"The Tonight Show's" Jay Leno had some fun Friday night at Katie Couric's expense -- with a dash of Hillary hilarity on the side (h/t TVNewser):

Will Barack Obama’s alleged charisma lead to Osama Bin Laden’s capture? According to "View" co-host Sherri Shepherd it will. Appearing on the April 1 edition of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," Shepherd first fawned over fellow guest David Beckham, then moved on to her infatuation with Barack Obama calling him "sexy" and dreaming of Obama as her prom date.

Shepherd, whom "View" creator Barbara Walters classified as one of the show’s conservatives, then described how Obama can win the War on Terror with his charm.

This is too perfect! Barely an hour after Pat Buchanan proclaimed on NBC that the MSM is full of "out-of-the-closet Obamacans," ABC's David Wright provided a perfect illustration of the genre.

In fact, I'm nominating the GMA segment Wright narrated this morning as the single most slanted episode of the MSM primary season. The screen graphic "On the Attack," set the theme: Hillary is unfairly attacking Obama, and to the extent Barack's gone negative, it's only to rebut Clinton's unfair criticism. Oh, and Hillary's demographic is crumbling. And by the way, Bill's dissing Obama supporters.

View video here.

Jay Leno on Friday night reminisced about admiring Tom Brokaw for appearing on the cover of the far-left Mother Jones magazine back in 1983, an interview in which Brokaw denigrated then-President Reagan from the left for “pretty simplistic” values and over how he didn't understand “the enormous difficulty a lot of people have in just getting through life, because he’s lived in this fantasy land for so long.”

With Brokaw on to promote his book, 'Boom!: Voices of the Sixties Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today,' Leno recalled: “I was just starting out in comedy and you'd been on the cover of kind of a left-wing, really left-wing magazine called Mother Jones. Then I thought this is really, wow, Tom Brokaw, 'cause you would have been the establishment and you're on the cover -- and that seemed, and I always wondered if NBC was annoyed or upset that you had done that?”

Not surprisingly, NBC wasn't bothered at all, Brokaw explained, “but Mrs. Reagan was really unhappy with me” for the interview, in which he acknowledged Ronald Reagan was poor as a child, but expressed how “I always thought that connection to people who were struggling was a little artificial because he really began to make it big at an early age.” Brokaw proceeded to recount how he kissed and made up with Nancy Reagan.

The Chris Matthews appearance on Jay Leno wasn’t all about the Shi’ite Republican fanatics. Matthews also went into a typical swoon for his favorite presidential candidate, Barack Obama. "If you're actually in the room when he gives one of his speeches, and you don’t cry, you’re not an American." Matthews could not help slipping into a sales job for Barack and his wife Michelle, and he knew it: "they're cool people. They are really cool. They are Jack and Jackie Kennedy when you see them together. They are cool. And they’re great-looking, and they’re cool and they’re young, and they're -- everything seems to be great. I know I'm selling them now. I'm not supposed to sell, okay?...But the fact is, I wouldn't be an honest reporter if I didn't tell you what the spiritual experience is like of being in a Barack Obama rally."

Chris Matthews took his sloppy and blabby talk routine to The Tonight Show on Wednesday and after a few minutes trying to dig out with Media Matters and Hillary fans for saying she got where she is through her husband's wild sex life, he compared the Republicans to Iraqi factions. The Laura Ingraham show  played this clip repeatedly today:

Nobody seems to be the leader yet. Nobody's Ronald Reagan. They don't seem to have a -- used to be the Democrats were the disorganized political party. Now, the Republicans are like the -- like the Iraqis. Have you noticed? They got their Shia wing, the fanatics. They've got Huckabee. This where I get into trouble. This is just where I get into trouble. [ Laughter ] Huckabee and Thompson are the Shiites, and the Sunni, the more moderate guys, are McCain, and -- who else they got over there? And uh, Rudy Giuliani. And then they got Romney, the Kurd. I mean, they're all over the place. Who's gonna unite them? 

Journalists often fret about Big Business. Yet their coverage leans so pro-union that they won't give the business side of the story - even when they ARE the business.

The writers' strike has cost the networks millions in lost ad revenue from the lack of new primetime and late-night shows. But now that late night lives again, the coverage is all about "awareness" of the writers' guild and the strike.

Once the late-night comedy shows returned January 2, a new controversy arose: guests who dared to cross the picket line to appear on the writer-less shows. One of those was Baptist preacher and GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

"I don't think Jesus would cross the picket line, no, I'm almost positive Jesus would be on our side," one striking writer said to CBS's January 3 "Early Show."

