Cognitive Decline

 When you've lost Cronkite, you've lost Middle America. This was the opinion Lyndon Johnson shared with his advisors in response to Walter Cronkite's lack of support for the war in Vietnam. It was an acknowledgement of the importance of the voice of a generation. Most trusted news source back in the day? It wasn't even a contest. 

Which is what I was thinking about when I read that the candidate for "president" who has been convicted of thirty-four felonies whined at a MAGAt rally in Pennsylvania, "Where's Johnny Carson? Bring back Johnny." 

A couple of points here: First and perhaps foremost, Mister Carson retired from broadcasting in 1992. He retired from this material plane in 2005. Secondly, Johnny was famously apolitical in his monologues. But even that restraint was tested as Richard Nixon's presidency began to implode after the 1972 election. In 1973, Johnny's monologue included this bit: “President Nixon, according to his wife, likes to play the piano late at night in the White House. Did you see that in the paper? True. Plays the piano late at night. … The President is going to- is going to form his own group. Did you hear that Tom? Called the Watergate Five.” Later that same year, he let this one fly: “You know, it is really hard to believe how many people have resigned from the White House today. One of the reporters from New York Times called the White House today, and on the other end he heard, ‘Hello, this is President Nixon. I'm not home right now, but when you hear the beep, will you leave your name and address?’ It's getting very strange.”

So I suppose what I am suggesting here is that Johnny Carson must be seen as a very tame commentator for late night TV compared to the current lineup of Fallon, Colbert and Kimmel. Even Jimmy Fallon who famously gave the former game show host a pass just a couple months before the 2016 election, preferring instead to muss up The Donald's Do. Since then, the landscape of late night has changed to a much less hospitable place for the adjudicated rapist. He is the butt of most of the jokes being told after your late news, with those bits going viral thanks to social media and early bedtimes. Stephen Colbert is pulling no punches. Jimmy's still mostly playing nice, but the material is so abundant it's almost impossible not to fall into it. 

And then there's Jimmy. The Orange One saves special distaste for ABC's late night host. Jimmy Kimmel, the man who once suggested during last year's Oscars that he was seeing the twice-impeached former president's comments on social media and wondered aloud to those watching, "Isn't it past your jail time?" 

So the insurrectionist felon has lost the late night hosts. He can always savor the memories of Johnny Carson, who once described the MAGAt in chief in a series of monologues from the 1980s.