Jay Leno: the Sarah Palin of, uh… TV?

Two things:

First, as I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Sarah Palin is a contributor on Fox News. She premiered tonight on the O’Reilly Factor to discuss the content of a new book called Race of a Lifetime, in which authors John Heilemann and Mark Halperin claim – among other things – that Palin

couldn’t explain why North Korea and South Korea were separate nations. She didn’t know what the Fed [the Federal Reserve] did. Asked who attacked America on 9/11, she suggested several times that it was Saddam Hussein. Asked to identify the enemy that her son would be fighting in Iraq, she drew a blank.

Here she is today:

So that’s the first thing.

Second, as you also know by now, Conan O’Brien might be finished at NBC. After learning his Tonight Show might be pushed to 12:05 to make room for a half-hour of Jay Leno, he released a classy letter stating that he couldn’t go along with the decision. What will come of it remains to be seen.

But what is obvious is Leno will definitely get something out of the whole debacle. Either he’ll have his half-hour show moved back to a better time slot, or he’ll regain his position as the host of yet another version of the Tonight Show.

And while the title of this might have been snappier had Palin not been named a contributor to Fox News, it might actually be more fitting because she was. More than just, generally, appealing to a similar audience, Leno’s current professional streak is much like that of the ex-Governor. He managed to debase and scuttle the attempts of a more talented and interesting co-worker, and even after failing miserably at his job, here he is, back in the public eye as if nothing ever happened.

The media buzz around Leno is now mostly negative, but those who will welcome him back are blind to that kind of thing, anyway. Or at least, they seem to be. Conan, with his awkward Harvard-educated-Simpsons-writing geeky shtick was always flying a little off the radar of those who find misspelled roadside signs hilarious because it feels like something they could see in the real world – y’know, reg’lar stuff for the reg’lar folks.

But most of all, Conan (like, perhaps, McCain) never stood a chance once he had to follow that which appealed to the lowest common denominator  – a setup, let’s remember, that wasn’t of Conan’s making. Having a successful, man-of-the-people like Leno was supposed to make Conan more successful, yet the effect was the opposite, and he now may soon be out of a job. A shame, that.