To be fair, I think Letterman acted like an ass - and the audience knew it - they applauded when they thought either one made a good point and at the end of it - all Letterman could say is that he didn't think he knew much, but he thought O'Riley didn't know much either.  After Bill sorta showed, he, in fact did.  Dave did have one good barb -

'It's easy - why don't you answer me?'

'because I'm thoughtful'

In my opinion, Dave acted like an ass, because O'Riley showed up in a playful manner and was met with, 'great you brought toys'...Dave went onto to say he didn't know how to watch him, or that he'd read his book....Dave's never been on Bill's show...I've watched Dave for awhile, I even went to a show (Paul Simon was the guest).  Neither the beginning nor the end showed Dave as all that thoughtful.  The crowd, (whatever your regional politics) showed it.

I've never seen him treat someone so disrespectfully.  It's like he thought he was Jon Stewart...only Jon's put out a book, too...

However, O'Rielly is not neutral and far from spin free...

http://mediamatters.org/items/200610200012

Perhaps (I'm not making excuses) this is why Dave was so unprofessional with Bill - he's said his job is to make guests entertaining - what I saw was a playful Bill and an unusually reactive and vicious Dave - maybe in the wake of the news about Mike Fox - that the news would not let go...on a show that was probably taped on Thursday...but Idunno....Limbaugh's trying to catch up with Stern?  I can't keep up with it all, because it's all so unrewarding...

Tokyo Rose died recently, - she was the mouthpiece for a nation - an enemy nation...

Does anyone else think we have too many mouthpieces and not enough nation?

Pat - please quote 'The Ocean'...love it!

now I'm going to go read the rest of the fallout...