Johnny Carson. Jimmy Fallon. Dick Cheney?

Last weekend, The New York Times served up a piece lamenting the vanishing staple of late night TV sidekicks like Ed McMahon. Writing in the “Critic’s Notebook,” Alessandra Stanley explained the phenomenon:

Chelsea Handler has her personal assistant, Chuy Bravo, at her side on her talk show on the E! cable channel, but more established hosts like Jimmy Kimmel, Craig Ferguson and Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert prefer to work alone.

Who’s to blame? Why, former Vice President conniving underlord Dick Cheney, of course!

Former Vice President Dick Cheney may share some blame. He stretched the job description so far to fit his own agenda that the definition of “vice” lost its secondary meaning; at times during the build-up to the Iraq war, Mr. Cheney seemed more like Cardinal Richelieu than Tonto.

No word on whether Stanley is jockeying for a new gig as a Times Op-Ed columnist. After all, why should the paper be satisfied with just one Cheney-hating former entertainment critic?