Liberal white humor geeks’ pants exploded last night when the worlds of Barack Obama and Conan O’Brien intersected on “The Tonight Show.”  If you can get NBC.com’s crappy video player to work, you can see Conan replay the clip of Brian Williams asking the president about his trip to the Middle East coinciding with the first week of “The Tonight Show” not sucking.  It’s a fun little segment, but the New York Times wagged its old gray finger at NBC for the stunt:

There was a time when such cross promotion between a network news division and its corporate entertainment sibling – during a presidential interview, no less — would have caused rebellion in the newsroom. It will be interesting to see what reaction, if any, there will be to this bit of stunt programming at NBC News.

It will also be interesting to see if there is any political blowback, especially from those who believe that some in the news media are too chummy with the president and his administration.

Yeah, I hate the way the president doesn’t come off as a total dick.  Damn you, NBC!  I honestly don’t think I could work at the New York Times for more than a half hour before I slapped someone.  Maybe twenty minutes.  But I doubt it.