Some people are hard to shop for, but when it comes to MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski it's going to be a breeze. Next to her name on my Chanukah list, I'm putting her down without hesitation . . . for a Roget's Thesaurus. Because when it comes to describing the performance of people across her political divide, Mika seems stuck on a solitary word: "underwhelming."

As noted here, reading the news of Fred Thompson's "Tonight Show" appearance last week, Mika editorialized that "it was sort of underwhelming, but . . . it's done."

At the top of today's "Morning Joe," host Joe Scarborough invited Mika to assess General Petraeus's performance before Congress yesterday, and . . . you guessed it.

View video here.

Honeymoon? Forget about it. The morning after his announcement, "Today" wasted no time in going after Fred Thompson. Like a Las Vegas bride with a bad hangover, Meredith Vieira seemed particularly grumpy. At 7:05 a.m. EDT, the "Today" co-anchor interviewed Tim Russert.

MEREDITH VIEIRA: The other candidates are out debating last night, and he's on Leno, he's yukking it up announcing that he's running for president as if it is a punch line. Was that a smart thing for him to do?

Vieira's vitriolic tone left no doubt that, in her mind, it wasn't. Russert suggested that Thompson needs to establish "real credibility" that he is the consistent conservative in the race, and raise money.

View video here.

Meredith riffed off Russert's "credibility" line to take her next shot.

In addition to insisting the U.S. needs universal health insurance, Michael Moore introduced another plan to help Americans on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" July 26.

He urged audience members to use threats and intimidation with his new "SiCKO health care card:"

The June 22 "Today" show picked up on NewsBusters contributor and publicist Michael Chapman's post from two days earlier, "Robin Williams Slams Catholic Priests as Pedophiles, Spews Bigotry on NBC Tonight Show."

We've clipped the June 22 set-up piece by reporter David Gregory, as well as Catholic League president Bill Donohue's opening remarks in the discussion segment that followed.

Here's an excerpt from Chapman's entry:

"View" co-host Joy Behar appeared on "The Tonight Show" to discuss the show, and predictably host Jay Leno brought up the fight between Rosie O’Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. However, when Leno asked about a potential replacement, Behar responded likewise.

"We had a lot of fun. She raised the game. She was very controversial. We were thinking -- I think they're thinking maybe this time we’ll put someone a little less controversial in there, like Jack Kevorkian."

Leno also asked Behar how "wacky" it is at "The View" and Behar noted her past mental hospital employment prepared her for the show.

UPDATE with video link below jump.

On the April 10 "Tonight Show," host Jay Leno joked about Democrats boycotting the Fox News Channel/Congressional Black Caucus Institute debate. Wondered Leno, "How are you going to stand up to terrorists when you're afraid of Fox News?"

Maybe Jay should ask Time magazine's Joe Klein, who called the Fox News debate a "sordid event" that was a clever ploy to "pander" to a Democratic interest group.

Here's the setup and punchline:

Cued up by Jay Leno on Tuesday's Tonight Show to deliver some quips about global warming, Dennis Miller did some show and tell as he reached behind his chair for a hard copy of the April 28, 1975 Newsweek. That's the edition often cited by doubters of dire global warming predictions because its story, “The Cooling World,” illustrates the fickle nature of media-fueled hysteria. Miller explained that “I had heard about this on the Internet, Jay, and I went back and got a copy of it. It's a Newsweek magazine” with “The Cooling World” as “the big story in the 'Science' section.” Miller pointed to a chart on the page showing “the temperature of the planet is dropping off” and he marveled at how “it says the solution to the global cooling problem is to deliberately melt the polar ice caps” -- the very phenomenon now cited as proof of global warming.

Appearing on Monday's Tonight Show, MSNBC's Chris Matthews predicted Democrats will win the House since “I don't know how you can lose to this crowd,” declared that he's “rooting for” a Democratic Senate candidate because of the candidate's race, went on a rant against Dick Cheney over the false premises behind the Iraq war and argued that since President Bush “won't tell the truth about this war,” the “only solution...is an election.” Jay Leno began the segment by asking about the Mark Foley scandal, but soon moved to whether Democrats will take over the House. Matthews predicted they will win the House, but not the Senate, adding of a Democrat who is black: “I'm rooting for Harold Ford in Tennessee for a reason. I think we need a little diversity up there on Capitol Hill. That would be nice.” Apparently Maryland Republican Senate candidate Michael Steele, who is also black, would not add the proper “diversity.”

