Wealth & Money Quote by Jay Leno

Leno’s joke works because it pretends to marvel at a publishing “injustice” while quietly admitting the market logic behind it: scandal sells, especially when the scandal is already branded into the public imagination. The setup borrows the tone of insider media chatter ("According to New York publishers..."), as if we’re about to hear a serious commentary on gender, power, or literary merit. Then he punctures that balloon with "Well, duh", a phrase that turns the audience into co-conspirators. The laugh isn’t just at the obviousness; it’s at the relief of not having to take the publishing world’s prestige games seriously.

The punchline - “At least his book has some sex in it” - is doing multiple jobs at once. On the surface, it’s a cheap shot about Clinton-era tabloid lore, reducing a complicated political legacy to a salacious headline. Underneath, it’s a critique of how value gets assigned in American culture: Hillary’s policy fluency and professional discipline are framed as less “marketable” than Bill’s proximity to spectacle. Leno isn’t arguing that this is fair; he’s betting the audience already knows it’s unfair and wants permission to laugh at the grim predictability.

Context matters: post-impeachment Clinton narratives turned into a cottage industry, and late-night comedy helped keep the Lewinsky scandal circulating as pop mythology. The joke lands because it riffs on a cynical truth about attention economics: the story people say they’re tired of is still the story they’ll pay for.