The new nightly Jay Leno Show indicates NBC’s faith in Mr. Leno’s ability to turn armchair rubberneckers away from CSI crime scenes on CBS and hospital emergency room disasters on ABC, but I fear it’s not well-founded. I’m not blaming Mr. Leno; I blame whoever is scheduling guests like Pee-wee Herman and Rush Limbaugh.

          As creepy and annoying as Pee-wee Herman is, I bear him no lasting ill will. Rush Limbaugh is a different story. I don’t know why, but for some reason, when I look at him I feel an almost uncontrollable urge to squeeze his cheeks until his head explodes (not dramatically, like dynamite, but embarrassingly, like a whoopee cushion). This urge to violence is quite specific—I don’t want to throw him into a vat of acid, or hide a rattlesnake in his bed—and it’s specific to Limbaugh, rather than, say, Bill O’Reilly or Ann Coulter, both of whom I’d love to neutralize but remain flexible about exact methodology. I don’t know what it is about Limbaugh’s pasty face and the chronically bombastic tone in his voice that makes my fingers itch to take his flaccid jowls between my hands and squeeze.

          Then I started thinking, maybe this is not an irrational urge, but one rooted in logic. How better to deal with a pompous windbag than to deflate and humiliate? My fantasy punishment fits the crime.