The Conservative Cave

Gas prices soaring.

Food prices soaring.

Healthcare costs soaring.

Roads, schools and bridges crumbling.

Don Lemon just published his thoughts about the end of the Late Show. You'll be shocked to learn that he thinks it's all part of a plot, one in which failed white men are silencing anyone who challenges Republicans. Lemon says he was the canary in the coal mine and Colbert is just the next victim.

Quote

The networks didn’t like me asking conservatives hard questions. CNN didn’t like the mirror I was holding up every night. So they pushed me out. And I thought: if it happened to me it will happen to others. It will trickle down. Or up. Depending on how you look at it.

Now it has trickled all the way to late night television.

It has been three years since Don Lemon was fired and most of us probably don't think about him all that often anymore. But just as a reminder, Don Lemon was not fired because he was such a tough interviewer. He was fired because he was a prickly, arrogant man who repeatedly offended the two women co-hosts CNN had paired him with. Remember this?

... Because American leftists are clinically insane, fans of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert like to blame President Trump for the host's walking papers. Some of them throw in a dash of garment-rending about CBS and corporate evil, but usually circle back to a Trump tantrum. As I have said on many occasions, President Trump isn't just living rent-free in their heads, he's building condos there.

What those on the left aren't talking about is the program's bloated production costs and the fact that Colbert made a conscious decision to tell half of the country to go you-know-what ourselves. Well, nobody on the left had been discussing the latter. Earlier this week, Variety — Hollywood's news organization of record — had a dimly lit lightbulb moment:
...
Throughout most of Letterman's tenure on television, his trademark was doing goofy things that just weren't seen on talk shows at any time of day. Even when he was being a little bit acerbic, he kept it weird enough so that he didn't seem cranky or bitter. ...

Near the end of his run on The Late Show, Letterman wandered more and more into partisan grumpy old man stuff. Nobody on our side of the aisle ever thought he was conservative, but he also wasn't making it a point to offend us. That changed in the last couple of years before he left late-night television. He began giving the implied finger to half of his potential audience. Conservatives on social media were a combination of disappointed and angry because so many of us had been fans of his work up until then.

I can't help but believe that Letterman's embrace of leftist partisan vitriol emboldened Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel when they made the choice to be emotional political advocates rather than humorous talk show hosts. Kimmel's weepy breakdown after President Trump was elected again in 2024 remains perhaps the most pathetic spectacle in the history of late-night TV.

200-plus
That’s the number of staffers The Late Show currently employs. Can anyone explain why a program that consists almost entirely of two people talking across a desk needs more than 200 staffers?