For those of you are watching the show about three years ago. This is the third anniversary of the attack of the World Trade Center. If you want to read the introduction by David Letterman since he came back from 9/11/01, here is the transcript. Thanks to David Yoder for this remarkable transcription.

Cold opening and applause

Thank you very much.

Welcome to the "Late Show". This is our first show on the air since New York and Washington were attacked, and I need to ask your patience and indulgence here because I want to say a few things, and believe me, sadly, I'm not going to say anything new, and in the past week others have said what I will be saying here tonight far more eloquently than I'm equipped to do.

But, if we are going to continue to do shows, I just need to hear myself talk for a couple of minutes, and so that's what I'm going to do here.

It's terribly sad here in New York City. We've lost 5,000 fellow New Yorkers, and you can feel it. You can feel it. You can see it. It's terribly sad. Terribly, terribly sad. And watching all of this, I wasn't sure that I should be doing a television show, beecause for 20 years we've been in the city, making fun of everything, making fun of the city, making fun of my hair, making fun of Paul... well...

So to come to this circumstance that is so desperately sad, I don't trust my judgement in matters like this, but I'll tell you the reason that I am doing a show for the reason I am back to work is because of Mayor Giuliani.

Very early on, after the attack, and how strange does it sound to invoke that phrase, "After the attack", Mayor Giuliani encouraged us -- and here lately implored us -- to go back to our lives, go on living, continue trying to make New York City the place that it should be. And because of him, I'm here tonight.

And I just want to say one rather thing about Mayor Giuliani: As this began, and if you were like me, and in many respects, God, I hope you're not. But in this one small measure, if you're like me, and you're watching and you're confused and depressed and irritated and angry and full of grief, and you don't know how to behave and you're not sure what to do and you don't really... because we've never been through this before... all you had to do at any moment was watch the Mayor. Watch how this guy behaved. Watch how this guy conducted himself. Watch what this guy did. Listen to what this guy said. Rudolph Giuliani is the personification of courage.

applause

And it's very simple... there is only one requirement for any of us, and that is to be courageous, because courage, as you know, defines all other human behavior. And I believe, because I've done a little of this myself, pretending to be courageous is just as good as the real thing. He's an amazing man, and far, far better than we could have hoped for. To run the city in the midst of this obscene chaos and attack, and also demostrate human dignity... my God... who can do that. That's a pretty short list.

The 20 years we've been here in New York City, we've worked closely with police officers and the fire fighter and...

applause

...and fortunately, most of us don't really have to think too much about what these men and women do on a daily basis, and the phrase New York's finest and New York's bravest, you know, did it mean anything to us personally, firsthand. Well, maybe, hopefully, but probably not. But boy, it means something now, doesn't it. They put themselves in harm's way to protect people like us, and the men and women, the fire fighters and the police department who are lost are going to be missed by this city for a very, very long time. And I, and my hope for myself and everybody else, not only New York but everywhere, is that never, ever take these people for granted... absolutely never take them for granted.

applause

I just want to go through this, and again, forgive me if this is more for me tahnit is for people watching, I'm sorry, but uh, I just, I have to go through this, I'm...

The reason we were attacked, the reason these people are dead, these people are missing and dead, and they weren't doing anything wrong, they were living their lives, they were going to work, they were traveling, they were doing what they normally do. As I understand it (my understanding of this is vague at best). Another smaller group of people stole some airplanes andd crashed them into buildings. And we're told that they were zealots, fulled by religious fervor... religious fervor. And if you live to be a thousand years old, will that make any sense of you? Will that make any GD sense! Whew.

I'll tell you one thing that happened last night. There's a town in Montana by the name of Choteau. It's about a hundred miles south of the Canadian border. And I know a little something about this town. It's 1,600 people. 1,600 people. And it's an ag-business community. Which means farming and ranching. And Montana's been in the middle of a drought for... I don't know... 3 years! And if you've got no rain, you can't grow anything. And if you can't grow anything, you ca't farm, and if you can't grow anything, you can't ranch, becuse the cattle don't have anything to eat, and that's the way of life is in a small town. 1,600 people.

Last night at the highschool auditorium in Choteau, Montana, they had a rally (home of the Bulldogs, by the way)... they had a rally for New York City. And not just a rally for New York City, but a rally to raise money... to raise money for New York City. And if that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about the... the spirit of the United States, then I can't help you. I'm sorry.

applause

And I have one more thing to say, and then, thank God, Regis is here, so we have something to make fun of.

