So long, Conan. See you soon.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

You know what, this has been a really good last Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. Funny, touching, classy -- and a fitting conclusion to Conan's far-too-short run as host.

My late-night preferences are Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, but as I put it last week, Conan's a very funny, culturally and comedically relevant guy who belongs in the prime of late-night TV, not relegated to a post-Leno afterthought. He was put in an extremely difficult position by a network, NBC, that is an utter disaster, and he's done what he had to do.

And so Jay Leno heads back to The Tonight Show, where his awful, dumbed-down crap will likely pull in solid ratings again and where he'll again pale in embarrassing comparison to the vastly superior David Letterman, who remains the most potent comedic presence on late-night network TV. But Conan belongs in there, too, and I hope he succeeds.

What a captivating late-night saga this has been. (By the way, the San Francisco Chronicle's Tim Goodman, one of the finest TV critics around, has done some fabulous work addressing the whole mess at his blog The Bastard Machine. In addition to the link above, see here, here, and here.)

Good luck, Conan. See you on Fox, or wherever you end up.

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Here's the great opening to Conan's very first Tonight Show episode, the running across America sequence, just seven months ago:

Good for Conan

By Michael J.W. Stickings

For me, "late-night" television means The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, sports, the Food Network, reruns of my favourite shows (Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Family Guy), movies, and pretty much anything else that isn't on U.S. network TV. Which is to say, no Letterman (or rarely), no Conan, no Fallon, no Ferguson, and, when he was hosting The Tonight Show, absolutely no Leno, whom I consider to be unfunny, irrelevant, given all his success, a sign of American cultural and comedic degradation, if not a Sign of the Apocalypse.

I used to watch Letterman, though, and still like him, and I used to like Conan in the later slot, back when he was in New York, back when he was edgy, or free to be, back before he ended up in dead-end California with the imperative to dumb himself down and appeal like a good corporate philistine to Middle America.

Well, as you may know by now, Leno, a failure in the 10-11 slot (if with a larger audience than the late-night shows), will soon be moving back to the 11:35 slot. The plan, it seemed, was to have Leno host a half-hour show with Conan and The Tonight Show, an entertainment touchstone for decades, following him at 12:05. To be sure, Conan wasn't doing well, losing badly to Letterman, where Leno was beating him, but the move seems to have been motivated largely by poor Leno ratings, relatively speaking, leading to grumbling from NBC affiliates unhappy that their late-night news shows weren't getting enough of a bump from prime time.

And so NBC, a terrible (and, seemingly, terribly run) network, has essentially pulled the rug out from under Conan without ever really giving him the chance to succeed, to build the iconic Tonight Show franchise back to its former glory as its host. And Leno, who was a threat, and who threatened, to move to another network, was appeased with a return to his former slot.

But Conan, understandably angry, isn't having any of it:

Conan O'Brien released a statement Tuesday saying that he no longer wanted to be the host of "The Tonight Show" on NBC if it appeared at 12:05 a.m.

Mr. O'Brien's brief run as host at 11:35 p.m. is to be cut short next month, as NBC decided to restore his predecessor, Jay Leno, to that time period. Mr. O’Brien has been growing increasingly upset in recent days about how he believes he was treated by NBC’s management.

*****

In a statement Tuesday afternoon, Mr. O'Brien said, "I sincerely believe that delaying the 'Tonight Show' into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. 'The Tonight Show' at 12:05 simply isn't the 'Tonight Show.'"

He's right -- perhaps even about the significance of The Tonight Show -- and he shouldn't take such shoddy treatment from NBC, especially as it means that late-night viewers will be subjected to Leno once again.

I'm not a frequent watcher anymore, but I hope Conan moves to another network, ABC or more likely FOX, and gets back to doing what he does best regardless of when he comes on, whether it's up against Letterman and Leno or at midnight or even later. He's a funny, culturally and comedically relevant guy, and he belongs in the prime of late-night TV, not relegated to a post-Leno afterthought.

