Why are the Politics of Late Night Television so Fascinating?

That's not a snide rhetorical question -- I'd genuinely like to know the answer.

There's a strange and compelling sense of deja vu accompanying the Leno/Conan imbroglio, but there's got to be a deeper reason why America loves late night cat fights.

I have my theories and am just as hooked as everyone else -- but there's just gotta be an explanation, right?

MORE: This sucks:

Because all recurring characters like Pimpbot and The Masturbating Bear, and sketches like "In the Year 2000" are NBC's intellectual property, they'll be keeping them if and when they reach a settlement with Conan O'Brien and he moves on to another network. And by keeping them, we of course mean killing them. If NBC were a creature of Greek mythology, it would be Medea.