The Connecticut college will take a good, hard look at its internship programs to make sure none of their coeds end up backstage at Letterman's CBS digs:

Due to recent circumstances we will have a discussion with those in charge of placing our interns at the David Letterman show in the future.

We will diligently oversee this internship program to ensure that our interns are out of harm's way.

Isn't this going a bit, oh, we don't know — far? Should Letterman really cross over to full-blown villainy? Though, yes, his work place affairs were ethically dubious, but Letterman's a late night talk show host who fucked around, got caught and has now become his nightmare: a punchline. It's not like he's Jack the Ripper or the intern's greatest nightmare: a Congressman.

• Now, Letterman couldn't just go out there and apologize. He needed to make sure people knew he knows he look like a hypocrite, so he poked fun at himself, as he's done to so many politicians, like Mark Sanford. Said Letterman, "I'd give anything to be hiking on the Appalachian trail." Awww, shucks. How can people stay mad at that? His first mission — self-effacement — was a success. But then there's the business of his wife.

  
  

• Yes, short-sighted "victim" Letterman took some time to offer an on-air apology to his wife — "So let me tell you folks, I got my work cut out for me" — but it was really for women everywhere, who may still be mad about that whole Sarah Palin/rape scandal. According to one audience member, women in the studio were sighing their approval. All in all Letterman's doing well, but it's the thrust of his apology that has us scratching our heads.

  
  

• Letterman's very sorry to his staffers, he says, because he didn't foresee the media "furor" over this scandal, nor did he envision the vultures circling his studio to scoop up lurid tidbits. Or some such nonsense, which smells like bullshit to us. Letterman's been in the business for what might as well be forever. He knows how this media thing works.

  
  

• It's more likely Letterman's offering this staff-centric contrition to both come off as a man of the people (not some lech who uses power for pleasure) and to keep his underlings under his control. It's a bit of bread and circus for the CBS army. Clever move, Letterman! Your so-called ignorance makes for a great mea culpa.

Letterman's tabloid-ready confessions comes after he spent the afternoon testifying before a grand jury, a first for the long-time Late Show host:

This morning, I did something I've never done in my life. I had to go downtown and testify before a grand jury.

So, what went down? Well, it all started when an unidentified man sent Letterman a package 3 weeks ago that reportedly proved the talk show host has been carrying on with female staffers, though the number's also unknown. The man said he would keep his trap shut if Letterman sent him a check for $2 million. Not one to take extortion lying down, Letterman went to the authorities, who had him mail a fake check and then they caught the bad guy. Score one for celebrity justice.

All of this will definitely put a strain on Letterman's relationship with his wife, Regina Lasko, whom he dated for 23 years before marrying last March.

We'll get you lovelies some video as soon as it's available.

Update: Here's video and some extraneous commentary!

(They are so good at that, by the way! They learned this trick during the election, sending out politically relevant Letterman clips to all the blogs right after the show tapes.)

Obama continues to insist that he doesn't believe racism is to blame for criticism of his administration, which is true in that no one thinks it's the sole driving force behind the hysteria. But Obama has a nice laugh line: "It's important to remember that I was actually black before the election."

But it's his job, as President, to flatter the nation, basically. And Letterman is not a place for a Serious Discussion of Racial Issues, though it tends to be a much better forum for serious discussion than any of the DC Sunday shows.

We do like this explanation, from CBS news, as to why Obama did the show:

The main reason he had come on the show, Mr. Obama quipped, was "to see that heart-shaped potato." After Letterman retrieved the potato, the smiling president deadpanned, "That's remarkable. This is remarkable." He then, with the audience member's consent, kept the potato.

So there's a reason to tune in tonight.

Obama did Leno last March, of course, which makes sense: Leno usually drew a larger, older audience, and old people are the ones who vote, and who are easily scared. And Jay's idea of "political" comedy is to make a joke about Bill Clinton putting things in Monica Lewinsky's vagina (in 2009) so there was no threat of a host actually having any probing or inconvenient questions. (Did anyone watch that clip of Jeremy Scahill and Chuck Todd arguing about Blackwater on Bill Maher? The weirdest part is that Leno is there, for some reason? And he is shocked to learn that "contractors" in war zones are actually mercenary soldiers! It's not really relevant to this post it was just weird to watch. Anyway, Jay learned something, that day!)

But now in late night, David Letterman's program reaches more people, and so it makes more sense to appear there than on Conan, where only the stoners will see him.

