President Obama boosted "Tonight Show" ratings even higher than originally thought

By GottaLaff

One of our trolls came around the other day all huffy and puffy about the president's declining popularity. Um, wrong:

President Obama's appearance on "The Tonight Show" last week provided an even larger ratings boost than initially thought.

Early reports based on preliminary data were that Jay Leno's late-night program had drawn its largest audience in more than four years. But when the final numbers were released Thursday by Nielsen Media Research, it turned out that 14.6 million people tuned in -- the fourth highest number since Leno took over from Johnny Carson in 1992.

NBC said the only three Leno shows that attracted bigger crowds were his debut telecast, the night of the "Cheers" finale in 1993 and the night of the "Seinfeld" finale in 1998.

So much for Prez O's slide down the slippery slippage slope.