This sentence was spoken last night by Conan O’Brien on his second-to-last Tonight Show. He was referring to the problems in Haiti, but depending on what happens next for him, he might have also inadvertently been referring to members of his staff.

As we’ve all read by now, O’Brien and his reps haggled for days to get every dime they could from NBC for his staff’s severance packages, and Conan himself will donate a large sum – a seven figure amount, according to his management – toward those packages out of his own settlement, which is reported to be around $32 million.

There’s no word on how exactly the severance will break down – given the amount of money involved, maybe each staffer gets six months pay? One year’s worth? More? – but however long it lasts, given both the current weakness of the economy and the generally tough nature of finding jobs in television, there’s no guarantee that every member of his staff will find employment before their severance runs out.

The next month or so will be instructive, of course, as Conan and his reps negotiate with Fox to see if he can become the next – and, if it happens, almost certainly most successful – entertainer to spearhead their late night efforts. But from what we’re reading, affiliate relations, the same thing that ultimately killed “The Jay Leno Show” (and yes, I know, the show also sucked, but I’m just talking about the business end of this right now) makes a late night deal at Fox far from a sure thing.

So let’s imagine for a moment that Fox doesn’t happen for Conan, and his 200+ staffers pound the pavement, seeking to hook up with new shows or other opportunities. With the full force of Hollywood’s sympathy carrying them aloft, there’s no doubt that many of them will find new gigs before the severance runs out.

But will all of them? Chances are, the answer is no, for the simple reason that great jobs in Hollywood are hard to come by. And for those that do get new gigs, how many will get jobs that pay them significantly less than The Tonight Show did?

I certainly hope for the best for all of them – I’ve known several members of his writing staff for years – and for this reason and more, as the world hails the conquering, martyred hero of late night, there’s one nagging question I can’t get out of my head.

If some of his current staffers are still unemployed three, six, twelve months down the line – or, months after whenever the generous severance packages run out, whenever that may be – will at least one of them have the following recurring thought bouncing around his or her head?

“Would 12:05 really have been so bad?”

Yes, NBC insulted the hell out of Conan by pulling the move they did. They behaved without sense or tact, and piled bad decision upon bad decision until they made their network look like Enron and Lehman Brothers rolled into one.

But freely admitting that NBC gave Conan a crappy, insulting choice calls to mind the fact that so many Americans in 2010 are faced with bad choices that have far greater consequences – like, for instance, whether or not to use what little money they have on health insurance.

If it seems an out-of-context comparison, it’s not. Because while, as Conan indicated in his much-lauded statement of defiance, he agonized about the legacy of The Tonight Show in making his decision to leave NBC – a legacy that, according to all the Conan die-hards, has been pretty much dead for almost 20 years anyway – it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that in the end, Conan placed that already-tarnished legacy above the well-being of his staffers.

If the fate of his staffers had been his primary concern, as the narrative of the past few days and statements from his management would have us believe, then the choice would have been simple: take the 12:05 slot, and save every job.

Was 12:05 a crappy option? Absolutely.

But guess what? Life is hard, and filled with crappy options for each and every one of us even in good times – and these are not good times. National unemployment is hovering around ten percent, health care is becoming even more prohibitively expensive every year, and people nationwide are changing careers, taking lower paying jobs, and making the sorts of tough decisions that result in far bigger problems than the loss of a talk show.

The deeper we all delved into this story, the more absurd and lacking perspective it seemed, especially when some began hailing Conan as a hero for recessionary times for the way he stood up to corporate interests. For Team Conan, Coco is a little man taking a big stand.

But not only is this misguided, it’s backwards.

Because while people all over the country were making real choices with real consequences, Conan’s choice was this: move a television show – a show he got paid the kingly amount of somewhere between $10 and $15 million a year to host – to a starting time one half-hour later; or put 200 people out of work while personally walking away with tens of millions of dollars.

He chose the latter.

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Conan O’Brien, therefore, is us – the little guy. Conan is he or she who is mad as hell, can’t take it anymore, and is now rising up to claim what is rightfully theirs.

Hogwash.

Because if we’re looking at this situation realistically, a much better comparison – and one that contradicts the Conan-as-revolutionary meme – comes to us from HBO’s landmark series, “The Wire.”

For those unfamiliar, “The Wire,” which ran for five seasons and is widely regarded as the best dramatic series in television history, chronicled all sides of the drug trade in the city of Baltimore, including the dealers, the police, the government officials and the media. Without turning this into a full-on Wire tribute, suffice it to say that in its breadth and honesty, it is television as art, and if you haven’t seen it, you owe it to yourself to put the series DVD at the top of your Amazon wishlist or Netflix queue.

