Time's Take on the Letterman Dance

It sounds to me like it's not only Nightline that's irrelevant. Letterman himself is probably as nice to have around as a running sore.

This is told by one of his people:

But what Letterman seems to want most is respect and some coddling. "The entire history between Dave and CBS is negative. From Day One, they never treated him importantly," a former Letterman associate says. "He needs people to talk to him, and Les went the other way and ignored him. I'll give you an example of stupid CBS tricks. Dave's people used to try to get a company plane to take him to St. Bart's. He's their No. 1 guy, but getting the plane was like pulling teeth. You'd think they'd take him down whenever he wanted to go."

If I were Dave, I'd care less what CBS did for me after paying the salary. The wise-ass, stupid pet tricks guy is just a personna he adopts on the air. It sounds like the rest of the time he's just a jerk, and not an ordinary jerk, a high paid, egotistical jerk, still upset that he didn't get Johnnie Carson's spot and determined to make everybody else miserable in revenge.