video After 95 episodes, the epic failure known as The Jay Leno Show airs its final episode tonight. Of course, Leno himself will be back after the Olympics, comfortably at 11:35pm all over again. Which was pretty much the problem to begin with - the 10pm offering started as a similar product to the Tonight Show, and only became more like the old format as time went on. (more...)

This has been making the rounds, and for good reason — it's a catchy, boppy new yet familiar song that sums up the last year not only in mashing up some of the biggest hits of 2009 but in doing so in auto-tune, which was one of the distinctive, hallmark sounds of the year. (It even got its own parody, "Blame It On The Auto-Tune.") (more...)

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2009 has been a year of controversies. Some of them were big, like Climategate, spurred by a set of hacked emails which caused widespread public questioning of the reality of global warming. Some of them were not very big, but were nevertheless blown up by blogs and cable news, like Jackass-gate, when President Obama referred to Kanye West as a "Jackass" in an off-the-record interview that got out. Many were united by that ever-persistent "-gate" suffix.

In this slideshow, Mediaite fondly looks back on a year of -gates (and wonders if it's time to give the "-gate" suffix a rest): (more...)

You don't need us to tell you that the recession is not over. Despite the Obama administration's various bailout plans people are still struggling, and there is the strong sense things may remain this way for longer than predicted. So who's fault is this? Depending on what news source you follow and/or how well-versed you happen to be in the economic history of this country the answers range from Wall St, to Main St., to Reaganomics. President Obama, however, apparently has pinpointed his own culprit: the media. (more...)

With every big Barack Obama speech -- and there have be a number of them since last January! -- comes days of media speculation revolving around whatever the current Obama narrative is, and how the upcoming speech might fit into it. Or what Obama has to do in said speech to change the narrative. Or a combination of the two. (more...)

President Obama sometimes doesn't have a lot of luck when it comes to timing. First there was Kanye West, followed by Joe Wilson, and now Sarah Palin going Rogue all over the President's Asia trip. Once again a major Obama initiative has been seemingly trumped by spectacle (unless, of course, you are a Time reader). Moreover on top of getting submerged under a bunch of Sarah Palin madness the White House apparently feels that the coverage they did get Stateside was 'asinine.' From today's Playbook: (more...)

When Rep. Joe Wilson did it, he got called a racist. When Kanye West did it, he got called an asshole alcoholic. Whether it was in front of Congress or screaming 20-something year olds at the Video Music Awards, if we've learned anything this year...it's that interruptions are the way to get things done. Wilson's rudeness helped him raise over $1 million big ones for his campaign, and West's hissy fit got him all up in the headlines once again (suspiciously enough just in time for his Fame Kills tour with Lady Gaga, which ended up getting cancelled anyways. Can you say ultimate fail Kanye?). So when Andy Hertzberg proposed to his partner, Andy Rollman, during his testimonial at round two of the Washington D.C. Council meetings on marriage equality, perhaps he had even more of an agenda. Wonder if this interruption will help propel the ruling in favor of equal marriage? Video Clip Below

So it's Halloween, and you don't have a costume. You were going to be Kanye West, but the friend you were counting on to be your Taylor Swift got swine flu at the last minute. Then, it was going to be Sarah Palin, until you remembered that that's what you were last year. Then, you were going to dress up as Balloon Boy, but you realized that all of your friends, neighbors, and extended family members were planning to as well. What to do?

Fortunately, Mediaite has come up with some costume suggestions for you. Pulled straight from the headlines, these are guaranteed to be hits:

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As online writing becomes increasingly a part of the mainstream dialogue in America, "blogger" is no longer a dirty word. Some of the best writers and reporters of our time operate exclusively on the internet, and millions regularly read their work. Matt Drudge, Arianna Huffington, even Perez Hilton; these are big, newsmaking names that many people have heard before.  (more...)

The hits just keep on coming. The Republican National Committee flubbed the roll out of their new web identity in glorious, grand ole, fashion on their own yesterday. Today the dark underbelly of the internet decided to help them finish the job. What's a conservative to do?

Twenty-four hours into the life of the RNC's new web site and parodies of the Faces of GOP web banner were circulating on the internet. Some are apt, some are funny and naturally, most are offensive. (more...)

The same week that Saturday Night Live skewers President Barack Obama for accomplishing absolutely nothing, he has won the Nobel Peace Prize? Spin this: President Obama was 11 days into his presidency when nominations closed for the Peace Prize. What exactly was he nominated for? Forget Jimmy Carter waiting over two decades for his - One could argue that George W. Bush should have gotten the Nobel Peace Prize, since he literally may have done more for world peace by leaving office than Obama did by entering it. (more...)

David Letterman's public apology Monday night for bad behavior is merely the latest in a long list of famous public apologies, mostly for similar bad behavior (Letterman has the rare privilege of adding extortion victim to the list), though a couple of times it's been the result of someone shooting their mouth off. Letterman joins a list that includes a whole lot of politicians — Bill Clinton, Jim McGreevey, Mark Sanford, Eliot Spitzer — and one or two jackass entertainers. Strangely, it was hard to come up with women for this list! Paris Hilton was a last-minute addition — if you can think of any let us know and we will happily add: women screw up too. Also interesting to note is how many of these apologies occur on late night television; Letterman also joins an esteemed list there, too, though up until last night he was on the other side of the couch. With that in mind, we bring you our Top Ten Public Apologies — from nappy-headed hos to "I did not have sexual relations with that woman!" to Hugh Grant, the standard bearer of late night apologies, relive all your famous oh-no-they-didn't breaking news moments. No doubt there will be more. (more...)

