If you know me at all, you know that I always watch “Late Show with David Letterman.” Always, except occasionally when it’s in reruns.

Well, tonight I was caught up in the puppet improv special I mentioned in a previous post. That didn’t end until halfway through Letterman — and when I turned over, I discovered Letterman in the middle of what might be his most newsworthy show in several years. Letterman already had Jerry Seinfeld booked as a guest tonight, and Seinfeld apparently talked him into doing a satellite hookup with Michael (“Kramer”) Richards during Seinfeld’s segment, so that Richards could deliver an apology for his racist tirade against some hecklers at a recent comedy show.

I missed the first part of this, and so I didn’t see the full explanation for what happened. But in what I did see Richards seemed genuinely shaken and genuinely remorseful. He also seemed like he wasn’t sure he’d made a good choice by being on the Letterman show, which added to the impression that he was being honest rather than manipulative. But I could be completely wrong — maybe he’s just a skilled actor pulling our strings.