Jay is the most unfairly judged person in TV history

After reading for the last couple of years the numerous charges and criticisms aimed at this man, and balancing them against the reported facts as investigated by Bill Carter, there doesn't seem to be any doubt that Jay Leno has gotten a mostly bum rap. Chief among the nonsense is the belief that Jay actually wanted to retire from "The Tonight Show", but changed his mind and got Conan O'Brien fired as the show's new host. The facts, however, are that Jay was told by his boss, Jeff Zucker, that in order to keep Conan with NBC, they were going to offer him the one thing he couldn't turn down: Jay Leno's job. And because Jay wasn't particularly wild about surrendering then and there his position as host of "The Tonight Show", they agreed to let him finish off his commitment to the show ending in May of 2009. Upon that time's arrival, though, Zucker made it clear they would not be renewing Jay's "Tonight Show" contract. It would be nonsense to suggest that this is not the same thing as being fired. Despite that, there are people who claim that it was Conan O'Brien who was fired from "The Tonight Show" when the truth is he resigned. Conan refused to continue with the show when NBC planned to give Jay 30 minutes at 11:35 to try and bring up the show's flagging ratings. So, expressing the opinion that "The Tonight Show" must always begin before midnight, Conan left "The Tonight Show"- and went straight to TBS to host a show that would bump "Lopez Tonight" which was also experiencing bad ratings. Now, even if George Lopez actually was (as he claims) fine with this move, the motivation for what NBC wanted to do, and what TBS eventually did do, seem identical. They were both trying to boost the ratings of failing shows that were losing money. And yet there are those who vehemently deny that TBS moving George's show later into the night was anything like what NBC wanted to do with Conan. Apparently, when Conan bumps a show, it's seen as extending a helping hand in hopes of making another guy's show more popular (an attempt that failed, by the way). But, when Jay does the same thing, it's seen as unwarranted, selfish, pushy and predatory.

Now that the dust from the "Tonight Show" debacle has settled, can it not rightly be said that there was a huge double standard being applied there, and that Jay was really unfairly judged throughout?