But why would Obama not do Leno again in prime time now, hmm?? Maybe he hates him as much as everyone else who's been unlucky enough to catch more than two minutes of any NBC programming over the last two months! Maybe he was just trying to watch some fucking football last Sunday night! Maybe he is infuriated at those "behind-the-scenes" ads that show Jay doing his "funny newspaper stories" routine in the writers' room for the writers, which makes no fucking sense. (Writers present material to the host, why the hell would they do it the other way around?)

Or maybe he just wants to stay on Dave's good side, after what happened to John McCain, a man Letterman used to practically worship, until the unpleasantness.

Last night on the Late Show, Piven said "20 years of eating only fish" also lead to Epstein-Barr, heart arrhythmia, and back spasms. It's amazing this man gets around without a Rascal. Mercury poisoning does cause high blood pressure and elevated heart rate, but usually not arrhthmia or spasms. It also causes itching and pain, skin discoloration, swelling, hair loss, and skin peeling off in layers. Don't you think any stories involving these would be much more colorful? And how did it lead to him contracting a virus like Epstein-Barr? Maybe that was something he caught at, we don't know, a party or something?

Piven also says that he got the best tests in the world at Quest Diagnostics, which can be found on just about any street corner in Manhattan. Earlier this year the company acknowledged it may have given thousands of people false results on Vitamin D tests. Piven also again name checked his fishy celebrity doctor Carlon Colker.

He's sticking by his story why he couldn't continue doing eight shows a week of Speed the Plow, and a arbitrator recently cleared him of any wrong-doing in leaving the Broadway show two months early. Because every celebrity becomes a crusader for the disease he suffers from, Piven is now fighting the injustice of fetid fish across the globe.

Dave was very sympathetic to his condition, and the interview couldn't be classified as anything but softball. Piven even got in a few good laughs. We're not only impressed that he's kept up his story for so long, but now it's even compounding itself. Give it a year, and his sushi habit will have lead to acute zombieism, where he marched around with his arms extended trying to satisfy an unquenchable hunger for brains.

The character created by one-time Wintour assistant Lauren Weisberger and portrayed (brilliantly!) in the movie by Meryl Streep is a caricatured version of the magazine tyrant meant to sell books and movie tickets. She throws her coat and bag at her assistants, she has exacting standards for how her lunch is cooked and the temperature of Starbucks, and she sacrifices her friends to keep her job.

Wintour may do all these things too, but last night, America tuned in hoping to see the beast come to life, and instead they got a mildly self-deprecating lady who championed fashion's ability to do good and pooh-poohed the stories of her cruelty. She was kind of sweet, at least compared to the cartoon version of her we're used to. Miranda Priestly would have crawled over the desk and eaten Dave's head. Anna Wintour just made a few jokes about his socks.

And that's why Weisberger did her boss the biggest public relations favor when she betrayed her by writing The Devil Wears Prada: No matter what Wintour does on Letterman or at the 92nd St. Y or on 60 Minutes or in front of a documentary crew for The September Issue (and she does some shitty things), she'll never be as bad as her trumped-up alter ego. The most telling moment of last night was when she strutted onto the set of the Ed Sullivan Theater wearing her trademark sunglasses, only to take them off to do her interview. With that she told us, "Yes, I am an icon and you think you know me, but guess what, I'm not that bad." And, you know what, she's probably right.

When Prejean's name came up in the Late Show interview, Trump offered his admirable but weak defense of her for being a dolt, prompting Letterman to jump in with an "anybody who wants to get married ought to be able to get married" comment. The studio audience then went nuts while Trump sat silent, all alone in the world for a few seconds with only a banana-yellow tie and a big, garish head as his friends.

Near the end of the segment, Trump spit out a bunch of names of judges he has lined up for the pageant, and he mentioned Andre Leon Talley as being one of them. Neither Dave not the audience seemed to know who the hell Andre Leon Talley was, which was oddly refreshing.

Tracy Morgan is probably the most entertaining celebrity guest any talk show could ever book. Anyone remember the time he appeared on a local news show in El Paso, Texas? It was amazing!

DeVito claimed that his slobbering interview with a Philadelphia newswoman on a morning show was all an act, that he was "in character" playing the pathetic slob her portrays on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Whatever, whether he was really drunk or not, we still want to go out and drink limoncellos all night long with Danny DeVito.

