On Tuesday night’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, First Lady Michelle Obama snuck in a stealth shot at former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney‘s singing skills. Asked by Leno what she thought of Gov. Romney’s recent rendition of America The Beautiful, the First Lady replied, with a laugh, “It’s a beautiful song,” adding that “it is America’s song, and it’s a song that’s mean to be sung by every American.”

On Tuesday night, First Lady Michelle Obama visited NBC’s Tonight Show, chatting with host Jay Leno about her “Let’s Move” health initiative.

She also shared that, for her birthday, her mom baked her a red velvet cake (it really is the best kind of cake, folks — the “secret” ingredient is vinegar) with the help of First Daughters Sasha and Malia.

The Factor‘s Bill O’Reilly looked into the lawsuit filed against TV host Jay Leno for a joke he’d made about GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno has never been known known for having particularly “edgy” humor. That’s probably why it’s the only comedy show on NBC that most of America will actually watch (You don’t listen to the mean regular people, Community. We still love you!). Take for example a recent barb thrown Mitt Romney’s way; a joke whose vicious premise seems to be that, hey, that Romney guy is kind of rich, huh? It wasn’t exactly the most biting of satire. However, something went wrong along the way and the joke has somehow created an international incident with India’s Sikh community.

Appearing on Wednesday night’s Tonight Show, The Tonight Show, MSNBC contributor Meghan McCain compared herself to US President Ronald Reagan, saying if he had ran today “he would be called a dirty moderate like me, unfortunately.”

Rep. Ron Paul may stick to advancing his own positions during debates and letting others do the sniping, but he took a detour on last night’s Tonight Show in a rapid-fire round where Jay Leno asked him to comment on each candidate in term. While he had some nice things to say about Jon Huntsman, his reactions to Newt Gingrich and Rep. Michele Bachmann were particularly harsh, the latter of which he noted “she doesn’t like Muslims… she wants to go get ‘em.”

While the Donald Trump debate is perilously close to cancellation, one pundit is willing to admit that, had he been a candidate, he would’ve gladly participated. Bill O’Reilly told Jay Leno last night that, given the sort of audience a Trump debate could attract, he didn’t understand why candidates wouldn’t want to go, as well as giving Republican primary predictions and explaining how he ended up umbrella-attacking a heckler.

Since he last held a sustained lead in the Republican primary polls, way back in the summertime, there hasn’t been a whole lot of good news for establishment candidate Mitt Romney. However, according to Politico‘s Patrick Gavin, there is one area in which Romney is defeating his rivals handily. Gavin reports that the former Massachusetts Gov. is head-and-shoulders above the competition when it comes to mentions by late-night comics. Current frontrunner Newt Gingrich is running a distant 5th.

Rick Perry parachuted himself into the 2012 Republican race as a frontrunner, but rather than taking the campaign season by storm, his need to consistently deliver lines without flubbing them has put him in a bit of a vulnerable position. In his new “campaign ad” for The Tonight Show, he takes a shot at himself by citing his now-legendary brain freeze over the three federal agencies he would shut down, and in making light of himself, Perry is at his most charming.

Meghan McCain sat down with Jay Leno on Friday’s Tonight Show and spoke candidly on the Republican candidates, comparing the process of picking a nominee to speed dating. McCain slammed Newt Gingrich‘s campaign as a “vanity project” and slighted him as “this week’s fling” for Republicans, lamenting how the process has turned into an “anybody but Romney” affair. “He seems to be rising — hot air balloons do that,” Leno snarked.

President Barack Obama was a guest on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno Tuesday night and hit on a wide range of topics, from pulling the troops in Iraq to working out in the gym every morning with his wife. Leno asked about Occupy Wall Street — which Obama said he can understand, as people are frustrated — and even who he likes in the World Series. Some of his strongest moments came in the third of the three segments, when Leno asked more loose, personal questions, which were somewhat revealing.

President Obama stopped by the Tonight Show today, his fourth time chatting with Jay Leno (second while actually in the White House). There he discussed his reaction to Muammar Gaddafi’s death as well as the race amongst GOP contenders On the latter, Obama said he wouldn’t start paying much attention until some more of them are “voted off the island.”

Um, Mr. President, that’s the wrong network. On NBC, you have to see which Republican candidate loses the most weight.