Matthews charged that Donald Rumsfeld “wants all the power in the world, but he doesn't want any responsibility.” As for Bush, Matthews contended: “The President won't talk to anybody who said he's made a mistake. He won't admit any mistakes, and in the end, he won't tell the truth about this war over there. And that's the problem we got with the President. The only solution to this is an election.” Matthews earned applause from the audience in Burbank when he urged both parties to declare “we're getting out of there [Iraq] at the end of this President's term.” (Transcript follows)

Video clip (3:53): Real (6.5 MB) or Windows Media (7.6 MB), plus MP3 audio (1.3 MB)

Also from Michelle Humphrey's bag of Tuesday night TV was HBO talk show host Bill Maher making his usual cracks about conservative haters and how the world is ruined by religion. MRC intern Chadd Clark did the transcribing, and took special notice to this crack on immigration:

Maher: Half of the Republicans are, you know, pro-business when immigration, illegal immigration is good for business, and half of them are for ethnic cleansing, so it's really tough...[laughter] Bush is in the pro-business side. That's what explains a lot of what he does. He's always for business. That's why he was for the Arabs taking over the ports. Remember that?"

Defending his recent mockery of FNC's Bill O'Reilly that included a Nazi salute, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann used his appearance on Tuesday's Tonight Show with Jay Leno to defend his actions, implying that he was inspired to do so at the suggestion of NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams to "do something creative," and also by viciously smearing O'Reilly as a defender of Nazis: "On the air in the last year, Bill O'Reilly has defended the Nazis from World War II on three separate occasions. ... Yes, I wish I were making this up." An ironic statement coming from Olbermann, who last year scolded public figures who use Nazi references, saying, "There's no place for the reference in this culture," and that the analogies are "wrong, offensive and deeply hurtful." (Transcript follows)

Video clip #1 (1:00) NBC runs Countdown promo of Olbermann slamming Ann Coulter, then he quips about Al Gore: Real (1.6 MB) or Windows Media (1.9 MB), plus MP3 audio (280 KB)

Video clip #2 (1:52) Olbermann explains why he did a Nazi salute while holding up a Bill O'Reilly mask: Real (3.1 MB) or Windows Media (3.6 MB), plus MP3 audio (550 KB)

“Hardball” host Chris Matthews was Jay Leno’s guest on “The Tonight Show” Tuesday, and did more Republican bashing than even he usually does (grateful hat tip to Greg Tinti at Outside the Beltway with video link here). One of the first zingers was directed at former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Leno asked Matthews what he thought of Gingrich’s claim on Sunday that what is going on now in the Middle East is World War III. Matthews responded, “I think Newt is World War III.”

A bit later, Leno asked about the recent expletive that President Bush was caught saying to British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the G8 summit, and what Matthews thought about the press feeling that they needed to cut the word out of their broadcasts. Matthews saw this as a great opportunity to swipe at the Bush administration about a totally irrelevant issue: “I wish they'd cut out the 16 words that got us into Iraq, however, but they didn't cut those 16 out.”

The next interesting vignette was when Leno asked Matthews his opinion of Rudy Giuliani. Matthews began with something that will strike many conservatives as the height of hypocrisy:

Fair warning for those that are sensitive to vulgarity, for this post will need to use some to properly quote the individual involved. Comedian Robin Williams was on the “Tonight Show” Thursday, and used the occasion to make fun of Rush Limbaugh’s recent Viagra incident. To be sensitive to those that might be offended, all obscene quotes will appear in the "Read More" section.

Now, to be fair, I am a huge Robin Williams fan, and believe him to be an equal opportunity offender. Even Rush, who has a fabulous sense of humor, likely would think this was funny (video link to follow).

With that in mind, host Jay Leno nicely set up Williams by asking for his opinion about the recent Viagra story concerning Limbaugh. Williams answered:

TV critic Alessandra Stanley goes after host Jay Leno for not laying a glove on his Wednesday night guest Ann Coulter in Friday’s Arts review, “A Battle of Wits, And No Clear Win.”

It’s clear who the liberal Stanley is rooting for in this clash of TV talker vs. best-selling conservative titan, chastening both Leno and David Letterman for failing to verbally spank Coulter: “As his tut-tutting chat with the mean girl of the moment showed, Jay Leno is a terrible interviewer….Mr. Leno, who will be replaced by Conan O'Brien in 2009, can afford to slack off, but it is [rival TV talker David] Letterman who seems to be taking too many of his shows pass/fail. And it's a shame, because the host of CBS's ‘Late Show’ is the comedian intellectually and temperamentally most suited to taking on the conservative enfant terrible and giving her a much-deserved public swat.”