Thursday Mashup (1/14/10)

Taking a break from PT to try posting - I'll stop if it becomes too agonizing (my arm I mean, not necessarily the content, though some of the news stories I’m commenting on are also)...

I know this blog is ostensibly about news and politics/activism, but I cannot ignore the battle going on at the moment between NBC, Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno.

I haven't regularly watched late-night TV for years, but speaking only for myself, what I did for a time was watch Leno for his monologue (he still has the best stand-up timing and delivery of anyone) and then watch Letterman for his interviews and skits, since Letterman was more likely to do something goofy or blurt out something unexpected in an interview. O'Brien kind of matches both forms of comedy and does either well and has clever ideas (anybody who gives time to Triumph The Insult Dog is OK by me).

NBC concocted the Leno 10:00 show first and foremost because they were too cheap to develop prime-time dramas for that slot, and they obviously had no "Plan B" in the event that Leno failed (of course, since Leno finished with strong ratings at his old slot, NBC thought those people would follow him, forgetting completely somehow that 10:00 and 11:30 audiences each have different tastes and expectations…guess they never learned from “That Was The Week That Was” all those years ago, which only lasted for a year). However, for all of Leno's positives, I don't think it was very forward-thinking by the supposed NBC programming geniuses to cater to Leno at the expense of O'Brien, with the latter clearly making hay, as it were, out of this mess as noted here.

Also, why throw O'Brien under the bus at the expense of Leno, who's more closely identified with a "boomer" audience that is only going to diminish over time? The people watching O'Brien should be the ones advertisers choose to pursue since they'll have more spending power simply because they'll live longer. And now, it looks like they'll pursue O'Brien on Fox instead of The Peacock Network.

Finally, I admire O'Brien and think he's a bright guy, but please spare me this nonsense from him that he cares about the integrity of the "Tonight Show" franchise. He got rooked by the suits and he's going to bail for a better offer. And by and large, nobody blames him. That's it.

Also (returning to more familiar stuff), with the news of the pending departure of John Shadegg from the U.S. House (noted here), I will await stories from our beloved corporate media of the supposed declining electoral fortunes of the national Republican Party; assuming basic fairness was a consideration in their coverage (and as far as I'm concerned, it isn't), I should see at least as many stories to that effect involving Shadegg, who served in federal government, as I saw about how Colorado Governor Bill Ritter's decision not to run affected the national fortunes of the Democrats, even though Ritter's job did not involve federal government in any way (and I know all I'll hear will be the sound of crickets).

And here is a memorable Shadegg moment that deserves a second look, I believe.

Finally, the New York Times told us the following in the very last paragraph of this story about U.S. contractors trying to make money off Iraqi oil…

Halliburton’s former subsidiary, KBR, which was once run by former Vice President Dick Cheney, has won contracts worth more than $24 billion since the start of the war, giving it vast responsibility for reinvigorating Iraq’s oil sector. Among many other criticisms of the company’s performance in Iraq, Pentagon auditors found that KBR had overcharged the government by more than $200 million.

Call me a filthy, unkempt liberal blogger who watched “Schoolhouse Rock” too much when growing up (here - actually, I never even saw the show once) or took too many hallucinogenic drugs (here - no comment), but as far as I’m concerned, that should be the lede.