Quote of the Day: Tom Shales on David Letterman

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I don't watch Letterman as much as I used to -- in fact, I rarely watch him at all these days, what with Colbert on at 11:30 -- but he's always been, by far, my favourite of the mainstream (network TV) late-night hosts. There just isn't much to say about the blackmail revelation and the admission of affairs with staffers -- he did what he did, he seems genuinely sorry for it, and I'm not going to judge him or his private conduct -- but I think WaPo television critic Tom Shales gets it right in his assessment of Letterman's place in the culture, and of the context of this story:

One of many sad things about recent stanzas in the ballad of David Letterman is that now, in all media, Dave will be lumped in with other sexually misbehaving celebrities, even though he stands head and heart above most of them.

*****

Letterman's misadventures contain potential harm, pain and injustice only for the individuals specifically involved -- and since there have been no allegations about the sex having been nonconsensual or any partners having been underage, it's all unpleasant but hardly some sort of threat to the public welfare.

*****

What Letterman has done, or allowed to happen, is foul up our perception of him by allowing his private self to share air time with Public Dave, the one we know and love -- the wisecracking, self-deprecating, overgrown adolescent who has one of the keenest, cleverest and funniest comic minds of all time.

Agreed. Now let's put this behind us and move on.

Obama on Letterman

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I was a huge supporter of Barack Obama during the campaign last year, both in the Democratic primary and then against McCain, and I continue to be a huge supporter. This does not mean, however, that I am not critical, that I am a thoughtful, knee-jerk cheerleader.

I have, for example, been critical of his continuation of certain Bush-era national security policies.

I have been critical of his do-little approach to gay rights, including with respect to DADT (don't ask, don't tell), a loathsome policy that remains in place at the Pentagon.

I have also been critical of his policy on the Afghan War, or, rather, of his non-policy. The outlines are there, but he has yet to provide a cogent rationale not just for remaining in Afghanistan but for escalating the war there with a significant troop increase, to which I am, for the most part, opposed.

And I have been critical, at times highly so, of the slowness and caution with which he has addressed health-care reform, leaving it to a dysfunctional Congress. I certainly understand why he has been slow to act and cautious in his approach, as I have written here many times, but I would like to see him take a more aggressive leadership role. He has begun to do just that, going back to his address to Congress a couple of weeks ago and continuing with a major media offensive designed in part to retake control of the narrative from Republican opponents and obstructionists, but he needs to do more, not least to bring Democrats together in support of meaningful reform.

Regardless, I cannot overstate my admiration for this man, and I was reminded of that as I watched his amazing appearance on David Letterman's show last night. After eight years of Bush-style juvenilia, it is refreshing to find an adult in the Oval Office, a president who speaks to Americans, and to the world, like an adult, and who also treats them, and all of us, like adults.

I wish he had defended the so-called "public option" last night. He didn't mention it by name, but that's what he was getting at, a "public option" or something like it. I also wish he had been more decisive on Afghanistan, too, but he was nonetheless remarkably candid about the problems there, and about the problem with the war. And while I wish he had been harder on his Republican opponents, I understand why he took the high road.

He was on for over half an hour, but, if you missed it, take the time to watch it in full. (If the clip doesn't appear, click here.)

Republican Bigotry -- Case #78,294

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(Well, I don't know what we're up to, but, well, it's up there.)

As HuffPo is reporting, South Carolina Republican and former head of the state elections commission (!) Rusty DePass recently made a "joke" about how an escaped gorilla must be one of Michelle Obama's ancestors.

Seriously. I'm not making this up.

In response, DePass issued this non-apology: "I am as sorry as I can be if I offended anyone. The comment was clearly in jest."

As TNR's Michelle Cottle notes, this was just another lame "goodness-me-I-never-dreamed-anyone-would-be-so-delicate-as-to-be-offended-by-my-grosteque-behavior" apology.

Really? If he offended anyone? How fucking clueless, how fucking stupid, is this guy?

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Compare this to Letterman's unnecessary (in my view) apology over his "bad" Palin joke. I realize that Letterman is a much, much bigger figure than DePass, and that he's a celebrity, but consider the differences here: Letterman is sincere, DePass isn't. Meanwhile, the right is all over Letterman but excuses far, far worse offences from within its own ranks, including outright bigotry.

