Well. What a fast turnaround, right?

"Whatever you have thought of me in the past, I can tell you right now that I am one of your greatest friends and I mean for us to work together," he said in a live interview with Telemundo's Maria Celeste. "I hope that will begin with Maria and me and Telemundo and other media organizations and others in this national debate that we should turn into a solution rather than a continuing debate and factional contest."

Mr. Dobbs twice mentioned a possible legalization plan for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., saying at one point that "we need the ability to legalize illegal immigrants under certain conditions."

It's great that Lou Dobbs saw the light, and that he now favors liberalization of our broken immigration and naturalization process.

But—and, you know, we hate to do this two days in a row—fuck you, Lou Dobbs.

Mr. Dobbs couldn't be reached Tuesday. Spokesman Bob Dilenschneider said Mr. Dobbs draws a distinction between illegal immigrants who have committed crimes since arriving in the U.S. and those who are "living upright, positive and constructive lives" who should be "integrated" into society. He said Mr. Dobbs recognizes the political importance of Latinos and is "smoothing the water and clearing the air."

The funny thing, Lou, is that you were the one who attempted to create the impression, without evidence, that all illegal immigrants were criminals. You know-nothing prick.

You made your name on one issue, Lou, and one issue alone: that there are too many Mexicans, that the Mexicans are scary, and that they should all go back to Mexico, because they are disease-ridden criminals. You lied about how many immigrants there are, you called them "an army of invaders," you said they wanted to reannex the Southwestern United States, you claimed they were spreading leprosy, you spent hours of airtime openly, blatantly lying, in order to inflame anti-immigrant hysteria. That is what you did. For years. You doughy, lying, sack of shit.

Video via Anyguey.

Original Video- More videos at TinyPic

The extremely excited immigrant-suspecters explain their love for Dobbs thus, in a press release:

...his show was one of the few national media shows that continued to broadcast accurate information about illegal immigration and America's broken borders

The organization aims to raise over $1m by the end of the year, and will consider turning pledges to the political action committee over for a Senate campaign too. A spokesman ended a press release on the topic looking towards the future. Except for his choice of media on which to present Dobbs with their immigrant-bashing achievements:

I look forward to a day when I can hand Lou Dobbs a maximum donation from our PAC, a maximum donation from my family, and a CD Rom disk with a list of donors and our URL for his campaign.

The generational and cross-cultural refractions obscuring exactly what a T-shirt depicting Obama as a Chairman Mao is supposed to mean are positively cosmic. So the Chinese authorities decided to just ban the things outright. And they're taking this so seriously that security guards at a subway station, apparently aware of how Glenn Beck would use pictures of young Chinese people wearing T-shirts comparing our president to their great leader, detained a CNN reporter for two hours yesterday after she tried to tape a report about the banned T-shirts.

In China, according to the Christian Science Monitor, the shirts are popular with hipsters who get the joke of comparing Obama to Mao, and apparently like to mock Fox News:

In China, the image comes across as witty and cool.... [They are] popular with young people who admire Obama and who get the Andy Warhol-esque joke about icons.

"Mao is kitschy and cool," says Mr. Jenne. "He gets a pass" in a way that other 20th century dictators don't.

But in the U.S., some folks are importing them from China and selling them to the teabag crowd, who wear them to announce their genuinely held belief that Barack Obama is literally like Mao Tse-Tung and will soon begin collectivizing farms. So a shirt that Chinese kids wear ironically because they understand a) how silly it is to compare Obama to Mao, but at the same time b) how Obama has through his style and rhetoric become nearly as iconic as Mao, and c) that even though Mao was a monster, through the passage of time the imagery associated with him has taken on a different, more light-hearted meaning, is also worn in earnest by American teabaggers who understand none of the above and think "kitschy" is Hebrew or something. This reminds us of stories about Christmas displays at Japanese malls featuring crucified Santas. We can't quite wrap our heads around it.

Anyway, the Chinese government was so terrified Politico might see one of these T-shirts that they banned them, and detained CNN's Emily Chang for two hours when they caught her walking around with one in a Shanghai mall. How long before the same thing happens here?

King, a former Associated Press reporter, is a devotee of the old school. He once freaked out on CNN management after Larry King hosted an inaugural event for George W. Bush and hugged him on the air. It's kind of quaint, really. Replacing Dobbs' xenophobic self-regarding bluster with King's reasonable, if horserace-obsessed, demeanor is a conscious effort on CNN's part to distance itself from cable demagoguery. From CNN chief Jon Klein's conference call with staffers, via the New York Times:

"John doing that show is obviously a statement about the importance of real nonpartisan news to CNN, and also the importance of political coverage to CNN," Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN/U.S., told employees on a conference call Thursday morning.

