“How cool is it to ride on Air Force One?”

This is exactly the kind of empty, ass-kissy question one would expect a featherweight, middle-of-the-road entertainer of Jay Leno’s ilk to lob at the first sitting US president to visit a late-night talk show, and he did not disappoint.

Spoiler alert: It’s pretty cool to ride on Air Force One!

The fact that most of last night’s Tonight Show interview centered on the specific policy points Obama has been pushing the last couple weeks was almost certainly at the Obama camp’s insistence, or we would have been treated to thirty minutes of Leno pitching softballs like the one above. By the last segment, it would have been, “Do you ever get tired of being played-on to the same song every time you make an appearance anywhere?” Or some tired gag about Obama’s ineptitude at bowling – oh wait, Jay did get to that one.

For this NBC is planning to jettison their entire 10 p.m. weeknight schedule? They’re going to scuttle the fabulous “Life” (among other, less worthy but still scripted, dramatic programming) just to keep a talent of Leno’s stunning mediocrity in their stable? Jay Leno is the entertainment equivalent of a control group in a scientific study. He doesn’t offer a damn thing of actual value, but his consumers are told he does and are thus entertained.

Dave Letterman (as I have recently opined) is a bonafide national treasure, whereas Jay Leno is a gumball you buy for 25¢ from the machine in the lobby of the Wal Mart. He doesn’t challenge, offend or excite. He’s everything that art isn’t but commerce is. He’s New Coke. He’s PG-13 movies. He’s the guy your parents want you to date.

Example: Jay’s musical guest for Obama’s drop-in? Garth Brooks. “Attention, blue light shoppers…” What with everything in the world already sucking or on the path to suckage, it’s the perfect time for Brooks to launch his comeback. (Disclaimer: Brooks acquitted himself better than I expected with one of his catchier faux-country tunes, but he was still Garth Brooks.)

But I digress. What I really need is a good editor. Speaking of digressions and needing editors:

This isn’t actually about Obama doing “The Tonight Show” even though I think it was a terrific idea. I have a whole bit inside of me about how skillfully Obama has been managing the media and his image. The guy is everywhere. He’s taking hostile questions from Town Hall meetings. He’s on the highest-rated nighttime TV talk show. Almost-daily, extended press conferences. You can’t turn around without bumping into a presidential appearance. The effect being to create the feeling that he’s in this awful mess at the same time as we are. His is a pretty big fucking bubble. It’s so big it includes us and that’s a mighty shrewd business model.

I used to have this argument with my boss. She told me, “Fang, your problem is, you just want people to like you.” (Years later, I realized she was right.) At the time, it was in the context of differing managing philosophies – is it better to have your employees love you or fear you? She was strictly in the Fear camp. But my experience – with my employees, who loved the shit out of me – is that a fearful employee will at best walk right up to that 100% line and make sure his ass is covered, but go no further. A loving employee will start at the 100% mark and proceed from there. They’ll make sure your ass is covered, too, with the result being better unit cohesion and a tighter end-product.

She was right about me but wrong about management theory.

Anyhow, Obama is taking the Love Model to the White House. The nation is in shit up to our elbows, but he’s always right there and he’s always doing something to try to help. And it’s working. Not the solutions he’s offering, not yet, but by retaining his political capital with a successful charm offensive, he’s making sure we’ll still be looking to him when the shit-level starts to recede and stuff can actually be begun to get accomplished.

But this isn’t about Obama nailing his appearance on Jay Leno’s show. This pissy little fit I’m trying to throw is about NBC throwing up its hands and saying “Fuck the 10 p.m. drama.” It’s not a ‘brave gamble,’ as some have said, it’s a calculation, a capitulation. A perceived financial imperative. And as much as I understand the dollars and cents sense of the move, I think on balance, it was a shitty thing to do and it casts an ill portent for scripted TV drama if it is successful. And I reckon it will be successful.

Can you imagine what our network TV hellscape will look like 5, 10 years from now? Nothing but celebrity peep-shows like Entertainment Tonight, ever more shocking reality shows and variety shows modeled after Leno’s that will combine the lowest elements of the peep shows and the reality shows. And all of it coming into our front rooms on wall-sized Hi-Def 3-D 360° holographic displays... Suddenly, my stomach is feeling all roller-coastery.

So maybe it’s all good, all just part of the inevitable, ongoing transition to the new communications paradigm. Maybe it’s time we were weaned completely from our old television-viewing habits so the internet can scratch that industry off its To-Do List, too.

And when it does, for good or ill, Leno’s 10 p.m. gabfest will have been one of the touchstones of that transition.