It's not because he's a Republican, because I don't think he is. 

So the question for me remains, "Why was Letterman so mean?"

I didn't see the Joachim Phoenix appearance until the videos  the next day and  I was as mystified by it as everyone else.

At first I thought it was a hoax, contrived by Phoenix and Letterman -- talk show Dadaism -- and found myself laughing at its absurdity.  My partner, Norman Stiles,  and I had written a number of such spoofs for the  celebrities who guested nightly on America 2Night when we were head writers there.  The Phoenix thing just smacked of comedy and that thought was uppermost in my mind.

As I rewatched it, I still felt it was a put-on, but one that was engineered by Phoenix alone.   After all, he does have a movie coming out and by all accounts he's remarkable in it.  Not surprising, that.  He's a very gifted actor, as this "burlesque" demonstrates.  So I thought.

However, his personal history doesn't suggest someone as puckish as that,  even in the cutthroat service of promoting an upcoming film.  Also, if this were a charade I think the cat would be out of the bag at this point. 

Just as a measure of a conspiracy theory's nuttiness is the absence of leaks, this sham should have had a few whistles blown by now, unless assassinations and mysterious accidents shut them up,  and that hasn't happened either.

So I'm left to assume this was all legit, Phoenix inexplicably presenting himself at his saddest, most tortured, heart-wrenching  worst.

And he walked into a buzz saw.  Letterman brutalized him.  He was cruel.  He turned the troubled actor's appearance into a mockery.    He continued kicking a man who was clearly down ... for the laughs.   He didn't go to a neutral corner or stop the fight.  He held the thumbs-down like a Roman emperor deciding the fate of a wounded gladiator.

I understand Letterman's predicament -- he had a segment to fill, and it was going south, fast.   I saw it happen on Carson and on Thicke-Of-the-Night and other shows I'd been associated with.   But Letterman could have cut the segment.  As he did many years earlier with an appearance by Bill Hicks that the network thought too controversial at the time.

Once Letterman realized Phoenix was a psychological no-show,  he didn't make attempts to mollify the uncomfortable situation.  Even people on So You Want To Be A Millionaire were offered a lifeline.   No offer like that by Letterman.  There was no rescue attempt.   Instead, he kept pummelling the guy.  This was just too juicy to pass by.

It was disgraceful.  Aiding and abetting a public humiliation.

I don't know the kind of person Letterman is.  I only know the persona of what I've seen through the years on television.  Having been in the business of comedy, I was privy to many stories about him from those who worked with him.  They don't count for me.  I wasn't there.

But I was there, in front of the TV,  for many of his shows and didn't like what I saw.  Unquestionably witty and funny, he nevertheless struck me as  mean-spirited and arrogant.  The kind of comic who thinks, This joke is funny and if you don't laugh it's your problem.

He's mellowed a great deal and that now makes him watchable for me.  I look forward to many of his opening comedy bits, even those still grounded in mockery of others, but the bits seem friendlier, more neighborly, you might say.

The Phoenix interview, though, was Letterman redux and I was embarassed for Phoenix but mostly for Letterman, who allowed himself the easy pickin's  of this low hanging comedy fruit.

I was reminded of a Craig Ferguson monologue a few years ago on the occasion of the Brittany Spears shaved head/tattoo weekend.  As host of CBS' The Late Late Show he said, after seeing photos of Brittany in that condition, he reconsidered making jokes at the expense of the "vulnerable."

"Tonight, no Britney Spears jokes. Here's why: The kind of weekend she had, she was checking in and out of rehab, shaving her head, getting tattoos. That's what she was doing this weekend." ...

"I'm amazed that not poking fun of somebody has become a news story."  ....

In a later interview, he said "For me, comedy should have a certain amount of joy in it .... We shouldn't be attacking the vulnerable."       

"I think there's an edit button missing somewhere," Ferguson told E! entertainment news anchor and The Early Show correspondent Giuliana DePandi. "I think that as a society, we should look it up every now and again."

An edit button.  As Craig and Casey Stengel said, "You could look it up."

Letterman could have used the edit button on this unfortunate segment.  For Phoenix' sake, but mosly for himself.  

It was mean.