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Our own Mustang Bobby posted on the DePass "joke" yesterday over at his place, also making the Letterman connection. Check out his post here.

"Slutty flight attendant"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Once again, Letterman's right on target when it comes to Sarah Palin.

"Sexy librarian" is a nice way to put it. "Slutty flight attendant" is more accurate. It's the best description of Palin's "look" I've heard yet.

The culture of victimhood

By Mustang Bobby

One of my favorite episodes from the late and lamented comic strip Calvin and Hobbes shows Calvin, the six-year-old Everyman, exclaiming, "Nothing that happens is my fault! My family is dysfunctional and my parents won't empower me! Consequently, I'm not self-actualized! My behavior is addictive functioning in a disease process of toxic codependency! I need holistic healing and wellness before I'll accept any responsibility for my actions!"

Hobbes replies, "One of us needs to stick his head in a bucket of ice water."

Calvin marches on, proclaiming, "I love the culture of victimhood."

This seems to have been the mantra of the conservative movement and the Republican party in particular in 2008, and it will likely continue on as the Bush administration whimpers to an end. Everything bad that happened on their watch wasn't their fault. No one could have predicted that Osama bin Laden would fly planes into skyscrapers. No one could have predicted that a major hurricane would strike the Gulf Coast and break the levees. No one foresaw that there would be a terrible backlash of terrorism and hatred against Americans unilaterally attacking and invading a sovereign country ruled by a braggart dictator, and that invading said country would need a lot more than just a few thousand troops. No one could have predicted that the housing bubble and the E-Z credit market would burst because of lax regulation and insider connections on Wall Street and bring down major brokerage houses and threaten the existence of the last major manufacturing companies in the United States. And no one could have predicted that putting politics ahead of competency would give us a government of loyalists who couldn't run a business on their own but voted the right way in 2000.

Except, in every case, a lot of people did predict that all of those things would happen, and some of them lost their jobs for having the temerity to point it out.

This is not altogether a surprise from the party that calls on everyone else to show personal responsibility -- wags their finger and shakes their jowls at everyone else for their moral and political failings -- yet populates the prisons with their own senators on the take. It's not that the Democrats or anyone else doesn't have these failings, too, but at least they don't go around raising money on someone else's hypocrisy. And for a party that calls itself the bastions of more freedom and limited government, they certainly seem to have a list of exceptions that include women controlling their uterus, same-sex couples wishing to get married or adopt children, or failing banks that need a hand-out so they can still have their big Christmas party blow-out and year-end bonuses.

And yet when they're held to account for it, they're the victims here. Alberto Gonzales says he is just as much a victim of terrorism as everyone else and honestly can't understand what he did to earn him so much scorn. Vice President Dick Cheney has no idea why his poll numbers are so low, but then, he says he doesn't care about things like that. White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley can't understand why America couldn't see what a likable and compassionate person George W. Bush really is.

Since nothing that happens is their fault, it has to be someone else's, right? Blame the media for not seeing the wonderfulness of George W. Bush. Blame them for not seeing the mavericky goodness of John McCain. Blame them for not following up on the truth behind Barack Obama's birth certificate or that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's outbursts were just a clever cover-up for Mr. Obama's true Muslim beliefs. Blame the media and the moon and the stars for causing the financial markets to melt down just as John McCain was pulling ahead in the polls in September, and blame David Letterman for making him look like a panic-striken ditherer. Blame the voters for being too stupid to see through the charade of celebrity, and that all that "no-drama Obama" was really a clever plot by the hysterical lefty blogosphere to make him appear that he's calm and in control. But he smokes! That's a sure sign he's weak!

The Religious Right deserves their own pew for wailing about being the victims. They spew hatred and bigotry about gays and lesbians, equate same-sex marriage with criminal acts, pour millions of dollars into a campaign of misinformation and demagoguery to revoke a right granted by the Supreme Court of California, and then get all weepy and whiny when -- too late -- the provoked gay community fights back. The intolerant have the chutzpah to claim they're the victims of religious bigotry. My, my.