If you didn't believe it before (and it's easy to understand how you might have been skeptical on this point), if you didn't believe it before, you can absolutely believe it now...

New York City is the greatest city in the world.

lengthly applause

We've going to try and feel our way through this, and we'll just see how it goes... take it a day at a time. We're lucky enough tonight to have two fantastic representatives of this town, Dan Rather and Regis Philbin, and we'll be right back.

fade to black

From The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. 9/17/01

Good evening and welcome to "The Daily Show." We are back. This is our first show since the tragedy in New York City. There is no other way really to start this show than to ask you at home the question that we've asked the audience here tonight and that we’ve asked everybody that we know here in New York since September 11th, and that is, "Are you okay?" We pray that you are and that your family is. I’m sorry to do this to you. It’s another entertainment show beginning with an overwrought speech of a shaken host. TV is nothing, if not redundant. So, I apologize for that. It’s something that unfortunately, we do for ourselves so that we can drain whatever abscess is in our hearts and move onto the business of making you laugh, which we really haven’t been able to do very effectively lately. Everyone’s checked in already, I know we’re late. I’m sure we’re getting in right under the wire before the cast of "Survivor" offers their insight into what to do in these situations.

They said to get back to work. There were no jobs available for a man in the fetal position under his desk crying, which I would have gladly taken. So I came back here. Tonight’s show is obviously not a regular show. We looked through the vaults, we found some clips that we thought might make you smile, which is really what’s necessary, I think, right about now. A lot of folks have asked me, "What are you going to do when you get back? What are you going to say?" I mean, what a terrible thing to have to do. I don’t see it as a burden at all. I see it as a privilege. I see it as a privilege and everyone here does see it that way. The show in general, we feel like is a privilege. Just even the idea that we can sit in the back of the country and make wise cracks, which is really what we do. We sit in the back and we throw spitballs, but never forgetting the fact that is a luxury in this country that allows us to do that. This is a country that allows for open satire, and I know that sounds basic and it sounds as though it goes without saying - but that’s really what this whole situation is about. It’s the difference between closed and open. It’s the difference between free and burden and we don’t take that for granted here by any stretch of the imagination and our show has changed. I don’t doubt that. What it’s become, I don’t know. "Subliminable" is not a punch line anymore. One day it will become that again, and Lord willing, it will become that again because that means we have ridden out the storm.

But the main reason that I wanted to speak tonight is not to tell you what the show is going to be. Not to tell you about all the incredibly brave people that are here in New York and in Washington and around the country. But we’ve had an enduring pain here - an endurable pain. I wanted to tell you why I grieve, but why I don’t despair…I’m sorry. Luckily we can edit this. One of my first memories is of Martin Luther King being shot. I was five and if you wonder if this feeling will pass…When I was five, he was shot. Here’s what I remember about it. I was in a school in Trenton. They shut the lights off and we got to sit under our desks and we thought that was really cool and they gave us cottage cheese, which was a cold lunch because there was rioting, but we didn’t know that. We just thought that “My god. We get to sit under our desks and eat cottage cheese.?That’s what I remember about it. That was a tremendous test of this country’s fabric and this country’s had many tests before that and after that.

The reason I don’t despair is because this attack happened. It’s not a dream. But the aftermath of it, the recovery is a dream realized. And that is Martin Luther King's dream. Whatever barriers we've put up are gone even if it's momentary. We're judging people by not the color of their skin but the content of their character. You know, all this talk about "These guys are criminal masterminds. They’ve gotten together and their extraordinary guile…and their wit and their skill." It's a lie. Any fool can blow something up. Any fool can destroy. But to see these guys, these firefighters, these policemen and people from all over the country, literally, with buckets rebuilding. That's extraordinary. That's why we've already won. It's light. It's democracy. We've already won. They can't shut that down. They live in chaos and chaos…it can't sustain itself. It never could. It's too easy and it's too unsatisfying.

The view from my apartment was the World Trade Center and now it's gone. They attacked it. This symbol of American ingenuity and strength and labor and imagination and commerce and it is gone. But you know what the view is now? The Statue of Liberty. The view from the south of Manhattan is now the Statue of Liberty. You can't beat that.

So we're going to take a break and I'm going to stop slobbering on myself and on the desk. We’re going to get back to this. It's gonna be fun and funny and it's going to be the same as it was and I thank you. We'll be right back.


That is by far the most emotional speech besides Letterman's that there will ever be. Thanks Full House and god bless you and God bless the United states of America!