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This is probably as succinctly put as you’ll ever hear it. The genuine artistry with which Letterman has [traditionally] simultaneously deconstructed – and been a part of – showbusiness versus the real exposé of American banality that is Leno is laid out in no uncertain terms in Anderson’s Jan 27, 2008 article in New York Magazine. When I was younger I marveled out how Leno’s obviously weaker material (not monologue material, as Anderson reiterates here, but personality material – his innate comic ability) kept winning out. I kept asking my teen self how nobody could see what he was doing to a Carson legacy that seemed so important to everybody? Well, if you go re-watch Carson it’s a little more obvious. Carson now seems just a little lame in the same way those of us plumbing 30+ year-olds find our parents to be lame and in the same way that we are now in the process of laming. Leno is our Carson, in many ways, and represents those of us who didn’t digress from the natural progression toward being lazy and lame and having matching senses of what’s genuinely comedic (not funny, comedic) about seeing a talk show host disgusted by talk show hosting.

But damn, Letterman. That business you pulled with Paris Hilton the other night was even too subtle for me or was genuinely sickening. I thought I saw a genius idea in there: let her hang herself with her own vapid chatter, let her list so many rank endorsements that we might all see her for the savvy empty-jar peddler she is. But…by the end of the interview it sort of felt like your complicity was…genuine? That’s not what we need from you, brother. You’re a hero-comedian, Letterman. You’re supposed to call out what’s absurd and ludicrous about showbusiness. Honoring Hilton’s schtick – be it the oversexualized baby girl routine or the parfum huckster or both – was…ludicrous, no? What gives?