Everybody Hurts

There was David Letterman — confirmed cynic, all-around cranky guy, unflappable professional — standing mere yards from Ground Zero in New York City. On the air. Striking a pose of genuine devastation. Near tears.

It was true. Last year's coronary surgery was apparently successful in implanting a heart in his chest. Either that, or we had entered a new era, one that might be called AD (Affecting Dave).

This David was shown, in the most public way imaginable, acknowledging Goliath. It was a story that couldn't be dismissed with a mere shrug of the shoulders and a well-placed zinger. We might have presumed that Letterman wouldn't be up to this task.

And we'd have been wrong.

Just as Johnny Carson once had been a barometer of the national mood in times of crisis, so, too, was this David Letterman. He said what we were all feeling; he drove home the point that this calamity was something beyond even his own considerable sphere of understanding.

Somehow, seeing Letterman display such raw emotion made the events of Sept. 11 feel all the more jarring.

Etched on Letterman's face were the wounds of a blindsided nation. Evident in his tone was the sense of collective mourning over which he suddenly presided. No longer was he a comedian hosting a talk show but a human being struggling to cope with reality.

When CBS anchorman Dan Rather joined Letterman for a tear-filled visit, it wasn't two television colleagues sharing the stage but a couple of middle-aged men wondering what had happened to their country.

Yet even as the nation was left to grapple for answers, a television icon was seen growing up — and ever more human — before our very eyes.