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Look, we're not going to lie to you. We went out last night, got grievously drunk (on a school night, no less), and forgot to TiVo Tom Cruise's appearance on Leno, so this AP story is the first account we've read. We know, we've failed you (but surely you're used to that by now, we fail you upwards of 12 times per day), but more importantly, we've failed Tom Cruise. How can we properly recognize his exhaustive efforts to publicly legitimize his highly successful publicity partnership if we're out guzzling liquid pain-relief, instead of watching Cruise perform a pale, face-saving imitation of the "look at how hopelessly insincere fake love looks from atop a couch!" dance for Jay Leno? We're not fit to thrust ourselves downward and exuberantly punch the ground that Cruise's feet would stand on, if the power of ersatz love weren't suspending him six inches above it. And so we apologize in the threefold manner of our Biblical forebears: We're sorry, we're sorry, we're sorry.

But because we must: The inevitable t-shirt, in the time-honored "Free/Save X" tradition.

[Photo: AP]