Bill O'Reilly went on David Letterman as part of his quest to get more attention than Rush Limbaugh and his Fox News Channel sibling rival Glenn Beck. Fat chance:

David Letterman made an honest woman of his sweetheart, and this is how the gods reward him: Blake Lively, still nursing a childhood Letterman crush, tempted the Late Show host with a threesome.

Robert De Niro will be Jimmy Fallon's first guest—an unusually intimidating choice to ease first-night jitters, no matter how well their "Are you a pothead Fallon? Could you milk me?"-patter goes in rehearsal.

Here's Joaquin Phoenix on David Letterman later tonight, either stoned out of his mind or just medically catatonic (or both). Letterman makes several heroic efforts to politely prompt Phoenix before ruthlessly mocking him.

Since it's not enough that he's a New Yorker contributor, perennial SNL and Oscars host, movie star and chart-topping banjo player, Steve Martin had to be awesome on David Letterman last night.

David Letterman is reportedly in talks to extend his CBS contact beyond 2010. The idea is to take ratings from Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show; further taunting Jay Leno is a fringe benefit.

The awkwardest David Letterman interviews. Yeek. We need air. [Cracked]

It seems any Tom Cruise appearance lately is predicated on image rehabilitation, whether making amends with Matt Lauer, who he famously suckerpunched on live TV in a heated disagreement over Wellbutrin,

Katie Couric is on the Late Show again tonight, to try and convince David Letterman that she didn't purposely steal John McCain for her CBS Evening News that night the Republican presidential nominee infamously flaked on Letterman. Of course this is a lie, assuming Couric is as ruthlessly competitive as any network news anchor must be in order to succeed. But her exchange with Letterman is worth watching if only for all the fun bashing of Keith Olbermann, the MSNBC shouting head who filled in for McCain. Click the video icon to watch.

Here's a preview of John McCain on Late Show tonight. He told host David Letterman, "I screwed up," then laughed and did a little "gee whiz" shrug, and made an awkward joke about being tortured in Vietnam. "What can I say?!" the Republican presidential nominee asked. Um, maybe give a reason why you lied about having to fly back to DC when you bailed on Letterman's show last time? Apparently that wasn't in the cards. Letterman later hit McCain for paling around with Watergate burglar and would-be firebomber G. Gordon Liddy, even though McCain has slammed Barack Obama for an arguably more distant relationship with 1960s radical William Ayers. By the end of the segment McCain appeared to be in full retreat on the Ayers issue. Witness McCain statement at the end of the clip after the jump (along with more bizarre face-pulls).

Now that everything else has failed for him, John McCain is crawling back to David Letterman to appear on the Late Show this Thursday, after weaseling out of an earlier appearance under the lie that he was needed in Washington to work on the Wall Street bailout. McCain's people are, well, stupid. If he'd appeared when he was supposed to, Letterman would have treated him to a gentle ribbing while the candidate tried to get his talking points out. Now that McCain has lied to the famously testy talk show host—and now that there are tons of new gaffes and missteps that simply didn't exist when he was originally supposed to appear—what can he expect? Slaughter. Letterman isn't some lovable funnyman. He practically invented the contemporary asshole while Seinfeld and Larry David were first working out their club routines. And when a guest pisses him off, he can turn serious and downright mean. Just last week, he was discussing the possibility of having McCain back on the program when he said, ""In an attempt to save his campaign, they're talking about coming back. So we said, sure, we'd love you to come back ... but they're being squirrely. Politicians can be squirrely. ... I just don't know if we can trust him." Previously, Letterman remarked, "This just in…a backwoods hiker has found the wreckage of John McCain's campaign." So if McCain actually does show up on Thursday (though there's no reason to believe he will; Joe Six-Pack Americans watch Leno, his staff may conclude) it's not likely to be a slightly awkward goof-down like we've seen McCain engage in on The Daily Show after he'd given up his last few beliefs to win the GOP nomination. With any luck, Letterman will simply demand over and over again that McCain explain himself, show him evidence of the fact that he totally lied, and belittle his non-role in that bailout plan that didn't work anyway. Hopefully, McCain will lose it in the face of repeated questioning by some mere celebrity that he publicly snubbed, unable to believe that Letterman won't just drop it and make with the funny already. And, hopefully, next Friday's news channels and papers will be full of John McCain—bitter, rigid, elitist, crybaby. [Washington Post]

It looks like John McCain will be heading to tonight's presidential debate after all (according to this priceless pool report from McCain's plane, which also states, "General atmosphere is utter confusion"), but one no-show is continuing to cost the candidate, and that's McCain's now-notorious skipped Late Show appearance. David Letterman continued to rip into McCain during his monologue yesterday, even conscripting guest Paris Hilton (who had her own memorable run-in with McCain) into the proceedings. Meanwhile, executives at CBS News are up in arms about the live news feed Letterman tapped into on Wednesday night's broadcast that showed McCain getting made up in advance of his Katie Couric interview:

