Hey, 'dja hear about this?

I was going to write a SERIOUS BUDGET RESPONSE, like everyone else’s doing, but that just wouldn’t suit our… style. Instead, here’s this.

On Monday, two older men – their hair graying, their eyes full of doe-eyed innocence – stepped back in front of the cameras with their finest suits freshly dry-cleaned, ready to return to work after a long time away from their famous desk. They’d taken a controversial break that had been panned by the media in order to get a fresh start at their job. In fact, they’re both hated by the media, and it seems most people you talk to hate them. But somewhere out there, a slight majority of the country – the quiet,  white, middle-aged, Wal-Mart shopping masses – admire this man.

One of them was Jay Leno returning to the Tonight Show he abandoned. One of them was Stephen Harper returning to the Parliament he prorogued.

Yes, we’re comparing the Prime Minister to Jay Leno. This ain’t exactly The Economist you’re reading, bub.

In each case, these were beleaguered public figures who would be trying to regain public sympathy after their controversial breaks from the spotlight. Jay Leno was condemned publicly for what seemed like his bullying, nonchalant attitude towards Conan O’Brien, the man whose job he was taking, and for a series of uninspired TV spots that did nothing to apologize for, or even mention, the controversy at hand. Harper had been at the Olympics, and was publicly condemned for his bullying, nonchalant attitude towards Parliamentary procedure, and for hiding behind the Canadian flag for 2 weeks at the Olympics while failing to apologize for, or even mention, the prorogation.

All eyes were on their return, waiting to hear the material they’d prepared in their off-time. For Jay, it would be his first week back – his monologues, his interviews, his general demeanor – people needed to know that he was worthy of the Tonight Show, they wanted him to prove he still had it, that during all of this two month-long bullshit he’d been preparing material to blow us away. For Harper, it would be the throne speech and budget – two long-awaited announcements that had been stored away during prorogation, people needed to know that work had been accomplished during the vacation and needed to have their needs met by a government with shaky confidence levels.

In each case, they dropped the ball.

Jay Leno... Stephen Harper... Jayphen Leper? Fitting surname.

To call Jay Leno’s first show back “underwhelming” would be like calling a root canal without anesthetic  “less than desirable.” In his first monologue back, he plodded through material that was so stale and so far past its best-before date, even a broke college student would throw it out of their fridge.  Dick Cheney jokes, Paris Hilton jokes – tired, beaten dead horses, the type of thing you can watch without even cracking a smile, as if your cheeks muscles are atrophied and paralyzed from the same awful, predictable punchlines. But for Leno, it was safe – he was just doing what he’d always done, re-packaging the same jokes he’s told for 15 years, why the fuck should he change a routine that works when he’s the top-rated man in late night? Stephen Harper also chose to play it safe. He came out with a budget that was met with collective underwhelmed groans. He didn’t take any risks, he didn’t come out from his vacation with new, fresh material – he did what he knew, which was a budget heavy on talk of belt-tightening, nothing new for social programs or the environment or students, a few token tax cuts, a few loopholes tightened. The budget was released with a whimper, clouded by a country still wearing patriotic red-and-white Olympic goggles and a brilliant diversion in the form of the O Canada “debate”.

Of course, each man has his critics. Notably, the media loathes each of them, calling them egomaniacs and control-freaks, caricaturing them as second-rate stuffed-suits trying to fill a huge desk. They’ve also got real critics in the form of opposition who wants to take their job. There’s one guy who’s particularly a real thorn in their side – a sharp-tongued intellectual-type who gets derided himself for being too erratic, too peculiar for the mainstream.

Call him David Letterman, or call him Michael Ignatieff.

Each were brutal with their criticisms leading up to this week. Letterman lampooned Leno as a self-serving hack in a series of heartfelt monologues, all of this coming from a man who still bitterly remembers that Leno stole his job. Ignatieff was vicious in his attacks on Harper over proroguing parliament, calling him a self-serving hack with disdain for Parliament, all of this coming from a man who’s bitter that Harper still has the job he wants.

The most vicious of all of them, though, has been the third-wheel. The late-comer to the party who can risk being inflammatory and hostile since, being outside of the main two-man fray, they’ve got nothing to lose. Call him Jimmy Kimmel, or call him Jack Layton. Kimmel, you’ll remember, got so pissed-off that he decided to do an entire show as Jay Leno. The NDP, meanwhile, are letting all the attack dogs out over the budget – right now the NDP.ca website has a graphic saying that there’s $5 billion exclusively for TAX BREAKS for BANKS and BIG OIL (not true, but, meh) with a picture of some horrid old fat cat smoking a big cigar, right beside a graphic for $0 FOR FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE coupled with a picture of a kid sucking on an asthma inhaler, the implication being Stephen Harper wants to kill your asthmatic kid by somehow poisoning the air, which has nothing to do with global warming, but damn, that’s some good inflammatory rhetoric right there!

Then Gilles Duceppe is George Lopez. You’re forgiven for completely forgetting about either one’s existence. They only appeal to a minority making up about a fifth of their countries – Quebecois and American hispanics, respectively – but within that seemingly narrow demographic they do big business, which translates into bafflingly surprising results (Lopez Tonight averages 1 million+ viewers and occasionally beats shows like Kimmel and Colbert, while the Bloc somehow has 48 seats.) Anyways, no one gives a shit about what either George Lopez or Gilles Duceppe have to say.

And, uh…. I guess the Green Party is Carson Daly or something? Enough with the opposition comparisons, this is getting silly.

So what was the substance of Harper’s big comeback? It was pretty much as thin and predictable as a Leno monologue. If you look at the talking points listed on the Conservative website, it’s pretty much the equivalent of telling the same old Monica Lewinsky and OJ Simpson jokes. Job creation. Hard-working Canadians. Ignatieff’s a tax-and-spend liberal. Carbon tax. Strengthening our economy. Conservative leadership. The same ancient punchlines, told without any of the storytelling flair. The same tired gimmicks, the same joke routines, the same ba-dum-tschh! of sidekick Flaherty on drums after each joke delivery.

Let’s see how their ratings go.