Stretching it???? For years the left-side has been quoting Rush out of context, which is easy to do when you have 3 hours every day of the week. By the way,when Rush and Imus say things, it is off the cuff...totally unscripted.
David Bittermen tapes his show hours before they run it at 11:30 at nite. Me thinks he tapes at 5 PM. He has a gang of writers who's only purpose in life is to script Bittermen's show. These "jokes" are then read by the staff at CBS. Final approval goes way up the ladder before the final draft that is then fed into the teleprompter. Literally dozens of people know what Lettermen is going to say, before his dwindling audience.
Now...If you really think that is not political ( picture a room full of people laughing at the "Palin is slutty jokes") then you really don't know how TV operates.