An AP television reporter by the name of David Bauder represents yet another sign that the American media is chock full of the infantile and clueless.  Last weekend Bauder gloated in his column that the audience-challenged David Letterman was experiencing a dramatic boost to his struggling fortunes.  It turns out that Letterman's dispute with Sarah Palin has given the late night host something of a second wind in his ratings competition with Conan O'Brien.

Bauder's essay is complete with the requisite interview with an Ivy League professor specializing in something like television studies.  The important issue of Letterman's ability to attract more viewers than O'Brien is heart pounding stuff indeed.  Bauder and the professor make sure to do a thorough analysis of Letterman's strengths and weaknesses over the years in an attempt to predict the future outcome of this latest fortuitous event involving Sarah Palin.

Did Bauder find the time in the essay to discuss the tasteless and juvenile attempt at humor Letterman directed at Palin and her daughter?  Well, only in passing.  Bauder only needed a sentence to argue that Letterman was not responsible for the ensuing dust-up with the Palin family.  The skirmish wasn't Letterman's fault in other words.

But that was at the beginning of the story.  The rest of the riveting column is designed to bring readers to the edge of an intellectual precipice: will Letterman overtake O'Brien?  Will Letterman's descent into the moral gutter result in a ratings resurrection?  The suspense is almost unbearable.  Rather than destroy the magnificent and unexpected finale of this most profound exegesis read the story yourself.  

Then shed a tear over the state of American popular culture.