Mitt Says Dave Hates Him. Not So, Says Dave, Who Invites Him to Appear

September 19, 2012, 6:12 pm

By BILL CARTER

Does David Letterman hate Mitt Romney?

Mr. Romney said so on the surreptitiously recorded tape of his comments at a fund-raiser in May, which have stirred a firestorm of reaction in the news media this week.

The reason for the hatred? According to Mr. Romney, it is because he has been on Jay Leno's “Tonight” show more often, thus making Mr. Letterman jealous.

Not so, Mr. Letterman said on his show that airs Wednesday night, a night after President Obama appeared as Mr. Letterman's only guest for the hour.

“I don't hate Mitt,” Mr. Letterman told his audience. “And I think now, more than ever, he and his lovely wife, Mrs. Mitt, are more than welcome to come on the show.”

On the subject of his long rivalry with Mr. Leno, Mr. Letterman added, “I certainly don't hate Mitt because he's done, because he's been on Leno's show more. I mean, why hate a guy who's suffered through that?”

Mr. Letterman's executive producer, Rob Burnett, said Mr. Romney has a standing invitation to appear as a guest “and he will certainly not be shortchanged on time if he comes on.”

Though Mr. Letterman treated Mr. Romney's comments about him mostly as a joke, there has been some backlash against Mr. Letterman in conservative circles for a perceived bias against Mr. Romney. Many conservatives still harbor ill feelings toward the CBS host over comments he made about Sarah Palin, and especially her daughter, in 2009. Those comments led to an on-air apology from Mr. Letterman, but Mrs. Palin has never relented in her criticism of the comedian.

And this year, certainly Mr. Letterman has made Mr. Romney the target of nu merous jokes, mainly picking on him for what he has alluded to as a disconnect with real people â€" and dogs.

Mr. Letterman, long a dog lover, has pounded the Republican candidate about the episode when Mr. Romney tied the family dog to the roof of his station wagon on a long vacation trip. As he often does with bits he likes, Mr. Letterman has repeated - on dozens of occasions in this case - an animation showing a dog popping down from a window to peer in at Mr. Romney driving.

On the show Wednesday, however, Mr. Letterman seemed to take pains to characterize Mr. Romney in positive terms, citing a night when the candidate read a Top 10 list. Mr. Letterman said of Mr. Romney, “very genial, very likeable, very personable.”

Of course, landing Mr. Romney as a guest would now virtually guarantee a night of big ratings for Mr. Letterman. Mr. Obama's appearance Tuesday night gave Mr. Letterman a 4.0 rating in the nation's 56 largest cities, his best performan ce in two and a half years.

The complete comments from Mr. Letterman about Mr. Romney:

And then [Mitt] got to talking about me and Jay Leno, and then he said that he's been on Jay Leno's show more than he has been on this show, and I think that's probably true. He's been here, what, three, four times … And Mitt was on the show and had done the Top Ten, very genial, very likeable, very personable … So anyway, Mitt's been on the show, and Mitt goes on to say that I hate Mitt, that's what he says. He says that on the tape, because Mitt has done the Jay Leno show more often than he's done my show, and that we're all very jealous and petty and bitter and backbiting and show business â€" unlike politics …

I don't hate Mitt, and I think now more than ever, he and his lovely wife, Mrs. Mitt, are more than welcome to come on the show, and I'm telling you, if you think you're going to get to the White House, you've gotta spend time in this chair … We'll get him in here and we'll see how it goes, that's it. But I don't, I certainly don't hate Mitt because he's done, I mean, been on Leno's show more. I mean, why hate a guy who's suffered through that?”

Mr. Romney's assessment of his television options at the May fund-raiser:

I've been on Letterman a couple of times, I've been on Leno more than a couple of times, and now Letterman hates me because I've been on Leno more than him. They're very jealous of each other, as you know. And I was asked to go on “Saturday Night Live.” I did not do that, in part because you want to show that you're fun and you're a good person, but you also want to be presidential. And “Saturday Night Live” has the potential of looking slapstick and not presidential. But “The View” is fine, although “The View” is high risk because of the five women on it, only one is conservative and four are sharp-tongued and not conservative, Whoopi Goldberg in particular. Although the last time I was on the show, she said to me, “You know what? I think I could vote for you.” And I said, “I must have done something really wrong.”

Bill Carter writes about the television industry. Follow @wjcarter on Twitter.