We don't really know what to say about CNN. This is the right strategy, but it's a losing strategy. And it can't last long.

Fox Business Network
Pro: Fox has been wooing Dobbs for months; TV chair Roger Ailes reportedly wined and dined him in September. Between the additions of mustachioed libertarian John Stossel and ebullient racist cowboy Don Imus, FBN's on a hiring spree. Dobbs would be a perfect fit; one mere lifetime ago, he was a well-respected business reporter, after all. The fact that he went off the rails into right-wing demagoguery will only sweeten this deal.
Con: Dobbs' intense xenophobia forces him to break from the pro-business pack's love of cheap immigrant labor. They'd bond over their mutual revulsion for Barack Obama, though.
Odds: 1:100

Presidential Run
Pro: Conservative columnist Robert Novak was the first to float Dobbs' name for a third-party presidential ticket. The self-proclaimed "independent populist" has a diehard fanbase in politically sought-after middle America, and is himself from Idaho and Texas. Though bashful about his political prospects, he said in January, "I cannot say never."
Con: He also said this: "I haven't got the personality or nature to be a poitician."
Odds: 10:1

His One True Love: Astronaut Media
Pro: Last time Dobbs cut and ran from CNN, it was to be CEO of Space.com, a start-up venture that indulged his unabiding passion for deep space and extraterrestrials. Space tourism is heating up, and the leap from birther to earther isn't so far...
Con: Space.com is doing just fine without Dobbs—even finagling a content-sharing deal with CNN. Also, it'd be totally insane.
Odds: 40:1

CNBC
Pro: During Dobbs' Space.com phase, he worked closely with the very network that had undermined his business news show on CNN. At the time, CNBC's aggressive formula of stock tips and financial advice was ratings gold. Now, whatwith the financial collapse and all, it's just embarrassing.
Con: Going to CNBC would break Dobbs' trajectory of moving away from his actual area of expertise (finance, economics) and towards his imagined one (the president's birth certificate). That's the kind of momentum that's hard to stop, but if all he wants is a job and a platform, CNBC will probably be willing to listen.
Odds: 5:1

Larry King, the reigning champion of softball interviews, was apparently not soft enough for Ms. Prejean. King broaches the subject of the lawsuit Carrie settled with Miss California USA. (You know, the mediation where they screened her sex tape in front of her mom?) Then, Carrie complains that King is "being inappropriate," and after a full minute of wrangling, she removes her microphone and announces she is leaving—only to end up sitting there for another minute, grinning and playing the "I ca-a-an't he-e-ear y-o-o-ou" game until Larry cuts to commercial.

The ensuing commercial break was deeply suspenseful. Would Carrie be on set when we returned? I can only imagine what sort of harsh, frantically whispered words were spoken during these moments, because when the show returned, Carrie's microphone had miraculously been rewired and King apologized. (Apparently Prejean didn't want to take phone calls, and it was the caller, not Larry's questions, that so perturbed her?) A temporary rift in the time-space continuum healed and Larry King Live returned to being as heavy-hitting as a feather-stuffed cashmere pillow.

Dobbs would fit much more snugly into the right-wing stable of shouting heads over at Fox than he did at CNN, where he made an awkward lie of the cable network's attempt to position itself as a non-partisan straight-news alternative to MSNBC on the left and Fox News on the right. But Dobbs hasn't exactly been a ratings dynamo: He was recently losing not only to Shep Smith at Fox but Chris Matthews at MSNBC and even Jane Velez Mitchell at CNN's HLN (formerly Headline News). Burn.

Maybe once Dobbs is unshackled from his CNN overlords he can finally make a bright future for himself in a foreign TV land, one that believes in true opportunity for downtrodden and wandering émigrés like himself.

UPDATE: Video of the announcement is above. Dobbs' comments have observers speculating he'll make some kind of political move.

UPDATE: Maybe not; a CNN statement says "Lou has now decided to carry the banner of advocacy journalism elsewhere."

Here's the New York Post's gossip column item about Cooper going to the "best hotel in the world" in India:

Anderson Cooper has been consoling himself over falling ratings by living it up in Jaipur, India, at one of the world's most opulent hotels. The CNN star was spotted Tuesday with his muscular friend, Benjamin Maisani, an owner of East Village bar Eastern Bloc, at the Rambagh Palace, named the best hotel in the world by Conde Nast Traveler. Cooper's $3,200-a-night room features a four-poster mahogany bed and views of the gardens of the former Maharaja palace. Our source said, "Anderson's room has a large round bathtub. On the first night it was filled with bubbles and sprinkled with red rose petals." CNN declined to comment.

