There's No 'I' In NBC

Just in time for the remake of "Clash Of The Titans" comes the late night TV version, with Jay Leno butting his enormous head against Conan O'Brien's famously weird coiffure for the coveted 11:35 p.m. turf.

NBC is now the den mother of the mother of all sibling rivalries. The peacock thought it had all this worked out four years ago, trying to avoid the temper tantrum Dave Letterman threw in 1993 when he stormed off to CBS and, somehow, became the unlikely grumpy, horny king of the time slot.

But the deal to keep Conan, and his free-spending, fun-loving demographic off another network by handing over Johnny Carson's crown while it was still warm from Leno's head was built on a foundation of quicksand.

The problem for both Leno and Conan, who have been at their respective shticks since the early 90s, is that no one gives a damn when there are better options available. Who wants to see Leno awkwardly salivate over Naomi Watts and drop embarrassing Freudian slips in an interview when they can watch David Caruso whip off his sunglasses and make witty comments over the latest murder victim and cue the Who music, or Dr. Grey choose between McDreamy and McSteamy? And who wants to see Conan do that lame fake interview with the real celebrity face and dubbed moving mouth, or chat with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog when there is still non-infomercial competition, like Letterman or Nightline?

Both these guys knew going into their deal that there were risks involved, and yet both are whining like the ball was taken away inches away from the end zone. At least Conan had the humility to say in his (under)statement that "in a world with real problems, I've been absurdly lucky." Something tells me that, just before the repo man arrives at his door, some kind of salvation will arrive.

Conan delights in singing "I'm a-gonna go to hell when I die" after skewering the likes of Paris Hilton in his monologue, and Jay likes to patrol the streets of Hollywood looking for morons he can seem smarter than in his "Jaywalking" segments. So clearly it's too much to expect magnanimity from a pair of egomaniacs. NBC can rule out their taking one for the team and turning the clock back to the old post-prime time lineup. Instead they may both end up on other networks.

And NBC will end up with a bigger cascade failure than the one they tried to avoid in 2005.

Reid All About It

It seems that way back in the 2008 presidential race, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had a strange way of talking up Barack Obama's qualifications. "He's light skinned" and "doesn't have a Negro dialect unless he wants one," the Nevada-based powerbroker would say in private conversations.

We know this now because it has been revealed in a new book about the campaign by Jon Heilman and David Halperin, "Game Change. Reid doesn't dispute the comments attributed to him, and in fact has apologized directly to the president for it. The president talked up Reid's long commitment to civil rights in his statement and said he accepted the apology "without question."

All well and good, but it's hard not to wonder how long these two reporters have known about these comments and whether they kept it under wraps until their book was finished. That's their right, but as Mike Flynn points out in this great Breitbart Report post, would they have done the same if the remarks were made by a Republican?

Racial controversies involving conservatives tend to have a longer shelf life. Remember when Trent Lott pined away for the age of segregation at Strom Thurmond's birthday party? Contrast that flap to Joe Biden suggesting that Obama stood out from other black politicians because he was "clean." The price he paid for that gaffe was to become vice president of the United States.

On Sunday, the first black chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, not only didn't accept Reid's apology but said the gaffe was career-ending. "Either he's going to retire or I'm going to retire him in November, but either way he won't be the leader in January," said Steele, saying that Reid was getting off easy if Trent Lott's fate was the established standard.

Pundits will parse the difference, noting that lamenting the end of segregation isn't in the same universe as stupidly assessing a candidate's blackness. Where this controversy will lead us remains to be seen, but it will surely raise some questions and hopefully offer some insights into why the Democratic party remains the overwhelming choice of people of color, and why that shows no sign of changing soon.