We’re going to get briefly into this in the print edition this week, but worth noting here as well. The story of the Letterman “protest” fascinates me for a lot of reasons - the paltry turnout and what it means being a big one. But also telling is the fact that the protest would not have existed at all had it not been for what we might call the Professional Outrage Merchants.

In this case, that would be John Ziegler - a conservative talk radio host turned filmmaker, who produced a film last year called “Media Malpractice… How Obama Got Elected.”

Because, see, it wasn’t that nearly a decade of failed Republican policies had anything to do with it; it was all the pernicious media.

In any event, outrage is Ziegler’s stock in trade. And it just so happens that he’s the guy behind the “Fire David Letterman” campaign and Web site. Here he’s listed as an official media contact for the “movement.”

And it’s all timed perfectly, because Ziegler just returned to the Los Angeles airwaves this month.

This would be the equivalent of me orchestrating a public campaign to get Bill O’Reilly canned, and claiming it was all just a groundswell of public opinion.

No grass roots here whatsoever. It’s Astroturf, though and through - planted, and maintained, by a pro.