The Tonight Show announced that host Jay Leno is being yanked in favor of Conan O’Brien. But before you crack open the champagne and reprogram your TiVo, remember that O’Brien will remain at helm of Late Nightuntil 2009 which will afford ample opportunity to shed what little talent he brings to the screen. In other words, there’s plenty of time to renew that Ambien prescription.

A lot of things can happen in five years; according to the commodity markets, however, regaining the ability to both support your drug habit and to put gas in your SUV isn’t one of them. With oil today fetching $50 a barrel, it’s of little solace that the NYMEX December 2009 contract is stubbornly trading around $35. Coupled with the specter of further interest rate hikes, these stratospheric commodity prices should lead you to the conclusion that the economy is booming. Yet it’s not. 350,000 new souls lined up for unemployment insurance last week, joining the 2.88 million poor slobs already on the dole. Meanwhile, the tealeaves don’t exactly portend sunnier days ahead. The Index of Leading Economic Indicators fell for the third straight month while lousy news from Colgate-Palmolive, Unilever, General Mills and Wal-Mart means those few consumers not yet tapped out have severely curtailed their spending.

Mentor Corp. could well be the canary in the coalmine, with its stock price slumping 10% despite an eight-cent dividend hike and a litigation obviating cross-marketing agreement with rival American Medical Systems. The company’s prospects have soured because sales of their breast and penile implants are conspicuously _______ [choose one: sagging, flaccid, limp, pendulous]. If indeed folks are no longer willing to pay to be amorous I can’t imagine they’re lining up for a new flat-screen TV. But don’t despair. While the economy plunges headlong down the toilet consider that collective detumescence may just be the way to stop those infuriating Viagra ads from clogging up your email.

Inexplicably, Colin Powell’s latest blog snaked its way through my spam filter, and his comments on Russian political reform left me pondering our own worrisome state of affairs. After a spate of brutal terrorist attacks, President Putin swiftly consolidated power by altering parliamentary election rules and recasting governorships as appointed positions. “There can be no political dialog with terrorists,” averred Powell, adding that “at the same time you have to find a balance between fighting terrorism in an aggressive way and also making sure that you don’t undercut the institutions of state that are based on the foundation of democracy.” You mean like the judiciary? Earlier this month House Republicans forced through a bill barring federal courts from reviewing cases involving the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance. Before you know it they’ll be nullifying lawsuits involving corporate polluters or crimes committed with assault weapons.

The White House’s ham-fisted response to 9/11 has been to corral civil liberties while leaving ports and nuclear power plants virtually unguarded. Under Orwellian regulations, ordinary citizens can attend Bush-Cheney rallies only after signing a loyalty oath and consenting to publication of their names as supporters of reelection. “It’s not right for me to have to sign an endorsement to hear [Cheney] speak,” lamented John Wade of Albuquerque, who was asked to sign the form when he picked up his tickets. Wade angrily inquired, “Whose vice president is he?” “Yeah, don’t we pay his salary?” queried Ford Meeker from Las Cruces. No, Ford, Halliburton pays his salary.

Now the airlines (bankrupt and solvent alike) have been ordered by the government to turn over all passenger data collected in June. The TSA will then check the information against an obsolete FBI watch list. In addition to a roster of names, the records include telephone and credit card numbers, travel plans and addresses. ACLU spokesman Barry Steinhardt says the system is too intrusive and fails to prevent people from being misidentified as threats.

It took Ted Kennedy three weeks to get his name off the “no-fly” list while Yusuf Islam, née Cat Stevens, had his London to D.C. flight diverted to Maine before being summarily deported. The list doesn’t contain Islam’s exact name but there is a “Youssouf Islam, which is close enough,” commented Asa Hutchison, Homeland Security’s border and transportation guru. A bemused Islam recounted, “I was not given… any explanation whatsoever as to what it is I am accused of.” And he probably never will because the Justice Department refuses to acknowledge any double secret probation for air travelers. Government attorneys declared, “In order to protect air travel security, a federal statute and accompanying regulations prohibit [us] from disclosing any such directive.” Which, if you think about it, makes perfect sense.

In October 1986, CBS anchor Dan Rather claimed he was attacked from behind and beaten into the Manhattan pavement. He reported his assailant delivered a relentless series of blows and repeatedly demanded, “Kenneth, what is the frequency?” The bizarre episode spawned an R.E.M. anthem and, for a time, Rather was thought to be delusional. Vindication arrived a decade later when the perpetrator was identified by a prison psychiatrist as William Tager, already behind bars for murdering an employee of NBC’s “Today Show.”