Saying Cooper is gay is no longer a scoop. It's not a scandal. Even the humor involved in all the clever winking and nodding is past its expiration date. With today's item Page Six may have exhausted all the ways to say "He's GAY GAY GAY!": the room only has one bed, Maisani's "muscular," and perhaps most blatantly, he owns Eastern Bloc. Every 'mo in New York knows Eastern Bloc is a gritty, dirty gay bar ("a true man meat bar") that often has boy-on-boy porn playing on its TVs. (The stencil over the DJ booth offers "Free Moustache Rides" and one outside once read "One Gay at a Time, Sweet Jesus.") All the patrons know Maisani, because he's big, and know he's dating Cooper. Word on the street is that Madonna's recent appearance there had less to do with her getting back to her East Village gay roots and more to do with the fact that she was with Cooper, who wanted to play "whose boy toy is hotter" with Madge.

Cooper's see-through closet is such a joke that it doesn't make sense to call him in the closet anymore. If he won't say it, we will: Anderson Cooper is officially out. There's no difference between him and Neil Patrick Harris. They both play it straight at their day jobs and then openly go about town with their boyfriends and do TV interviews about how much they love Kathy Griffin and The Real Housewives of Atlanta.

It's not like Cooper's in a club all of his own, either. He is part of an increasingly large crowd of notables who won't come out but have given up trying to hide that they are gay. Queen Latifah denied that she was going to marry her girlfriend, a girlfriend who she tries to pass off as her "trainer." Kevin Spacey got busted lying about being mugged in a London cruising park. Ricky Martin has stopped even trying to fight the gay rumors. Jodie Foster has never said she's a lesbian out loud, but she basically came out when she thanked her partner in an acceptance speech.

These gay-not-gay celebrities are different from the Hugh Jackmans, John Travoltas, Tom Cruises, and Kenny Chesneys, who are all constantly plagued with gay rumors that they strenuously try to deny or deflect. If they're gay, they're doing it in secret. Cooper and his set of cohorts live openly gay lives — and that's a good thing — but they refuse to acknowledge what the public already knows.

In Anderson Cooper's specific case, we sort of understand why he won't open his mouth and let the rainbows fly. All the guy has ever wanted to do was be an old-fashioned newsman and unfortunately him coming out would make him a part of the story. Every time he tried to cover something having to do with gay civil rights (or Madonna or Fire Island) plenty of people would claim that his reporting was biased because of his sexual orientation. It's not fair: Katie Couric doesn't have to worry when she covers pay inequality for women, and neither does Harry Smith when discussing new medicine that will eradicate baldness.

Coming out would open Cooper up to irrational accusations from those waiting to pounce on the "liberal media" just as quickly as A.C. pounces on his muscle man in an Indian hotel room. That sucks, but it's the way it currently is. How does it get changed? Well, by having some major national news figures come out and show that they can still get blown over in a hurricane or report live from a war zone without breaking into a anti-Prop 8 rant.

That's right, Anderson, it's going to take you to change it. Rachel Maddow has paved the way, but all the baby gays out there need you to man up and be our Jackie Robinson. The first step is the easiest, you just have to say what everyone already knows.

Top pic of Cooper and Maisani snapped in June by Pacific Coast News; pic of Eastern Bloc via Alice Bartlett's Flickr

CNN's new look is here, and Salon's is here. Larger screengrabs below:

There's so much awesome ridiculousness in this clip, I couldn't tell you where to begin. You could start with Christine Romans' theoretical about being a "party girl" who needs "15 hits of E." Or Ali Velshi astutely noting that the word "prostitute," after a good Googling, turns up "many, many roads." He knows this how? Common knowledge!

But then there's Stephen "Cheesy Doodle" Smith. EVERYTHING HE HAS TO SAY IS IMPORTANT. And now he's doing...financial commentary?

"If something were illegal," Smith, uh, argues, "they couldn't come on CNN and advertise it!" O RLY? Also: debatable. But then they get to the subject of who would get involved to enforce this thing, and Stephen A. Smith confuses the DEA with the DA. And then: crickets. Pointless, awkward, wonderful. This is one of my favorite out-of-context clips ever, now. Enjoy.

Well, to be fair, he said most of those terrible things about black people. Most of them! But not one of them. So Rick Sanchez has to apologize, to Rush, for assuming that because all the rest of the racist things were true that he didn't need to question this other one. "We have been unable to independently confirm that quote," Sanchez says, though he doesn't repeat the quote.