Former president Bill Clinton paid a visit to the Late Show last night, where he weighed in on several topical political issues, including ideas for how to breathe new life into the economy. When host David Letterman brought up the concept of redistributing wealth — or at least the idea that the well-off would feel some sort of impetus to help out those not as well-off — Clinton seemed skeptical. “I’m always looking to blame somebody,” Letterman joked.

Herman Cain‘s rise to the top tier of presidential candidates has finally landed him in a place where his presence– given that his resume includes two fast food chains and a gospel album–seemed natural: late night TV. Cain joined host Jay Leno last night to chat about Sarah Palin‘s potential candidacy, the relevance of Donald Trump, and which of his fellow candidates has “good hair” or is a “grumpy old man.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann made her late-night debut as a Presidential candidate last night, and given her hardline conservative stances on social issues, it was no surprise that she and Tonight Show host Jay Leno butted heads on a few issues– albeit in much milder conversation than many are accustomed to see with her. Of particular note was Rep. Bachmann’s exchange with the host over same-sex marriage, who seemed to find sincerely problematic the position that such marriage endangers the American family.

Real Time may be on break, but Bill Maher took a respite from his hiatus to visit Jay Leno and give him an update on how he’s been feeling about President Obama’s moves lately. After a few quick jokes about Sarah Palin and Rep. Michele Bachmann, Maher got to the President, with whom he is very dismayed. “I’m skeptical when he gives a speech because, where is the follow-up?” Maher suggested, noting that he did like the speech President Obama gave on Thursday but didn’t trust it all that much.

Bristol Palin‘s appearance on The Tonight Show started off with a bang, with Palin poking fun at host Jay Leno‘s signature feature — his chin — after he subtly asked her about her new, surgically enhanced visage. But it was Leno’s other guest, Don Rickles, who really got the party going, as Don Rickles is wont to do. A word of warning: Don’t invite this guy to your bachelorette party unless you’re prepared to do something regrettable involving an inflatable alligator.

Tonight Show host Jay Leno decided to try his hand at delivering a joke about the recently-wrapped Casey Anthony trial. It’s a challenging undertaking given that his writers have to 1) come up with a joke that hasn’t already been made roughly 78,943 times on Twitter and that 2) isn’t in poor taste, given we’re dealing with the tragic death of a young child. So how did Leno fare?

Late last week, second quarter ratings for late night comedy programs were released, and one big ratings changeup has been getting lots of media attention. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, despite being on a cable network, received more viewers within the 18-49 demographic in the second quarter than The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Stewart’s program was watched by 1.295 million viewers in the demo, while Leno only received 1.292 million.

NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel told NBC’s Jay Leno Wednesday night “it’s probably time to end the global war on terrorism.” Discussing Wednesday night’s speech by President Obama (which had not happened at the time the Tonight Show taped, though Engel had been briefed on the speech), Engel compared the 9/11 attack to the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, describing one as the work of “19 guys with box cutters” and the other the work of a 24-man SEAL team:

NBC’s Late Night host Jimmy Fallon speaks honestly about his own company’s missteps in handling the transition from Jay Leno to Conan O’Brien–and then back–calling the original decision to tell Leno he’d eventually be replaced by O’Brien “an insult.”

Looks like the Red Eye time machine was working overtime this week, as yet another Jay Leno joke from the future somehow ended up on the May 31st edition of the show. This time, Leno’s program made a joke about Anthony Weiner ending up hosting a CNN show a week after Greg Gutfeld did– and the resemblance after Leno seemed to have pulled a joke from Andy Levy two weeks ago certainly raises eyebrows.

Katie Couric is now free from her evening news anchor shackles and appeared with Jay Leno last night to reveal some of her real thoughts on the behavior of Donald Trump and Sarah Palin. Who would have guessed that with Couric, of all people, the NBC censors needed to be ready to bleep some of her language.

NBC’s late night comic Jay Leno got some unflattering attention from Fox’s overnight Red Eye crew, who suggested one of Leno’s jokes sounded awfully familiar. The show’s Andy Levy began by airing a delightfully amusing clip from Leno, from May 26

Meghan McCain stopped by and chatted with Jay Leno last night to talk about her dating life and appearing “naked” in a PSA for skin cancer. Leno brought up Glenn Beck‘s much criticized response to the commercial and McCain took on Beck, with much approval from the studio audience.