(Warning: Wire spoilers ahead)

One phrase viewers of “The Wire” became intimately familiar with by series end is “the game,” which is shorthand for the life of drug dealing and murder that they have chosen to live. So when the mother of young drug dealer D’Angelo Barksdale persuades him to take a 20-year prison sentence instead of turning state’s witness for the good of the family, since her brother runs – and she profits handsomely from – the drug empire he works for, it’s accepted as all part of the game. Later, when he turns up dead in prison, that is too.

By series end, the implications of the game are clear. If you choose to play it, you may reap great rewards, but you will probably end up dead or in jail. That’s just how it goes.

But what’s unspoken about the game – and, I believe, one small part of why the show was such an incredible achievement – is that in exposing it with such brazen honesty, it reflected as well on the games in our own lives. Whatever profession you’re in, there are situations you find yourself in, trade-offs and sacrifices you make, and things you do that you may not have done were you able to live your life exactly the way you wanted to. Some of these are well known and oft-discussed, and some may never be mentioned. But we all have a game in our lives, and areas such as politics, the media or show business have games that are particularly intense. Hollywood certainly does, and here’s where the comparison becomes relevant for late night.

The outrage against Jay Leno – claims that he engineered this in some devious fashion, and that Conan has been the sacrificial lamb/victim in all this – boils down to one point of view: that Jay Leno has been playing the game, but Conan hasn’t.

This is naive at best; disingenuous or manipulative at worst. Either way, it’s just wrong.

Because, as I pointed out the other day in “Kimmel, O’Brien, and the truth about Leno-Hate,” Conan O’Brien was just as willing to throw Jay Leno overboard – with no consideration for him or his future – as many assert that Jay Leno is willing to do to Conan now.

When the deal was made in 2004 for Conan to take over The Tonight Show, it was obvious that Leno didn’t want to “retire,” as many are now calling for him to do. He was pressured by NBC, and to attempt to avoid the hassle of the Letterman/Leno battle of the early 90s, he agreed.

But while all this was happening, what was Conan thinking? We can’t see inside his head, of course, but just from what we know of all this, he had to know that:

1. He would be displacing Jay Leno from a job he’d had for over a decade;
2. He would be displacing Jay Leno from a job he excelled at (whatever your thoughts on its content), as his show had been #1 in late night for years;
3. He would be displacing Jay Leno from a job he didn’t really want to leave;
4. He wouldn’t have to do this himself, but would have the toughest lawyers and agents in the game doing his bidding;
5. He would be doing all this for no reason other than his own selfish benefit.

Conan O’Brien wanted The Tonight Show. Jay Leno had it. So Jay had to be displaced. Simple as that.

Conan, from day one of this debacle, has been playing the game. Like Stringer Bell, the ruthless second in the Barksdale organization in “The Wire,” there were people that needed to be displaced in order for him to succeed, and certain unpleasant acts that needed to occur for him to occupy a place of power. When those acts blew back on Stringer – he was gunned down by not one, but two people he had tried to kill – he was not surprised. Conan shouldn’t be either.

Obviously, this is intended as metaphor. I’m certainly not asserting any literal bloodlust on Conan’s part, and I do believe that overall, he’s a pretty nice guy. But he’s not naive, stupid, or unwilling to do the things you need to do to get ahead in Hollywood. In other words, he’s as willing to play the game as anyone else, including Jay Leno.

In “The Wire,” Marlo Stanfield, the dealer who conquers the Barksdales and becomes the new power in the drug trade, murders a mentor named Proposition Joe in cold blood so he can take over his territory. Prop Joe tries to save himself by saying, “I’ll just go away.” Marlo, cold blooded as he is, doesn’t believe that Joe can stay away from the game, and can’t risk having Joe come back on him. So he has his henchman, Chris Partlow, blow Joe’s head off.

Conan in 2004 was like Marlo in one sense. His henchpeople (agents) went to NBC and said, we want Jay’s territory. And they got it. The biggest difference, of course, is that they did let Jay walk away – with millions and millions of dollars. Because that’s how their game is played. Luckily for all in this saga, the rules of the game in Hollywood are much different than the rules of the game on the streets of Baltimore.

But in either place, if you play the game, you know the rules, and you also know that the game may blow back on you. Conan had no problem playing the game in 2004. And if “The Wire” taught us anything, it’s that once you’re in the game, you’re there to stay.

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