West's stupidity at VMAs becomes Jay Leno's gain

In light of what's happened this week, let's hope Kanye West doesn't interrupt the eulogy at Patrick Swayze's funeral to tell people that Michael Jackson's funeral was the best of all-time.

Yes, Kanye West is, as President Obama said, a jackass for interrupting Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards.

But the fact West did this should not be that much of a surprise given his history of throwing tantrums at award shows. Add the bottle of booze he was pictured holding on the red carpet, and there was a good chance he was going to embarrass himself.

The biggest winners in all this are Beyonce for the classy move of allowing Swift to finish her speech and Jay Leno for the dumb luck of having West on the debut episode of his talk show the day after the incident.

Earlier this year, "South Park" parodied West by turning him into a gay fish. After this incident, it's time for the gay fish to return to sea with the tattered remains of his career.

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Speaking of Jay Leno, his new talk show — which debuted Monday — was, as expected, just the "Tonight Show" he left, but at 10 p.m. and lacking a desk.

Considering how much NBC promoted the new talk show as a bold experiment and a big departure from the "Tonight Show," "The Jay Leno Show" was a total letdown.

But Leno always plays it safe. His monologue will never offend anyone, and his interviews are five minutes of brown-nosing.

The real question is whether the talk show can sustain itself. The debut episode had 17 million viewers, but the second episode had a 42 percent drop in viewership.

If NBC scores a hit with one of its new shows this season, the network might rethink the 10 p.m. time slot next year.

Until then, we're stuck with Jay Leno.