White House Scrutinizes Leno Jokes Targeting Obama

Perhaps because he is in the process of being fired by NBC, Jay Leno is seemingly the only late-night comedian that is willing to poke fun at the Obama administration.  Ironically, despite the fact that he is on the way out, Leno is besting his chief competitors David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel in the ratings and seems to be experiencing a resurgence.

Leno recently quipped that Obama should close the IRS rather than Gitmo and that the Associated Press stylebook should refer to illegal aliens as “undocumented Democrats.”

“NBC is proud of its positive relationship with the White House.” 

Some observers in the Obama Administration have raised questions about Leno’s jokes made at the expense of the White House.  Deputy White House communications director Josephine Robles said in a statement that the White House “is monitoring carefully the statements made over the public airwaves concerning the administration.”  She also said that the White House “expects public commentators to abide by established decency guidelines.”

NBC Entertainment president Jennifer Salke said that the network was “engaging in straight talk” with Leno about his jokes targeting Obama.  “NBC is proud of its positive relationship with the White House which will endure after Mr. Leno's retirement,” she added.

In Leno’s Thursday night opening monologue he made reference to the latest spying scandals engulfing the Obama administration in which it was revealed that the National Security Agency is massively snooping on phone records and email messages. Leno said, “See, when I was growing up, we were always afraid of Big Brother watching us. And now with Obama, we actually have a brother watching us.”

In 2014, as part of the network’s musical chairs, Jimmy Fallon will replace Leno as Tonight Show host while Seth Myers will take over Fallon’s gig.