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THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE Leno chortled awkwardly, like a young man who had been invited Jay Leno does not want to win an to meet his future father-in-law’s business partners at the local country club. “No, I didn’t, Mr. Secretary. Oh, yes, yes,” he babbled. “That is quite an attractive buttocks that she has.” argument, score political points or prove Describing the encounter in a recent interview with POLITICO at his “Tonight Show” studio in Burbank, Calif., Leno recalled thinking he’s smart. He just wants laughs. to himself, “This is really just high school; it’s just the guys are older.” Is that still good enough? early a quarter-century later, Leno presumably won’t be nervous as he returns to the Hilton for Saturday night’s dinner. BY JOHN F. HARRIS Nor is there any reason he should be. N After all, this will be his fifth appearance at the dinner — he’s appeared during every administration since Reagan’s. At the ack in 1987, the man hired to crack wise at the annual 1987 dinner, the president was 39 years his senior. This year, the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner had a president will be 11 years his junior. (Leno turned 60 earlier this case of jagged nerves. week, on April 28.) Ronald Reagan was president, and Jay Leno was just Along the way, Leno has gone from being a rising young turning 37 — already a celebrated comic, not yet one entertainer to a hugely wealthy global brand — albeit one that has of the country’s most familiar faces. The egg-shaped become a bit scuffed over time. He will be facing a room full of ballroom of the Washington Hilton, with its dated space- politicians and journalists well aware of his recent stumble in trying age décor, suddenly felt like one of the toughest rooms to launch a prime-time comedy show and his controversy-pocked Bhe had ever played. return to his longtime “Tonight Show” vehicle. At a pre-dinner reception, a stern-faced man who reminded Leno Yet the logic of Leno for this particular occasion is obvious: The of H.R. Haldeman approached and officiously reminded the comic Correspondents’ Association knows precisely what it is getting. that he would be performing a few feet from the president of the There is no chance that Leno will die on stage, as ’70s-era United States and he had better be respectful — no jokes about impressionist Rich Little did with a Grandpa Simpson-like Reagan. performance that left people shifting uncomfortably in their seats. Then another official appeared with the opposite advice: Loosen There is no chance he will break wind in public, as Don up; the president loves it when people poke fun. Imus did with his acrid routine at the 1996 Radio and Television As he was taking all this in, Leno soon found himself chatting Correspondents’ Association Dinner, during which he insulted both with Reagan himself. A bald, jovial man sidled up beside them. Bill and Hillary Clinton to their faces with cutting remarks about Huddling conspiratorially, Secretary of State George Shultz urged philandering and criminal indictments. that they take a gander across the room. But there is also little chance that he will have the audience “Did you see the ass on Fawn Hall when she walked in here?” howling in hysterics or surprise at his routine — or leave the capital Shultz asked (at least, in Leno’s telling; Shultz did not return a call), buzzing for days over his best lines. purring over the dazzling blonde secretary who had recently vaulted Far more likely, he will get respectable laughs on personalities into the headlines as Oliver North’s document-shredding assistant in and themes that anyone could guess simply from watching his show the Iran-Contra scandal. in recent weeks. ➤ POLITICO 33 THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE Popular, profitable, predictable: Leno is the McDonald’s of humor. The rap on Leno — promoted with zeal by many television reviewers and other cultural critics — is that he represents a bland and anachronistic breed of humor. He wins chuckles with dully amusing jokes at a time when younger competitors like Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart serve up provocations and a sharp edge. He aims squarely at a middlebrow mass audience when this very concept is fading. With infinite options for entertainment and news alike, the “People from 1900 till today still laugh when the rich, fat modern audience divides itself into innumerable demographic and ideological niches. guy falls in the puddle. And that’s what you’re trying to find Leno professes to be proud of resisting the trend — both on the “Tonight Show” and during his turns at the correspondents’ dinner. — you’re trying to find that joke. I mean, everybody gets “This is not a bully pulpit,” he told POLITICO. “It’s not power you’re looking for; it’s laughs. And if you’re seeking anything else, then ultimately you fail. If you have any other agenda, other than laughs — whether it’s power, whether billionaires losing a fortune and going to jail. That’s funny to it’s showing how smart you are, whether it’s to impress them with your political acumen or how liberal you are or how conservative you are — then it’s not every possible group that’s out there, in almost any era you working for you.” Leno said he has watched other comedians at the correspondents’ dinner know. You know, a pie in the face is a pie in the face.” — he didn’t offer names — fall short of the mission. “I was watching, and they got no laughs, and they’d come back and go, ‘Boy, we nailed him,’” he said. “No, you didn’t. All you did was put down whoever the elected official was.” Leno has been quoted in occasional articles suggesting that his personal politics tilt more liberal. In the interview, however, he said he is proud of the fact that Accuracy in Media, a conservative group, found that his jokes break evenly between those that come at Republicans’ expense and those that take aim at Democrats. Hillary Clinton thanked Leno in book acknowledgements for his help in writing jokes. And Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly said he considers Leno a “patriot.” Projecting neutrality in an age of hyperpartisanship is the hardest thing about performing at the correspondents’ dinner, Leno said. He is acutely aware of who in the ballroom is laughing at which jokes. “The odd thing about it is you find that Republicans, for whatever reason, seem to be able to laugh at themselves more than Democrats,” he said. During the 2004 dinner, Leno said he heard through the grapevine that John Kerry’s brother was visibly offended when Leno asked the Democratic presidential candidate, “Hey, John — why the long face?” t Saturday’s dinner, Leno will have a kinship of sorts with the barons of legacy news operations whom he will be entertaining. Leno’s newly reconstituted “Tonight Show” is profitable, but like many news Aorganizations, it is suffering from an aging audience and a declining market share. A recent Los Angeles Times article, citing Nielsen, said the combined late-night audience of ABC, CBS and NBC has shrunk by 20 percent over five years — and by 36 percent in the most profitable 18-to-49 age bracket. Advertising revenue is following a similar trend. John O’Leary, who teaches television history at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, calls the challenges of both Leno and the news organizations a vivid sign of the times. “If I talk to my students, none of them watch Leno or [David] Letterman. But they do watch Colbert, and many of them did watch Conan O’Brien,” he said. “I’m at a university where students can get newspapers for free. They’re in stacks. But at the end of the day, there’s still stacks left over. They can tailor their news to get it from different sources and sort of create their own. ... As the audience pie gets sliced thinner and thinner, to them Leno seems kind of irrelevant. That’s their parents’ comedian.” “We don’t have that kind of common culture that we used to do,” O’Leary concluded. Leno doesn’t buy it. He’s planted his professional flag on exactly the opposite assumption. “Comedy hasn’t changed that much,” he said. “People from 1900 till today still laugh when the rich, fat guy falls in the puddle. And that’s what you’re trying to find — you’re trying to find that joke. I mean, everybody gets billionaires losing a fortune and going to jail. That’s funny to every possible group that’s out there, in almost any era you know. “You know, a pie in the face is a pie in the face.” Leno’s political humor — and there is a political segment in every night’s monologue — is often the equivalent of a pie in the face or even a whoopee cushion. The humor comes not so much from the jokes themselves as from giggly repetition of familiar zingers aimed at familiar targets. You know them all — and surely you will hear them all again if you are present on Saturday or watch on C-SPAN. Check out the rat-a-tat of stereotypes in just one show, on Feb. 9. Sarah Palin is dumb. (Because of winter storms, “It was so cold, Sarah Palin had to cancel a speech because she didn’t want to take her gloves off to read.”) Nancy Pelosi is addicted to Botox.