Tager believed the news media was beaming harmful signals into his brain and sought the frequency in an attempt to block the transmission. But now the tables have turned and the mentally unstable are directing the malignant flux back towards CBS. Retired National Guard Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, armed with an aging Kinko’s fax machine, infected Rather’s newscast with badly forged documents. The reeling network is left only to prop up the secretary for Bush’s squadron commander in a feckless attempt to affirm the content of its exposé. While it’s patently obvious that George Bush shirked his Vietnam-era obligations, these caustic transmissions have duly killed the message and possibly Rather’s career as well.

As much as we’d like to hop on a swift boat and speed away from Vietnam, she remains the siren that can’t be quelled. And the parallels to today’s morass only serve to extend her reach across the sea of time. CBS, some years ago, alleged that General William C. Westmorland orchestrated a conspiracy to hold down enemy troop estimates in 1967 in an effort to bolster support for the war. CBS was sued (as they may be again) and between the Pentagon Papers and Professor Magruder, everyonewas shown to have lied about the war. After we come to discover that Iraq had no WMDs or ties to Al Qaeda, we are back to 1967: Systematic undercounting of hard-core insurgents – officials argue the number remains between 4,000 and 6,000 – is frustrating U.S. field commanders. Col. Dana Pittard, whose unit repelled the takeover of Baquba, puts the number closer to 120,000.

Despite mounting casualties, endless kidnappings and dire intelligence projections, the President remains “catastrophically optimistic” about his war. He recently lambasted John Kerry for flip-flopping on Iraq, declaring, “Mixed signals are the wrong signals to send to our troops in the field, our allies and, most of all, our enemies.” Lt. Gen. James Conway couldn’t agree more. First ordered to keep out of Fallujah, then to attack and then to withdraw after three bloody days and the brink of victory, Conway had sharp words for the White House. “When your order elements of a marine division to attack a city, you need to understand what the consequences will be and not perhaps vacillate in the middle of something like that. Once you commit you have to stay committed.” Conway somberly added, “I think we certainly increased the level of animosity that existed.”

Sue Niederlander, for one, harbors no love for the administration. She was arrested at a Laura Bush rally after asking the First Lady why her son needed to die in Iraq. Army First Lieutenant Seth Dvorvin was blown up trying to defuse a roadside bomb in February and all his mom got was a lousy pair of handcuffs and a ride in the paddy wagon. As she was spirited away, Niederlander’s nettlesome queries trailed over her shoulder: “Why the senators, the legislators, the congressmen, why aren’t their children serving?” With a shortage of cops on the streets, we may well be ill equipped in the days to come; just imagine how many Sue Niederlanders we’re gonna have to contend with after the President reenacts the draft.

For all this, and the frosty reception given by the U.N. this week, W. continues to ride high and proud. “You cannot lead the war against terror if you wilt or waver when things get tough,” the president said. “Some folks look at me and see a certain swagger, which in Texas is called ‘walking.’” Or in the case of Rangers relief pitcher Frank Francisco, it is called throwing a chair into the stands and breaking a fan’s nose.

A failed leader who has held his subjects captive despite pissing away huge financial surpluses on large-scale failures and squandering copious international support has, after an agonizing turn at the helm, finally agreed to step down. A man whose underhanded and paranoid machinations have laid waste to friend and foe alike while casting a blight on the hapless multitudes in his charge. And though the end is within grasp, we are left somehow unsatisfied that the ulcerated tissue coughed up from our bilious state is Michael Eisner rather than the President himself.

Not resting on its laurels, the Bush-Halliburton administration now proposes siphoning $3 billion set aside for Iraqi reconstruction projects like water and power in an attempt to bolster Baghdad’s feckless security apparatus. Well it’s about time the White House took money away from Iraqis instead of from us Americans. We’ve been closing down fire stations and packing our kids into overcrowded classrooms long enough. One U.S. official confided that the funds could put an additional 40,000 Iraqi policemen on the street, but I guess after Tuesday’s car bomb and minivan ambush, they’re looking for more like 40,070.

What I still can’t figure out, though, is why Bush continues to insist that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and that North Korea doesn’t. Not a “nuclear event,” chirped Condoleezza Rice after a massive explosion near the Chinese border sent up a mushroom cloud large enough to be visible from outer space. Secretary of State Colin Powell said there were “some activities taking place and some sites that we’re watching carefully, but it is not conclusive that they are moving toward a [nuclear] test.” This mysterious episode follows a nearby April blast that killed 3,000 people when – ostensibly – a train laden with chemicals and oil slammed into power lines. This time Pyongyang had a different explanation: North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun declared, “it wasn’t an accident, it wasn’t a nuclear explosion; it was a deliberate detonation of a mountain as part of a reclamation project to accommodate a new Wal-Mart.” Ever suspicious, Rice mused publicly, “Maybe it was a fire — some kind of forest fire.”

