciting challenge on his program when something went wrong and he had to figure out a way to build something out of the wreckage. When you're doing five shows a week for decades, that's a wonderful survival skill to have.
Later, I lost a certain amount of respect for the guy due to his bad sportsmanship at (a) not getting The Tonight Show and (b) later getting soundly beaten in the ratings by The Tonight Show. And I felt he stayed on his CBS series long after he should have shut it down and found something else to do. But this video, I think, shows Dave at his best, building something not so much out of wreckage as of a situation that no one else could have made that funny…