The fake quote is: "slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back. I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark." It comes from Wikipedia, which cites a book that got it from Wikipedia.

Also Limbaugh would've been maybe the third or fourth-most objectionable NFL owner, frankly, and owning the Rams would be more of a punishment than a fun investment. So, you know, who cared? Besides black players who didn't want to work for Limbaugh for obvious reasons. Those reasons being that all the other racist Limbaugh quotes weren't fabricated.

In addition to loving to see Time Warner under his control, Turner tells Bloomberg, he would specifically like to have CNN and Cartoon Network brass call him boss. The cause-drawn mogul has become increasingly critical of CNN's "tabloid" attitude and again says that he would like to see the channel, which he founded in 1980, increase its international news coverage. Or, at least, stop featuring so much "fluff." What, like the balloon boy?

As for Cartoon Network: Turner insists kids don't need Superman's silly sense of honor and heroics. No, they need important lessons, like those espoused by the environmentally-friendly Captain Planet, who, by the way, was really very awesome. But we digress.

Turner's never been one to keep things simple, so he also muses about those evil, wasteful newspapers: "You're chopping all these trees down and making paper out of them and trying to deal with all the waste paper. It's the biggest solid waste problem that we have." So, even though likes Murdoch's Wall Street Journal, we're assuming Turner would like to see all news online, which could, some may argue, only increase electrical consumption and a new type of waste.

This is all well and good, but Turner doesn't understand that even if we do cleanse the earth of pollution, war and all that nasty shit, then his preferred networks will have no programming. It's a classic 21st century media mogul's Catch-22.

Politico brought Huckabee's newly filed campaign finance report to our attention with an item about how deadbeat news outlets CNN and ABC News owe the campaign $2,906 and $833, respectively, for "Press Travel Reimbursement." We checked, and it does. But the eye-popping figure to us was $23,570 owed by the campaign to Top Kick Productions of Houston, Texas for "travel - charter." Hmmmm—what is Top Kick Productions, and what films has it produced? Why, Lone Wolf McQuade, Deadly Reunion, and Silent Rage! Certainly looks like Chuck Norris' production company. Indeed, Norris listed Top Kick as his employer in a donation to Huckabee's PAC last year.

Huckabee and Norris were famously inseparable on the trail last year, but why would Huckabee be more than $23,000 in the hole to a white ninja/Texas Ranger for travel expenses? An accountant for the Huckabee campaign confirmed the debt to us, but hasn't gotten back to us about why the campaign owed Norris for travel—it looks like Huckabee flew around on a jet either owned or chartered by Norris, and so is obligated to repay him at market rates. But who knew Chuck Norris had a jet?

Representatives for ABC News and CNN had no immediate comment about the fact that they're deadbeats.

That strikes us as something of a demotion—Holmes appeared frequently on CNN's air, especially during the election, and also has been a regular guest as a right-wing talking head for Bill Maher. Now it looks like she's trying to get out of the punditry game and refashion herself as a newsreader—she's filling in this week and next as an anchor on ABC News Now, ABC News' (mostly failed) attempt to create a 24-hour news network online. No one's watching, but at least she doesn't have to defend all those foaming-at-the-mouth teabaggers who hate her because she's black, right? Must be a relief. We expect Ed Rollins to show up as a CBS News intern any day.

An ABC News spokeswoman insists that Holmes is only "reading the news and debriefing correspondents in the field" as a freelancer in a one-off gig, but it sounds like a tryout to us. If indeed it is, it should come as no surprise that ABC News would move an avowed political partisan and right-wing operative into a purported news slot, because it seemed to work OK for George Stephanopoulos.

Holmes was still listed as a contributor on CNN's website today when asked a CNN spokeswoman about the new gig; the spokeswoman confirmed that Holmes is no longer with the network.

Why, it's this Lou Dobbs fellow, a famous host on the CNN network!

Kevin Jennings holds a Bush administration-created post overseeing a Reagan administration-created department dedicated to keeping schools safe. This makes him one of Obama's unconstitutional Czars. Whereas Reagan wanted to keep them safe from drugs and Bush wanted to keep them safe from, uh, terror or something, Obama's hire would like to keep them safe from harassment and bullying. Also—did we mention?—he's a gay.

Noted execrable piece of shit Dobbs is not even creative enough to come up with his own smears. The immigration hysteria he stoked for a brief period of attention has died down, so he's reduced to borrowing Sean Heannity's crusade, which was itself stolen from Beck.

