How Much Do Late Show Hosts Skewer Republicans to Democrats?

With John McCain's return to the Late Show with David Letterman, it allowed Letterman to finally sit down and talk with the Republican nominee about why he snubbed him three weeks ago.

McCain simply said that he "screwed up," and then Letterman's interview continued about McCain, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama and a host of other topics.

On the day of McCain's appearance, the Center for Media and Public Affairs, which analyzes the media, tallied all of the jokes made about both the Republican and Democratic nominees for President in the five weeks after McCain chose Sarah Palin. The two shows the Center looked at were Letterman's Late Show and Jay Leno's The Tonight Show.

What they found was pretty staggering, but understandable.

The total number of jokes in those five weeks were: Republicans, 286. Democrats, 42.

"Generally the Republicans get targeted much more often than Democrats, but this election is driving it off the charts," said CMPA Executive Director Donald Rieck.

The report breaks it down even further. The two late night hosts told 106 jokes about McCain and 180 Palin, the "new girl" on the political scene, between Aug. 29 and Oct. 2, which was the night of the vice presidential debate.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, was only joked about 26 times. Which comes out to nearly once a night. Joe Biden was hit only 16 times (likely for his hair and teeth).