Many believe MacDonald was fired from Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update for constantly making jokes premised on his conclusion that OJ Simpson was guilty of the murders he had been cleared of at his initial trial. (Imagine that. Wacky!) Simpson was friends with an NBC entertainment executive.

When MacDonald returned to NBC for an appearance on one of Conan O'Brien's last Late Night episodes in February, he was scarcely more sparing, impersonating Jay Leno and saying the outgoing Tonight Show host, in moving to a 10 p.m. slot, had "outfoxed... red-headed-rube" O'Brien for prime placement in night-time variety shows. Then he dropped an f-bomb for good measure. (See video here.)

MacDonald stayed true to form on Late Show tonight, starting with a risque reference to euthanasia before making a clearly-out-of-bounds joke involving hard-core narcotics. To his credit, Letterman clearly enjoyed MacDonald's rule-breaking far more than O'Brien, even as he rushed to cover up the narcotics reference with something more palatable.

Then, as always, MacDonald dropped another f-bomb or three, for good measure.

Hopefully someone on cable will give MacDonald a show, because otherwise it may be quite a while before he's on the network airwaves again.

Judging from a preview of tonight's Late Show, O'Reilly spent a lot of time answering questions about... Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

To preserve his ego, the O'Reilly Factor host called his rival Limbaugh a "straw man" who "nobody takes seriously" as the purported head of the Republican party. He also claimed personal credit for the right-wing radio host's recent ratings surge (since O'Reilly recently ended his own radio show).

Beck apparently emerged unscathed. O'Reilly will presumably leave his rising-star, Fox News colleague to the likes of Dennis Miller and Shep Smith.

There's no sign yet that Letterman asked O'Reilly about his producers' stalking and ambush of ThinkProgress' Amanda Terkel.

A quick excerpt of O'Reilly's appearance is above, taken from the longer YouTube outtake below.

[YouTube/CBS]

Sure, Lively was joking about a polygamist marriage between her, Letterman, and Julia Roberts, but the electricity between the Gossip Girl star and Letterman as strong and real as that time one year ago when Lively said Letterman was in the same league as Leonardo DiCaprio, and he kissed her hand.

The on-air flirtation this time didn't quite reach Letterman-Drew Barrymore levels, but between the thigh groping, chin touching and hair twirling, Letterman was primed to laugh at Lively's dog story like it was told by Robin Williams.

Lively made sure Letterman knew she was free — some sort of vacation — in a week. One week. Seven days.

Or about how long Letterman has been married, and how long he'll be taking cold showers for.

The rest of the week has some more dependably upbeat bets, including Fallon's former Weekend Update co-anchor Tina Fey and Fever Pitch co-star and producer-in-law, Drew Barrymore. Barrymore is something of a Late Night early-guest good luck charm, having appeared on Conan's very first episode, and that got us thinking about some other legendary First Guests.

Bill Murray on Late Night with David Letterman, 1982. Perhaps the greatest First Guest of all time, Murray kicked off both of Dave Letterman's longtime late night ventures. On the very first Late Night, accompanied by a musical ode to his SNL lounge singer, a mostly incoherent and playfully argumentative Murray suggests the host looks "sedated," before the two segue into a gripping conversation about playing with lint, a longer diatribe about Dave selling out (we think?), and ending on a pledge to make Letterman's life a living hell. Score: 2 1/2 Joaquins out of a possible five, and lots of fun!

Billy Crystal on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, 1992. An unbelievably prescient Crystal opens with, "I saw Ed McMahon on the corner with a sign that says, 'Will announce for food.'"

Bill Murray on Late Show with David Letterman, 1993. Letterman then invited Murray back to kick off things at his new home on CBS. Murray's shtick is a lot more thought out this time around—he arrives jogging and breathless, explaining "I went to the other place." We then cut to some video of Murray in a hardhat among the crew of construction guys who refurbished the Ed Sullivan Theater. His big finish, which isn't in the video, involved spraypainting Dave's name on his brand new desk. Somehow, it came off as funny, not just pointless and mean-spirited, like the Kevin Spacey Jamba Juice-dumping fiasco.

Goldie Hawn on The Chevy Chase Show, 1993. Widely considered to be one of the most disastrous late show guest appearances—much less First Guest appearances—of all time was when Goldie Hawn kicked things off on The Chevy Chase Show. In rolled-up Daisy Dukes, she talks for what like seems an eternity on the magic of child-rearing, then presents her son with a birthday cake and everyone sings "Happy Birthday to You." Chevy drops the cake, they dance to "La Bamba," a stage manager brings out the real birthday cake, the show cuts to commercial, and you watch in horrified amazement.

