Last night in Jay Leno’s audience, two people stood up and protested the exclusion of Dennis Kucinich from the NBC debate, pointing out that GE is NBC’s owner. Earlier that day NBC challenged in the Nevada Supreme Court a judge’s decision that they had broken a contract in excluding Kucinich after initially inviting him. (Corporate policy, as the best way to serve American Democracy?) As pointed out on the Randi Rhodes show today: NBC’s local affiliate in Nevada blacked out the debate. This to possibly avoid FCC violations, as well as deny free air access to potential Nevada Democratic voters. Yikes!

I initially heard the clips from Leno’s show this morning on Howard Stern. The voices were fairly audible but Stern, a union member and a WGA strike supporter, thought the shouts were about the strike. Robin Quivers, the laughing, sometimes voice-of-reason on the show, discerned that it didn’t concern the strike. Leno’s guest, Bill Maher, should be politically savvy enough to know what they were talking about, but his basic retort was that they are “bat—- crazy.” Maher is a WGA member and purported liberal and smart guy. His show, like Leno’s, is back on the air supposedly without the help of writers. He claims to be using old stand-up material and stuff off the top of his head. He does get off some sharp criticism of bush in the YouTube clip below:

I am in support of the WGA strike and their demands but it is strange that it does somewhat hamper the few voices of dissent in the media (The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Bill Maher). And the ability to keep them stifled during our current political process is within corporate hands.