“The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.” - Alexis De Tocqueville

And what would De Tocqueville say about Sean Combs? Isn’t Diddy the embodiment of De Tocqueville’s America? Between starring in Raisin in the Sun on Broadway, his Sean John clothing line, and Bad Boy Records, one almost forgets that this is the same guy who, just ten short years ago, made millions by stretching the definition of sampling (Sting didn’t seem to mind), dancing (whirling with arms outstretched), and rapping (“uh, uh, yeah, uh”) — all in the name of his murdered friend, Notorious B.I.G.

Has anyone repaired his faults better than Diddy? He’s the PT Barnum of our generation.

In 2002, Diddy picked up ABC’s abandoned Making the Band series, the show that created the long-extinct boy band O-Town and in six years, he’s turned the franchise into a platinum album factory. No one thought much of Diddy’s move when Making the Band 2 churned out a suck-fest rap group creatively named Da Band with a bunch of homely thugsters. Then Making the Band 3 produces the comely girl band Danity Kane and thanks to Diddy’s marketing machine, DK’s mediocre first album goes multi-platinum (yes, I’ve listened to it), then opens Christina Aguilera’s World Tour, and yes, Diddy has done it again!

Now we have Making The Band 4: Battle of the Sexes. Danity Kane and the unnamed Boyz II Men-wannabe band from last season are each tasked to record an album in five weeks and go on the inevitable world tour which will inevitably end up in multi-platinum success no matter how bad the product is. And you know what? The show’s compulsively watchable. Diddy’s crew doesn’t just use one or two reality show tropes. He uses all of them, each and every last one. The show-to-show challenges (Survivor), horny boys and girls living in a house together (The Real World), heightening the pressure by time-crunching the creative process (Project Runway), the semi-real intimate dinner dates of Laguna Beach. Diddy’s pulling out all the stops this time.

Here’s why Making the Band 4 is one of the funniest TV shows this season:

1) Michael Bivens - Biv still looks like the second B in BBD, which means he hasn’t aged at all and continues to appear separated at birth with NBA point guard Baron Davis. He’s the good cop to Diddy’s bad cop and if the boy band doesn’t do a cover of “Poison” on their album, I’ll be disappointed.

2) Donny’s quest to become the Next J.C. Chasez - Diddy can’t aim much lower than Donny, the baby-faced white boy with a bad perm and what appears to be a permanent sunburn. The Tiger Beat girls flock to him, for some reason. Presumably because he reminds them of one of the guys from Color Me Badd?

3) The Britneylohanification of Aubrey - What happens when you pluck an all-American girl from the trailer park and give her some fame? Well, one world tour, one platinum album, two silicone boobs, a nose job, an upper lip injection, and 365 nights of partying later, Aubrey O’Day, the lead singer from Danity Kane looks like she’s aged five years in one. All the other Danity Kane girls seem unchanged by success. But Aubrey and her bad weave look destined for the second season of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, a quiet abortion, or some combination thereof.

I think some things are bigger behind Window #2.

4) The Greatness of Diddy - To paraphrase De Tocqueville, Diddy is great because he is good. If Diddy ceases to be good, Making the Band 4 ceases to be great. To watch these boybanders pale every time Diddy walks into the room like they’re expecting to find a horse’s head in their bed is high comedy. When did Diddy become the authority on singing and dancing? These kids clearly have no recollection of Diddy whirling about tunelessly in a white suit in the late nineties.

Ultimately, the show starts and ends with Diddy. He’s good for a hilarious line or a goofy riff every week. Through four episodes, he’s ripped off jewels like “you’ve got some bitchassness to you” and “you guys sound like fake-ass Jodeci.” Isn’t sounding like Jodeci bad enough? How bad do you have to sound to sound like fake Jodeci.

De Tocqueville said that “As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?” If De Tocqueville were alive, I bet he would laud Diddy’s marketing genius, his enterprising nature, and his will to re-invent himself. I bet De Tocqueville would even celebrate Diddy’s inspirational coining of the word “bitchassness.”