Dick Cheney, for one, has been tirelessly fanning the flames of terror, telling voters in Iowa, “It’s absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we’ll get hit again and we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating.” Blowing smoke up a reporter’s ass the following day, Cheney clarified, “I did not say if Kerry is elected, we will be hit by a terrorist attack, what I said was… uh… Oh, go fuck yourself!”

It is arguable, at least, that we are actually more vulnerable with W. at he reins: he opposed creating the Department of Homeland Security, he tried to obviate the 9/11 commission by blocking testimony and withholding documentation and, in the main, he attacked the wrong damn country. Senator Bob Graham voted against the 2002 resolution to authorize the use of force against Iraq, arguing that international terrorist networks – including al Qaeda – pose a greater threat to Americans than Saddam Hussein. The Senator is still carping that we haven’t captured Bin Laden and cites a lack of focus and effort in Afghanistan. Yet, nothing could be further from the truth. Car bombs and assassinations are rife in both countries. Prisoner abuse, to cite another example, has not been confined to Abu Ghraib. Why just yesterday in Kabul three covert American operatives were convicted of torturing Afghan detainees and were sentenced to 10 years behind bars wearing nothing but electrified barbed-wire jock straps and crude rectal inserts.

Which will probably be less pleasant if equally demeaning than a day the DMV, or even an average trip through the airport. Though it might be a hard sell to the thousands of flyers grounded when some idiot at the FAA’s Traffic Control Center in Palmdale forgot to put batteries in his radio. Airliners, running out of fuel, were haphazardly stacked on runways in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and as far away as Seattle and Phoenix. Spokesperson Laura Brown quipped that the four-hour snafu could have been much worse if not for US Air’s second bankruptcy and Delta’s enormous cutbacks. “There are fewer planes nowadays,” she allowed. In an attempt to stay afloat, Delta is terminating between 6,000 and 7,000 employees, shuttering their Dallas hub and paring down the number of routes plied. But none of this will help – retiring pilots are sucking every last (pension) dollar out of the company – and the Atlanta-based carrier should be in Chapter 11 by Christmas.

The White House trumpeted a 144,000 gain in August payrolls with 22,000 manufacturing jobs thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately, a hefty chunk of these were auto workers who returned after month-long retooling shutdowns just in time to get their pink slips. With car sales in the toilet, Ford and GM will manufacture 165,000 fewer vehicles than they did in last year’s final quarter and workers on the assembly line, as well as those supplying parts will soon be lining up for soup. With Bush inexplicably riding high, James Carville must be apoplectic.

Because, it’s not the economy, Stupid, after all. Last week, new claims for unemployment surged to 362,000, productivity slumped and retail sales came in lousy enough to make Intel look comely by comparison. Maybe it’s the Levitra, but Alan Greenspan still has a hard on to raise rates later this month despite a leaky technology sector and the patently unattractive results flashed by Wal-Mart, Sears, Limited Brands and Costco. The denizens of Wall Street, for their part, seem unconcerned with the impending tightening: the Fed will be chasing the bond market up the yield curve anyways, they allow, now that the Congressional Budget Office has affirmed a $7.4 trillion national debt on the back of George Bush’s record 2004 deficit of $422 billion.

All this, and the President is pulling numbers that make the election a forgone conclusion. Absent a cohesive message and feeling the heat, Kerry hastily replaced campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill with former Clinton hack Joe Lockhart. And for what? In the end, these ministrations will prove little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Space Shuttle. With the death toll clearing 1,000 in Iraq, W.’s popularity surely can’t derive from the war. If not the economy, then what?

In a word, God. It was clear at the convention when the last day’s convocation likened any supporter of gay rights to members of Hitler’s inner circle. Not even Dick Cheney was exempt as his comments denouncing a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage brought a swift reprisal from the First Lady. With a gay daughter, Cheney disclosed, “it’s an issue our family is very familiar with.” People, he mused, “ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to.” The Veep then questioned, “What kind of official sanction or approval is going to be granted by government?” “None,” came the sharp reply from Laura Bush. “My daughters may be rum-swilling sluts, but I’ll be damned if they wear strap-ons and eat pussy like that awful k.d. lang.”

The President himself invoked the Almighty as he sluiced $2 billion in emergency funds towards his brother Jeb. After Charley and Frances, W. pushed Congress for “immediate response efforts to these recent disasters.” With Ivan poised to attack, Bush noted, “This is clearly the hand of God. The Lord told me personally that hurricanes would continue lashing at Florida as just long as black folks down there intend to vote.”

As if to fool the commonweal, the Right-Wingers and Christian Fundamentalists were squirreled away under the floorboards as Madison Square Garden was festooned with any manner of moderate Republicans, from Rudy Giuliani to John McCain and Michael Bloomberg. The biggest attraction was of course Arnold Schwarzenegger, who left California swearing to veto a bill granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants who pass a criminal background check. It is unclear how any aliens who by definition are in violation of immigration laws could pass the test, but, remember, in the land where a flashlight can shut down the country’s third largest airport, anything is possible.