Did President Obama's Sunday media blitz make a difference? It's hard to tell, though the headlines would suggest that the takeaway thus far seems to be split between issues of race and Obama's ability to manage the media. Also, the lack of a takeaway line -- beyond the fact Obama is still holding out for the White Sox -- is telling. Kanye West may be a jackass but he also has his own viral twitter avatar -- rude works! As the President is apparently painfully aware. Alas, considering the White House prides itself on being our first 2.0 presidency they don’t appear to package soundbites all that well these days! (more...)

President Obama starts his marathon round of interviews today ahead of Sunday's "el Completo" when he will appear on five networks (but not Fox). On Monday he does Letterman. On Wednesday he addresses the UN. All of this follows last week's joint session address, and this week's 'jackass' remark. So perhaps it shouldn't come as a total surprise that it appears the press is about to dust off and cart out the "Obama media saturation" meme. (more...)

TMZ has posted the audio of President Obama referring to Kanye West as a "jackass" yesterday. It's an interesting listen for a number of reasons. One, Obama is responding to a reporter asking him whether his girls were as "ticked off" as the reporter's were about Taylor Swift's treatment at the VMA's. "I thought that was really inappropriate," says Obama. "Does that count as the first question?" the reporter asks, suggesting they were already on the record? Obama certainly doesn't explicitly ask to be taken off the record even after he's made the remark, though he does allude to not wanting the remark to be blown out of proportion. So much for that. Here's the rest of the exchange: (more...)

President Obama had an outburst last night! Sort of. Alas, it was less Kanye-style than actually about Kanye West -- the President was quoted on Twitter referring to him as a "jackass" -- but it's still a headline dominator this morning. Also, it was supposed to be off the record. However, thanks to the beauty of Twitter we all get to enjoy the unedited Obama. Here's what happened. (more...)

After reading Steve Krakauer's account of Kanye West's outburst at last night's MTV Video Music Awards, along with some priceless celebrity reactions, I was on Twitter when this tweet caught my eye. Hip-hop writer and "Media Assassin" Harry Allen, re-tweeting another tweep named Lemekh, had this to say:

No, White People: Tell Us What You Really Think Of Kanye West. http://twurl.nl/c5em6g about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

The link is to a Twitter search of the words "Kanye" and "N***er." By the time I saw this, the search was dominated by re-tweets of people condemning the use of the word, so I paged all the way back to the first instance, and worked my way forward. There were lots of vile tweets from obvious racists, the most rewteeted one being this particularly disgusting one, but also from white people who claimed not to be racist, who seem to feel they've been granted permission by Chris Rock, or something, to use that word to describe "one of the bad ones." Rock has since clarified the rules on this, which are not all that different from my own. There were also lots of tweets from black people, mainly to express the feeling that West was making all black people look bad. While it hasn't hit the top of today's trending topics, the search has been widely re-tweeted. There's absolutely nothing wrong with calling out racists. It should probably be done more often. I'm sure, however, that any reasonable person would agree that calling this trend what "White people really think of Kanye" is overly broad, to say the least. While any vile, hateful, and even violent tweets are wholly unacceptable, ascribing them to all white people is obviously unfair. I emailed Harry for a comment on this article, and I'm awaiting his response. What I also found interesting was the fact that Lemekh, the man who originated Allen's tweet, and who cataloged many examples on his twitter feed, seems to have no problem using anti-gay slurs. The takeaway here is that, when it comes to bigotry, we always have a little farther to go than we think we do. Update: In response to my tweeted query, "Harry, you're a writer, are we that type?" Harry Allen responds:

@djkoolchris @TommyXtopher D.B.T.H.about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

That's "Don't believe the hype." So, either Harry was answering that question the way he responds to every Public Enemy fan who asks that, or he read my story and I made my point. Update 2: Harry Allen blogs at length on this issue.

EXCLUSIVE

Jay Leno appeared last night on NBC's Football Night in America broadcast to tease his premiere tonight, which you already know about unless you've been hiding in Osama bin Laden's cave for the last three months.

"We also have an interview with President Barack Obama, we're working on that, you might see that tomorrow night," said Leno. The premiere tonight at 10pm will be huge - but it sounds like Leno was jumping the gun. (more...)

video President Obama just can't seem to catch a break when it comes to holding the nation's attention with details of his health care plan. Perhaps the President should embrace a 'if you can't beat'em, join'em' mentality and stage his own outburst. It may be a good last resort before all is lost. Consider this. (more...)

VIDEO This week was full of shout-outs, mostly of the incongruous, impolite variety. First Joe Wilson at the Obama's joint-session health care talk. Then Kanye West at last night's Video Music Awards. And somewhere in the middle, Serena Williams did a little shouting-out of her own. (more...)

video It makes sense that everyone is talking about last night's MTV Video Music Awards for reasons other than the actual videos. This is MTV in 2009, and videos are low on the priority list. Instead, people are talking about the performances - Janet Jackson tribute to her brother, Lady Gaga's bloody fantasy sequence. But mainly, it's how Kanye West was even more of an ass than usual. (more...)

Did you know Kanye West said he wants to be known as the "New King of Pop," now that Michael Jackson died? Well you may have heard it, but Kanye definitely didn't say it. And now he's responding. So what happened? (more...)