Late night show

The defenestration of the supposed talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, for the inflammatory remarks that he made during the monologue in his show on Monday night about Charlie Kirk, is both an unexpected and deeply predictable development. It was unexpected because Kimmel clearly believed that he was, like Lehman Brothers, “too big to fail,” and was therefore within his rights to make such comments as how “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” And it was deeply predictable because Kimmel now becomes the latest scalp that the right have seized this year, and perhaps the most high-profile yet.

David Letterman, who by now has retreated into full comedy-hermit mode, posted a bunch of old Late Show clips on his YouTube page on Monday, where he continually and brutally spit-roasted CBS. In honor of CBS losing NFL coverage to FOX in 1994 (and selling off several affiliates in the bargain), he ran a “Top Ten List” of “New CBS Slogans,” including “you can’t spell ‘Bumbling Executives without C-B-S!’ and ‘If you bring your talk show here, we’ll sell all your stations!’” As a reward for that long-ago roasting, CBS said nothing in response and kept Letterman’s highly profitable show on the air for more than two decades.