The gropenator transfixed delegates with his rags-to-riches story, but sadly remained in the throes of what talent agents describe as the Travolta Syndrome. John Travolta has appeared in scores of films over the last thirty years, yet despite his enormous clout, he remains obliged to dance in every one. So it is for Arnie; he can’t get through a speech without referencing bad movie dialog or stale Saturday Night Live skits. His Republican homage was laced with I’ll-be-backs and girlie-men, although he did shine presidential with his lies of Soviet armor in his neighborhood. “When I was a boy… I saw their tanks in the streets. I saw Communism with my own eyes. I remember the fear we had.” He told a rapt audience that, “It was a common belief that Soviet soldiers could take a man out of his own car and ship him back to the Soviet Union as slave labor.”

Yeah. Except that the Austrian province of Styria, where Schwarzenegger grew up, was occupied by the British, as was neighboring Carinthia. The Red Army left those sectors in 1945, two years before Arnold was born. Like his role model, Richard Nixon, Arnold has become an exemplar of Republican rule number one: never let the truth get in the way of politics.

Better go with the chicken. The EPA announced that fish throughout the nation’s waterways are contaminated with mercury leading 48 states to issue warnings against consumption. New York (along with 18 other states) extended their advisory to every lake and stream under their aegis. EPA administrator Michael Levitt conceded that, “Mercury is everywhere. The more waters we monitor, the more we find.” Undaunted, Bush remains determined to increase mercury emissions fivefold if reelected. W., you have heard all week, is a man of conviction and principle. No flip-flopper, he’s nobly sticking to his guns despite the negligible benefits to Halliburton.

Well, the Republican delegates finally infested Gotham, and like participants in a Tom DeLay fundraiser, found themselves severely outnumbered by protesters. It is miraculous that New York’s men in blue can keep the peace given the attenuation of their resources. Both the Yankees and Mets play at home while the convention and the U.S. Open are in full swing. Moreover, Washington’s unfunded mandates and 17% reduction in funding for community law enforcement only adds to the strain. The dearth of terrorist activity visited upon our shores may seem to validate the administration’s insouciance but the effects of these budget cuts are manifest: With fewer cops on the beat, top line growth at Starbucks has slowed dramatically while profits at Krispy Kreme have been battered, cratering the company’s plans for expansion.

Ed Koch might be the hometown turncoat but he remains in the shadow of Georgia Senator Zell Miller. Miller, a Democrat, will be this year’s Republican keynote speaker despite having done so for his own party back in 1992. It is no great stretch that a couple of tottering old white guys preparing for their dirt naps would jettison concern for any “long-horizon” issues like education, the environment or mid-East stability. These guys want little more than a quick tax break, Medicare coverage of Depends and, perhaps, a small piece of history. Zell, who is thankfully retiring at the end of the year, can now stand shoulder to shoulder with Frank Robinson as the only other man to be MVP of both leagues. Koch, for his part, will probably be remembered for nothing more than fleeing Gracie Mansion right before Dinkins screwed everything up.

The masterful Karl Rove could sell a Toyota Prius to a Saudi prince and so it’s no shocker that he has successfully repackaged a deserter as a war hero. Lord knows that Bush can’t run on his record, so he sells himself as the candidate who can best thwart something that may or may not happen. What has occurred, however, is broad economic decay with the first net loss of jobs since Herbert Hoover’s presidency. During this administration, 1.2 million Americans have lost their jobs, 5.8 million have lost their health insurance and 4.3 million have slipped under the poverty line. Why, things have gotten so bad that, with the bounty of Christmas around the corner, Toys R Us is abandoning the toy business.

Some Wall Street analysts chalk up Toys’ demise to the hazards of competing with Wal-Mart. Bury them next to KB Toys and FAO Schwarz they say. But CEO John Eyler isn’t giving up; rather he’s reshaping the company around the highly profitable Babies R Us division. The two sectors, he noted, “operate in distinct markets, and are at fundamentally different phases in their growth cycle. Overall, the strategic plan we are pursuing is intended to enable Babies R Us to continue to prosper.” It’s a safe bet they will. Demographic trends (and economic necessity) show more women opting for a career and delaying marriage until the tail end of reproductive viability. As such, the market for babies is exploding.

Eyler seems to be on to something: Statistics show that one million U.S. teenagers – 78% percent of them without intent – become pregnant each year. Only half deliver a live birth and fewer than 10 percent of these babies are placed in adoptive homes. Older women, often flush with money, are desperately lining up at the cash register. Eyler notes, “Baby sales have been quite brisk and demand continues to grow unabated. By manufacturing these babies in Third-World countries, we are able to achieve huge operating margins unimaginable in the toy business.” Only in America.