Well, isn't this interesting. Hours before the anticipated David Letterman evisceration of John McCain aired on the East Coast, a YouTube popped up (by a user who had never posted any videos before and registered today) with all the highlights. Thanks, CBS mole! Video after the jump:

John McCain announced today that he would suspend his presidential campaign until the current economic crisis is settled, leaving some big holes in this week's TV schedule — most especially, this Friday's suddenly in-jeopardy presidential debate, which McCain is seeking to postpone (Barack Obama and debate organizers have rejected the idea). In the short-term, however, McCain pulled out of his planned appearance tonight on Late Show with David Letterman, and the host is pissed. Seems McCain told Letterman that he was canceling so that he could rush back to Washington D.C., but then Dave caught wind that McCain hadn't gone anywhere — that, in fact, he was just down the street taping an interview with CBS anchorwoman Katie Couric. What followed was an on-screen excoriation, according to the Drudge Report:

Clearly exhausted from their earlier morning-show rendezvous with Brian Williams, Righteous Kill co-stars Robert De Niro and Al Pacino last night indulged David Letterman with one final on-camera tryst before returning to the anonymity of their respective solo careers. And what a fitting send-off, with the pair teaming up on the "Top 10 Reasons I Like Being an Actor" — a droll bit of thanksgiving that still won't make us forget Heat, but may yet be proven our lone cultural reward for tolerating the existence of Righteous Kill at all. See what kind of magic is possible when less than 12 producers are involved? Next time, guys, next time. [CBS]

·If you thought a Jada-on-Eva love scene was the way to lure your other half to The Women, Diane English pretty much killed your plans. [Late Show]
· While we already know Julianna Margulies's vagina will be all the rage come spring, we'd also like to pass along the happy Fashion Week news that men will be wearing tutus, curtains up to their nipples, and Dockers cut for a four-year-old. [BWE]
· In honor of Raffaello Follieri is Going to Jail Day, we thought we'd include a link to the FBI's list of all the jewelry he bought Anne Hathaway with God's nest egg. [TSG]
· It's the hi-res poster for Lindsay Lohan faked-pregnancy movie, Labor Pains. [Lohan.4fans]
· Jessica Alba, as undoubtedly some have always wanted to see her before. [People]

Sitting down with Rolling Stone for a rare interview, David Letterman opened up on his two-step process of alienating and courting some of his most famous guest-emies—towering pop culture figures like Madonna, Oprah, and Richard Simmons—as well as his own plans for retirement. ("I would like to go beyond [my contracted] 2010, not much beyond," he told them.) He was also asked to weigh in on the curious scheduling shift going on at his old network NBC, where top ratings-getter Jay Leno is being forcibly vacated to make room for new The Tonight Show host Conan O'Brien, and his Late Night successor, Jimmy Fallon. No one is more confused about the changes than Letterman:

Stopping by Late Show to drum up interest in Pineapple Express, James Franco admitted to David Letterman that this was only his second-ever experience on a talk show. The first was two years ago, when he appeared on The Tony Danza Show: A lightly surreal daytime chatfest hosted by everyone's favorite Who's The Boss-star and guido savante, it relied perhaps a little too heavily on ill-conceived gimmicks and stunts. (The Plinkoesque call-in trivia game Extravadanza immediately pops to mind.) Sure enough, learning that Franco played a boxer in a "horrible movie" he refrains from naming (Annapolis! It was Annapolis!), Danza challenged him first to a push-up contest, and, after Franco politely rejected that offer, a Hook-the-Ring decathalon event that still induces involuntarily facial-twitching and regular nightmares of Danza's "I'm the Lord of the Ring-Hookers!" victory dance.

A movie set can often be a busy place—so many people! Doing so many different things!—so a hardworking actress like Rosie Perez can be forgiven if she occasionally slips up on a makeup girl or AD's name. But what about, say, shitting the bed when crediting the star of her current movie, who also happens to be to the writer, on a national TV appearance? Wait—we're not done yet. Now, let's say she doesn't just mispronounce it, but replaces it entirely with a popular men's hair-restoration product. What then? We're torn, ourselves. On the one hand, Perez is just about cute enough to get away with it. On the other, did you really think his name is Seth Rogaine, Rosie? Like, really? Are we next to hear about your exciting guest arc on The Bad Mother's Handbook starring Propecia Silverstone?

Flannel-loving starlet Mary-Kate Olsen was in no condition to be on David Letterman's Late Show last night. Her excuse for her disjointed, unenthusiastic interview? She was "so tired" after her long trip (on an airplane, of course, not via any illegal drugs or booze or whatnot). Letterman could hardly have sounded less impressed with this, and twice referred back to how sorry he was about Olsen being "tired," by which he meant that she never should have plopped down on his damned couch if she was exhausted. Having been in show business since she was six-months old, MKO should have realized she was breaking the implicit talk-show contract: free publicity in exchange for a little coherent dish. If you're tired, buy a venti half-and-half latte to pull yourself together, or relinquish your camera time. At least Olsen shared some bitchy history on Spencer Pratt from The Hills. Clip of that and her tired-ness after the jump.