newark

You've got to give Cory Booker credit: he could have completely fallen on his face trying to match Conan O'Brien laugh for laugh. I mean, politicians are never the most talented folks in the humor department to begin with; even armed with his speechwriters, the Newark mayor was bringing pop guns to the comedic battle with the dual cannons Conan and his veteran writing staff could bring. But he held his own. Now he can reap his reward: Booker's been booked on The Tonight Show for October 16.

Newark hasn't been in this big of an entertainment spotlight since Howard Stern hosted his New Year's Eve beauty pageant there fifteen years ago. So if Booker had to throw out some semi-lame jokes and suffer some gentle ribbing from Conan in order to get his city some publicity, so be it.

At first I thought it was kinda lame that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was going to solve the Tonight Show feud with Newark, NJ mayor Cory Booker via video instead of in person, but it actually worked out better this way (plus she's probably busy with, you know, world stuff).

She was able to intervene in the dispute but at the same time make it clear that she didn't even know what it was about and didn't want Conan to ever bother her again.