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I haven't watched any late night TV in years, but I used to love Letterman. But once he started coming out with dancing showgirls, he lost any claim to being 'counter-culture'.

Last night I watched Leno and thought he was fine. The Letterman/WGA deal has left a really bad taste in my mouth. It may work in the short run but people can see through this sort of favouritism rubbish. As a writer who fully understands the need for writers to be protected from producers who exploit them, my respect for the WGA goes down in this a little bit each day.

If they try to make Leno a whipping boy for breaking the picket they will lose the battle of public opinion and rightly so.

Hey Nicol, I'm kind of surprised you feel so strongly about the WGA. Don't take this the wrong way, but it just doesn't jive with the standard caricature of you as, you know, a crazy right-wing fanatic. If I may ask, what's your opinion of unions in general, e.g. the autoworkers union and the teacher's union?

Just curious, so feel free to pass if you don't want to get into it.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but it just doesn't jive with the standard caricature of you as, you know, a crazy right-wing fanatic."

Because caricatures have nothing to do with the truth.

"I may ask, what's your opinion of unions in general, e.g. the autoworkers union and the teacher's union?"

Unions are like corporations. They are necessary evils. Do corporations exploit workers for profit? Of course, many of them do. Without unions, many workers would be unprotected. BUT...unions then can become too powerful with every bit as much corruption and wealth at the top as the corporate heads that they seek to keep in check. Unions can also exploit workers for profit and power. Look at the corrupt history of the Teamsters.

That is what unions do not want to hear...that they are the flip side of the same coin. When teachers put the needs of the union ahead of the needs of the children, then unions become a bad thing. Many unions are motivated by idology in the same way that corporations are motivated by profit. Both can cause tremendous damage.

In short, I see them as no different then the corporations they rally against. They both do good, they both do bad and both are here to stay.

Right now, the WGA is coming from a very emotional, ideological place. I agree with the overwhelming majority of their demands and I could tell you first hand stories of producers who have tried to screw me. (understand that I write under a pseudonym here.)

But watch the two part interview that Dave posted a few weeks ago with Paul Haggis and the two other members. Once they start referring to the producers as 'robber-barons' with a straight face, it becomes a joke...and they don't see it. That is why the Letterman thing irks. It is irrational and I suspect was mostly done so that the union could have a steady stream of actors, actresses and Letterman himself bashing the producers every night to get the public on their side.

It might work in the short run...but it won't help all of those people who feel the double standard being employed for ideological reasons.

I hope that helps clarify my views.

It does, and I'm pretty much in agreement with everything you said. (I'm one of those neoliberals who agrees with traditional liberal principles but also thinks they could often best be achieved with market forces.)

In many industries, I think unions have outgrown their usefulness and do more harm than good. The autoworkers' union and the teachers' union are this way. And on a purely theoretical level I've been thinking that the WGA could be the same, as they set artificial price floors in an industry in which the supply (people who want to be writers) vastly exceeds the demand (people with the money to produce the scripts).

But I don't know as much about the movie industry as I do the others, so I don't know how it shakes out in the real world. And my liberal heartstrings are pulled, of course, any time I hear the term "exploited workers," even if they're making six figures.

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