Things might be a little tense around David Letterman's office today. In his weekly column in the New York Observer, pundit Ron Rosenbaum pens an open letter to Dave, suggesting the "Late Show" host step down from his show -- or at least take drastic action to alter it. "It's painfully obvious that it's torture for you to do the show, it's torture for us to watch," writes Rosenbaum, "and no amount of shouting and whooping by the over-amped frathouse morons in your studio audience can conceal the painful emptiness in the Ed Sullivan Theater." Rosenbaum's solution: "Junk the celebrity plugathon and go all comedy . . . the stupid competition with Jay Leno for idiot stars telling vacuous anecdotes to plug lame action movies (is) sickening." If that doesn't work, says Rosenbaum, Letterman should quit and get Jon Stewart to replace him.

Additional reporting by Olivia Abel and Donna Freydkin.