The latest issue of Rolling Stone is the magazine's comedy issue, featuring a patented lengthy RS interview with the usually publicly apolitical David Letterman.

The "oracle" — as the magazine calls Letterman elsewhere in the issue — of today's comedy scene gives surprisingly candid answers to many questions.

At one point, the interview touches on Letterman's famous return to the airwaves a week after the 9/11 attacks, and Dave's current questioning of Bush and Cheney's "humanity" — which somehow leads to a semi-endorsement for the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate seat from Minnesota, Al Franken.

ROLLING STONE: You seemed to have supported the war at first, as did a great many people who wanted to feel like they were doing the right thing and supporting the country.

DAVID LETTERMAN: I think I'm no different than everyone else. I'm just a hothead reactionary, and I wanted to see something done. The question that I like to ask people is, "What if Al Gore had been president? Who would we have attacked? And when? What mistakes would a Democratic president have made?"

RS: Does it anger you a little more because some of these people have been on the air? Bush has been on the show, and McCain was on in 2001 linking the anthrax to Iraq. Does it feel personal to you?

DL: Yeah, it does feel very personal to me, maybe more so than it should. When you sit down there together more than once or twice, you've created a camaraderie. I'm just waiting for a guy to explain to me how things are going to be OK. This is going to sound nuts, but the guy that I believe is Al Franken. I don't know why — believe me, I've asked myself this question, but when he talks and he says something, I believe him more than I believe anybody who currently holds a seat in the Senate. He may not be elected. Maybe it's because we're peers, we're the same age, we're in the same business, but I believe Al.