And it’s Gawker’s Mike Byhoff… again.

Byhoff is a former television video editor who now writes on the subject of television for online gossip rag Gawker.com. We trashed him last year for calling George Lopez, Wanda Sykes and Joe Koy lazy and “racist” for telling similar Tiger Woods jokes on television.

Byhoff is at it again, this time calling Jay Leno a thief based on two jokes from Leno’s Monday monologue. One of them, Byhoff claims, is ripped off from former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The other is a Tiger Woods joke allegedly stolen from an ESPN.com columnist.

Neither joke is particularly good, but neither is particularly bad. And, we contend, neither indicates theft.

The first joke employs a device similar to that used by Romney, in a speech on February 18th, at a gathering in Washington. Romney said:

I spent the weekend in Vancouver. As always, the Olympic Games were inspiring. But in case you didn’t hear the late-breaking news, the gold medal in the downhill was taken away from American Lindsey Vonn. It was determined that President Obama is going downhill faster than she is.

Leno, in his Monday night monologue (with Lindsey Vonn coming up as his second guest of the evening, said:

She was amazing, did you see her? When it comes to going downhill, nobody’s faster. Okay, maybe NBC.

The joke is admittedly similar to Romney’s. It’s self-deprecating and it’s a dig at his employer and it will neither change the world or cure cancer.

But for Mike Byhoff, it’s evidence of something far more sinister.

The second joke in question is simple and hinges on a bit of wordplay. Leno quotes Tiger Woods as “returning to Bhuddism… as opposed to what he was practicing before– that was ‘Booty-ism.”

Byhoff cites a tweet from an ESPN.com columnist Shane Igoe, who tweeted the Bhuddism/Booty-ism joke the day of Woods’ presser, as evidence that Leno is stealing. (“We received a tip…” says Byhoff.)

Neither joke is groundbreaking. Neither is very “fresh,” when one considers that Woods’ conference was only one day after Romney’s speech. (And, to be quite honest, Mr. Igoe should hardly be thumping his chest for coming up with the Booty-ism gag! It may have made it into the Twittersphere quickly, but, as a topical gag, it’s nothing to Tweet home about.)

To Byhoff, however, the jokes indicate that Leno is a thieving hack. He goes into Comedy Detective mode to prove his point, complete with Youtube clips and Twitter screenshots.

He seems to have an unhealthy fixation on standup comics, particularly standup comics who host television shows. Of course, we have a fixation on standup comics… but we’re standup comics! We see no mention of standup comedy in Byhoff’s bio. Of course, this doesn’t preclude him from commenting on standup, but he seems to have a lot of bad things to say about them. And a lot of it is pure horse hockey. Like this, about Leno’s monologue:

Leno should receive the benefit of the doubt, though. These jokes—- while bad—- are certainly obvious for a comedy writer that has to churn out 30 one-liners a night. The thing is, we won’t give Leno the benefit of the doubt. Jay Leno has a history of stealing material and ideas, and those jokes were both cheesy (right up Jay Leno’s alley), and accessible to Leno and his writers. And just the fact that Jay Leno made a Buddhism/Bootyism joke on his first night back should make everyone shake their heads in collective disbelief.

Leno has no such “history of stealing material and ideas.” Anyone who says so is lying or mistaken. He has a reputation for delivering a lengthy monologue five nights a week that is broad in its appeal and that rarely challenges the listener. He does not, however, have any kind of a reputation for theft. In his live standup act, he has a reputation for being a creative, prodigious and hard-working standup comic– perhaps legendarily so.

But this is apparently news to Byhoff.

It might be argued that Leno should have resisted the temptation to do the gag. The Tiger Woods press explosion occurred more than two weeks prior… while Leno was off the air. In the topical humor game, such opportunities are frequently missed. In this case, it might have been better to let this joke go in favor of one that was more topical. But to cite its inclusion in Monday’s routine as evidence of outright theft is ludicrous.

A staffer who comes up with such a joke– especially a staffer that is charged with generating a high volume of topical jokes for a network television show– knows that it would have a very short “shelf life.” And he is also acutely aware that such events as Woods’ press conference will be watched by millions and that hundreds of jokes about it will be instantly written and circulated– via Twitter, Facebook, blogs and water coolers. Under normal circumstances, however, neither of these two factors are justification for said writer to withhold or turf such a joke. But the passage of more than 15 days is a very strong incentive to leave the joke out. By that time, even a grandmother or two might have come up with such a punchline. It is the passage of time that makes the joke egregious, not the relative weakness.

A very good case could have been made that Leno’s monologue was weak, even by Tonight standards. Further, there is little question that both jokes should have been left out.

But to go so far as to say that they indicate a propensity to steal material is unnecessarily harsh and perhaps indicates some sort of personal grudge on the part of Byhoff. At the very least, Byhoff seems, once again, to be ignorant of how television comedy writing works (or sometimes fails to) and even seems somewhat mystified as to how humor ricochets around the popular culture. He seems particularly ignorant of the ways and wherefores of topical humor and its peculiar rules and customs. Odd, considering that Gawker is representing him as an expert on television.