BECK BECOMES OBAMA'S "MOST POTENT FOE"

Landing a knock-out counterpunch against the founder of a group that had led a boycott against his program, Fox News commentator Glenn Beck on Sunday called the resignation of White House "green czar" Van Jones a victory for "everyday Americans." Presumably taking note that Jones's resignation was proffered on a Saturday, a day when relatively few people read newspapers or watch news programs, Beck accused the Obama administration of forcing Jones's resignation "under cover of darkness." Beck and other conservative commentators had accused Jones of being a black nationalist, a communist, a "committed revolutionary," and part of an overall plot by the Obama administration to impose socialism on America. In his resignation statement, Jones did not respond to any of the specific charges made by Beck and others but insisted, "They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide." Jones is a co-founder of Color of Change, a group that succeeded in persuading some three dozen advertisers to pull their commercials off Beck's program after the commentator called President Obama a "racist" who hated whites. The website Politico.com commented that Jones's resignation "confirmed Beck's stature as the administration's most potent foe."

LETTERMAN NOT ABOUT TO TAKE ON PALIN AGAIN

David Letterman on Thursday indicated that he is not ready to get into another tussle with Sarah Palin. In June he was forced to apologize for an admittedly crude joke he made during a Late Nightmonologue about Palin's daughter Bristol. On Thursday, he referred to a Vanity Fairarticle that extensively quoted Levi Johnston, the father of Bristol's baby. The article, Letterman noted, claimed that Palin proposed that the pregnancy be kept secret and that she adopt the baby after it was born. Letterman waited for the audience reaction, then remarked, "Oh yeah, like I'm gonna make a joke about this. None of my business. Whatever you want. 'Live and let live,' that's my motto." The audience broke into applause.

TWO KOREAN TV ACTORS NAMED BEST IN THE WORLD

They may be far from being household names in the West, but Kim Hyun-joong and Moon Geun-young have been voted best TV actors in an online poll conducted in 50 countries that included TV shows produced in Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Yahoo! Korea, which conducted the poll for the Seoul International Drama Awards, said that Kim received 25.5 million votes and Moon, 25.2 million. Boys Over Flowers, in which Kim costars, was voted best TV drama with 22.2 million votes.

FOOTBALL DRAWS CROWD ON SATURDAY

Although the television networks have written off Saturday as a day when few people -- particularly young people -- watch TV, viewers can often turn out in droves for specials and sports programming, it seems. For example, ABC's college football telecast of the Alabama-Virginia Tech game on Saturday averaged 6.60 million viewers, peaking in the final half hour at 10:30 p.m. with 7.69 million. All of the other networks offered reruns and did indeed fail to attract viewers. NBC averaged just 4.09 million for its schedule; CBS, 3.96 million; and Fox, 3.87 million.

LENO: "TV IS ULTIMATELY A DISAPPOINTING BUSINESS"

Jay Leno insists that he doesn't worry about the possibility that his new TV series will fail. In an interview with Sunday's Boston Globe, Leno remarked, "You just do the best you can do. If it's bad, they throw you out on your ass. That's fine. If you're not doing any good, get out." Asked why he didn't simply decide to retire à la Johnny Carson, Leno indicated that he enjoys working -- and that he took the 10:00 gig after NBC promised the Tonightshow to Conan O'Brien to keep him from leaving the network. "There really wasn't a lot of places to go,'' Leno told the Globe. "If you go to ABC or another network, then it looks like 'Oh, now you want to go against The Tonight Show and beat them.' That's bad form. [The 10 p.m. slot] is an area that was open, no one's done it, and I thought it might be fun to give it a try.'' Besides, he said, he has reached the conclusion that "TV is ultimately a disappointing business. The reason it pays you a lot of money is so when you get screwed, you have something left over."