Is Leno still beating Letterman in the ratings? He is? Well then, it just makes the following all the sweeter.
Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters reports:
Jay Leno continued his humorous attacks on the White House Friday.
In a series of opening monologue jokes targeting Barack Obama, the NBC Tonight Show host said of the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, “If he really wants to close it, turn it into a government-funded solar power company. The doors will be shut in a month.”
Leno knows he’s got nothing to lose. He knows he’s on his way out. Again. He knows if he wants to keep working after he leaves the Tonight Show, he’ll have no shortage of opportunities. And if he doesn’t, he already has more money than he can spend for the rest of his life. (Unless he decides to finish the job and purchase every single motor vehicle in North America.)
So why not say what he really thinks about the Obama administration? Why not do what late-night comedians are supposed to do, and mock those in power even when it’s not considered fashionable? Even when it’s considered somehow “racist,” just because the guy is black?
Why not?
I was obsessed with David Letterman in the ’80s. From the moment I first saw his short-lived summer daytime show back in 1980, when I watched this fellow Hoosier doing the same stupid, irresponsible stuff I did in school and yet he got to be on TV for it, I was hooked. When he moved to Late Night, I was a devoted viewer. All the way up until he stomped off to CBS in a huff, which was when the slow decline began. I still appreciate the work he did back when he was young and good, but it makes it all the more tragic that he’s turned into such a bitter, partisan old Democrat Party hack.
I hope he watches Leno telling these jokes, to a bigger audience, and seethes with impotent rage. His hated rival has thwarted him again.