People who are capable of adult behavior and mature thought processes would take the lessons that were taught them and learn from them. But apparently that's not the way it works for the conservative mind. No, the way to really get back into the good graces of the American people is to proclaim that what we really need is more finger-pointing, more demonizing, more race-baiting -- "Barack the Magic Negro" is just the curtain-raiser. We need more of Sarah Palin, more of Joe the Plumber, more union-busting, more poor people going to the emergency rooms for their health care, and more smiting down of the queers by the hand of God to really teach this country a lesson.

In one respect, I hope they cling to this mantra of victimhood because it really does make it easy to mock them and dismiss them as the infantile alibiers that they have become. As Paul Krugman notes,

Will the Republicans eventually stage a comeback? Yes, of course. But barring some huge missteps by Mr. Obama, that will not happen until they stop whining and look at what really went wrong. And when they do, they will discover that they need to get in touch with the real “real America,” a country that is more diverse, more tolerant, and more demanding of effective government than is dreamt of in their political philosophy.

Maybe what they need is Calvin's holistic healing and self empowerment...but the bucket of ice water solution sounds good, too.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

"Anonymous Liberal" gets it right

By Carl

When I watched the highlights of yesterday's twin train wrecks in the McCain campaign yesterday, I said to myself, "well, the only reason that John McCain cut out of the David Letterman taping (video at link) was to do damage control for the earlier massacred Couric-Palin interview.

In the course of that interview, Sarah Palin all but signaled John McCain's intention to vote for the bailout package. And if it wasn't his intention, it is now. She equated not voting for it to initiating a new Great Depression, and you can almost hear the one-liner from Obama: "He voted FOR the Great Depression, before he was against it!"

Not that he couldn't use this line anyway.

Too, Palin's "I'll get back to you" comment regarding whether McCain had ever passed a single piece of legislation that increased regulations was pretty much butchered, and showed her to be totally lost at sea when it comes to answering questions she doesn't know the answer to.

Anonymous Liberal posts a brief transcript of this exchange (video at link):

COURIC: But he's been in Congress for 26 years. He's been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more.

PALIN: He's also known as the maverick, though. Taking shots from his own party, and certainly taking shots from the other party. Trying to get people to understand what he's been talking about — the need to reform government.

COURIC: I'm just going to ask you one more time, not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation?

PALIN: I'll try to find you some, and I'll bring them to you.

Now, I'm no Republican, but I can think off the top of my head of at least two bills that McCain supported that increased regulations on education (No Child Left Behind) and homeland security (the Patriot Act). I can't say that he *pushed* for passage of either of those, but I do know that the McCain-Feingold bill set new regulations regarding money in political campaigns and is indeed his signature bill in the Senate!

It's OK to draw a blank in an interview and say "I'll get back to you," but your damned handlers ought to be on a phone in another room, getting those answers to you. And if they can't get to you during the taping, they ought to get you as you walk out and hand you a slip of paper, so you can turn around and go back to Couric and say "McCain-Feingold" for her to add later.

So The Anonymous Liberal gets it right that McCain's stunt was damage control, to appear on Couric in the next news cycle... yes, news cycles can now be measured in hours, not days...to shore up his credentials. And kudos to Couric for asking a tough question.

But McCain suffers far more from his obfuscation to Letterman than he does from the stunt. If Senator McCain had been honest with Letterman, and said "Listen, I have to do damage control today, and if you'll keep it under your hat, I promise to drop by at the earliest opportunity to appear," Letterman would have been fine with that, and the endless replay of "Hey Senator, I have a question! Can I drive you to the airport?" wouldn't be getting more airplay than Sarah Palin's gaffes would.

Indeed, McCain could have called Letterman during the taping (both The Late Show and The CBS Evening News tape around the same time) and perhaps made a surprise appearance. This would have salvaged the day, and truly mitigated the unmitigated disaster that was the Palin interview.

As it is, McCain managed to limit its exposure, first by "cancelling" campaigning, and then by cancelling on Letterman, both dishonest acts of cowardice. And now, CNN is reporting that McCain wants to delay the VP debate! I wonder if he's thinking of replacing her with someone who's a bit more.. .seasoned. After this story, it's possible.

Letterman said it best last night: "What are you going to do if you're elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We've got a guy like that now!"

Presidents are supposed to multi-task.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)