Will Ferrell on The Megan Mullally Show, 2006. Want to know how we know Will Ferrell is a good guy? He'll agree to be the first guest on your new talk show, even though it's on in the afternoon, and you're Megan Mullally. You want to know how we know he's a great guy? He does it in American Apparel briefs, and brings a dozen long-stemmed roses. And a taped X keeping his mic on his chest. Couldn't save the show, but it's the thought that counts.

• De Niro, Morrison first guests for Fallon's show [Yahoo]

Again, celebrities: Dave doesn't want to rip you to shreds on national television, but if you're not going to help him fill the 10 minutes or whatever, he has no choice.

This particular trainwreck was predictable. The movie star has been generating embarrassing tabloid headlines for weeks with his slurry rap performances, to the point where some of his associates started insisting the whole thing was a joke. Phoenix then had to assure everyone he was serious.

Phoenix also announced that Two Lovers, the film he was sent on Letterman to promote, would be his last, since acting now bores him. So even if he hadn't been behaving erratically, Phoenix was not likely to have brought much enthusiasm to Late Show tonight.

Phoenix certainly knows how to turn on the late-night charm when he wants to; here he is on Letterman on 2005, sounding coherent and humorous (and wearing the same suit!) while promoting Walk the Line:

This time around, Phoenix has either come unhinged again, or wants the world to think he has. It's possible he's engaging in some performance art for the documentary his brother-in-law is making about him. But on Letterman, at least, where Phoenix grew increasingly hostile toward the host and crowd, the celebrity doesn't appear to be doing that sort of cool-headed calculation and planning.

At the end of the interview, Letterman says he owes an apology to Farrah Fawcett. Fawcett was considered his all time most disastrous guest — until now at least. Here's her 1997 appearance:

Best moments from tonight's show are above; the full CBS highlights reel is below:

Let's recap renaissance man Martin's Late Show appearance: he starred in a specially-produced pre-recorded skit involving Flight 1549; he told a story about how he rules at online poker while on drugs (another skill!); chatted humorously about myriad other topics and then played banjo, well, with his bluegrass band.

On behalf of all other late-night guests who have to follow in Martin's footsteps: Screw you, nerd. Host's pet, you are.

Video excerpt up top.

Letterman wrangled unsuccessfully with Leno for the Tonight Show 18 years ago. After Leno announced he would move to a new 10 pm show, Letterman started making jokes about the time slot on the Late Show. See the compilation at left!

Letterman must also relish the latest development, as reported tonight by Broadcasting & Cable: CBS executives are said to be interested in re-upping with Letterman when his contract expires in 2010. Reports B&C:

The two sides are striking up talks as the 11:30 timeslot is about to undergo a sea change with Conan O'Brien taking over The Tonight Show and Jay Leno deciding not to jump to ABC and compete for those viewers.

Letterman has backed off from his 10 p.m. jokes in recent weeks; the attached clips above are from December. But once Leno gets close to actually making the 10 p.m. move, Letterman is likely to bring them back more relentlessly than ever, particularly if CBS doubles down on him. TV-feud connoisseurs should certainly hope so.

...or issuing caveat emptors to recent blank-eyed-bride-purchaser Spencer Pratt ("It's all fine and dandy until they start developing a self-sustaining operating system. Just watch A.I., Spence, then read the third chapter of Hubbard's Wifeanetics. You'll thank me later.")

But none of these compared to his appearance on Late Show last night, in which he partook of perhaps the most sacrosanct of self-effacing pop culture rituals: the Reading of the Top Ten List. Making sure to set his spiraling pupils to "solid," Tom looked relaxed and in good spirits as he bravely dove into OT-eating-blogger-infested waters, with "The Craziest Things People Say About Tom Cruise on the Internet."

The biggest laughs came from the two observations that hewed closest to the truth : "4. I believe all emotional and psychological disorders can be cured with Vicks Vaporub," and "3. I'm a power-mad egomaniac who's completely insulated from reality. Oh, wait, no that's Letterman." The stinging self-satire may have helped ease him back into potential Valkyrie-goers' good graces, but we can only imagine the disapproving glare awaiting him from David Miscavige, who'd sentence him to "eleven hours of sweating out his pathetic, 'Love me, America!'-thetans in the Celebrity Centre Dungeon Sauna. That's right: the one without the flatscreen!" [Late Show]