The networks have been dying for a couple of decades now, dying by degrees. Leno's move to the last hour in prime time may just be their death rattle. They killed a fine show like "Life" to put Leno in our face five times a week.

I was a kid when the networks were kings. The differences between now and then are pretty simple to enumerate, and I'd submit to you that these differences are a large part of the reason why the networks are in their last years.

For example: predictability. Network TV--what used to be "broadcast" TV--has always been about predictability, not just in shows, but in time slots. Shows didn't bounce around like super balls when I was a kid. Nor were they pre-empted seemingly randomly by "specials" that consist of lame "entertainment" by even lamer "stars", often in the pursuit of some kind of "award." This means, of course, that nobody can ever come home on Tuesday night at 9, sit down, and be confident that their favorite show will be on, just as it always is.

Now, you can argue that time-shifting has done all this in, but for the most part, if you're sure when your shows are on, you can sit down and you don't have to timeshift. And TV watching isn't just about "entertainment." It's a ritual, a reassurance, a sense that, from week to week, something in life will be roughly the same.

Now, it's for this reason--and this reason alone--that Leno might succeed. If NBC doesn't pre-empt the guy night after night, viewers will find the pablum he offers reassuring and pleasant, and a known factor. We'll see.

Another reason why TV networks are dying is because they won't give their shows a chance. Even "Beacon Hill" got 13 weeks. Now, good shows come on and disappear; or they come on, go on "hiatus," reappear at unknown times....who wants to invest their time and their life in a show that, while good, may be gone in a week--according to the whims of some 25-year-old?

I could go on, but why bother? I just got through watching the seventh episode of the second season of "The Tudors." At least I know when that will be on--because I watch through Netflix Instant.

And the support of conservative Democrats was always soft. I know a fair amount of these people; they still use phrases like "the blacks" (and if you see nothing wrong about that phrase, sit and think about it for a while), they're usually on the corrupt side of the Party (and Obama's threatening their livelihood), the professional politicians amongst them are machine politicians. These are the Reagan Democrats, who came over to the side of a charismatic politician, and now, when he seems to have lost a large amount of his charisma, have backed away.

Cf. Kennedy, John.

What Obama needs to do is simple: leverage his charisma. The Right will always be racist (it's one of their two great bases, which overlap, the other being religion). The Center and the Left, however, need to be wooed and won, repeatedly. Obama needs to speak strongly, vigorously, and clearly. He hasn't done that all summer. The result has been that the racist megaphones on the Right (we're way past the dog whistles of the primary here) have drowned out all other messages, and swayed the Center with their ugliness and stupidity (the Center is always swayable by stupidity).

Obama seems to have lost the exquisite sense of timing he displayed so often in the campaign. He needs to understand one thing: All Day Permanent Red. It's a 24/7/365/4 year campaign in the White House now. Anything less will be taken as a sign of weakness by the other dogs in the pack.

That Joe Wilson sure can read good. He's real persuasive, too, ain't he? I felt he put all the conviction into it his little corroded heart could muster. It felt real life-like.

I watched the videos.

It's pretty clear, to anybody who isn't blinded by the Right, that the employees on the tape know they're being played with, and played along.

You have to be seriously deranged to think that the employees were doing anything but going along with a joke.

The fact that the MSM doesn't bother to investigate the "expose" says volumes about where news is in this country, and how gullible the Right is.

Hey! Right-wingers! Didja hear that somebody wants to sell you a bridge? Get your checkbooks out!

Morons.

Here's the story:

A bunch of kids of a variety of races are attempting to play basketball on a backlot.

But every once in a while, a bunch of screaming racist morons run out of the bushes, grab the basketball, and throw it into the street.

After a while, the kids decide that this will be the rule: when the morons run out, the kids will grab tire irons and beat them senseless.

What? Why is it offensive to compare conservatives to a bunch of racist screaming morons? It's just a story. And the notion that we should beat the conservatives senseless with tire irons? Just part of the story.

Geez, you rightwingers are so quick to take offense!

Every time I read the letters column and see some GOP troll begging and pleading with you not to cover the insanity of their party, I know you're doing something right!

The GOP, like vampires and cockroaches, cannot stand the light of day. Keep it up!

Ms. Benfer seems unable to distinguish between fashion and the darker aspects of culture. While there are some connections, a taste for fedoras does not translate into a desire to bring back segregated drinking fountains.

....is, what's that thing on his head? Cause it ain't hair, honey, at least nothing that came from his own scalp.

In this day and age of excellent toupees, why are people like Traficant and Trump allowed out in public without widescale public mockery? Or a keeper?