Here is the case against Jennings, again:

• He is a gay.
• He got mad at God, once, because he was a gay teenager.
• He got stoned.
• He is a gay.
• He thinks gay kids—and kids who aren't gay but who are called gay slurs—should not be beaten, murdered, or driven to suicide.
• He tries to educate kids on the importance of not abusing one another.
• He is a gay.
• This one time this troubled, suicidal, closeted teenager told him he met an older man and maybe had sex with him and Jennings sympathized with him and then said "I hope you know to use a condom."

It is that last story, of a troubled student confiding in a sympathetic teacher and receiving sensible and important advice that allowed that problem student to grow into a satisfied and happy adult, that has made right-wingers apoplectic. In order to make their rage at that successful show of liberal compassion sound less like hysterical homophobia, they have been saying that Jennings "failed to report" "statutory rape." Even though Jennings never explicitly said the kid had had sex with anyone yet and also, much more importantly, the kid was sixteen years old, which is the age of consent in Massachusetts.

Does that seem like a problem? That they can't spin this into a horrible act because no crime was committed? So in fact they're just mad that Jennings didn't destroy this kid's life by telling his parents or something about the kid's gross gay sex with a gross old gay guy? Here's what you do: you repeatedly and shamelessly lie, even when the reporters on your own network correct your lying with "reporting."

On October 2, Lou Dobbs repeated the "statutory rape" thing. He was corrected by Joe Conason. And if he watched his own network he would've seen Jessica Yellin correcting Fox's reports the same day!

Which means, of course, that yesterday Dobbs repeated a thing he knew to be untrue because Gay Immigrants Are Going to Turn Your Children Into Well-Dressed Mexicans.

• Gwyneth Paltrow's cup runneth over during a security check in Barcelona. Translation: he tits were popping out like something awful. [The Sun]
  
  
• Sorry, world, but Megan Fox insists she'll never have a sex tape. Not one that you'll see, at least, which we find kind of surprising. [Us]
  
  
• An Italian reporter stripped down and begged George Clooney for a kiss. He was rebuffed. [E!]
  
  
• It will please you all to know that Jennifer Aniston still believes in love. Whether the elusive emotion still believes in her remains to be seen. [NYDN]
  
  
• Janet Jackson will offer a tribute to her late brother at MTV's VMA awards. Sources say she's not only looking to honor Michael's memory, but also to make the world forget her Superbowl nip slip. [MSNBC]
  
  
• You know how conservatives are always crying, "Think of the children?" Well that's exactly what CNN Airport network did when they banned a PeTA advert in which Pamela Anderson strips passengers of their cruel, animal haberdashery. Said the network to PeTA, "[we're] particularly sensitive because children make up part of the demographic in airports." [Page Six]
  
  
• Shawne Merriman's ex-girlfriend joined his side in the Tila Tequila domestic violence battle. The woman, Gloria Velez, insists Merriman never laid a hand on her. [TMZ]
  
  
• Chris Robinson, the Black Crowes singer best known for once marrying Kate Hudson, has impregnated another, far less famous woman. [Star]
  place? [Page Six]
  
  
• Kate Hudson's wearing a diamond ring, which has some people wondering if she'll marry A-Rod, but we think it will never happen, because, you know, it just won't. [Gatecrasher]
  
  
• Ali Wise, the Dolce and Gabbana flack accused of hacking into interior designer Nina Freudenberger's voicemail, has the strong support of her former boyfriend, hotelist Jason Pomeranc. He calls her a "great girl" and insists the alleged crime was nothing but "playful." Aren't ex-boyfriends the best?! [Page Six]
  
  
• Bet.com's former executive editor, Andreas Hale has loads to say about his former employers, and is currently taking on "the unprofessionalism, the tomfoolery, the favors, the misappropriation of resources, the bad ideas that reinforce negative stereotypes" that run rampant across the site's team. [Page Six]
  
  
• Kourtney Kardashian and her baby-daddy are getting along swimmingly and even finding time to dine with Kevin Federline. Can you believe we just wrote that without puking all over the place? [Page Six]
  
  
• Aww! Sexually ambigious singer Mika invited all of his Twitter friends to a bar to get trashed and then he paid the £25,000 tab. [The Sun]

We reported a little over a month ago that the Today show had booked Blagojevich to appear on the morning he happened to be arrested by the FBI, but bumped the interview so they could flack for Jay Leno's new show. We found that out through a Freedom of Information Act request to the state of Illinois asking for e-mails from representatives of the media to Lucio Guerrero, Blagojevich's press secretary (we got the idea from South Carolina's The State, which did the same thing—to comic effect—after Mark Sanford's Argentinian Rhapsody).

The first raft of e-mails we got were from December 8, the day before Blagojevich got popped, and it included one from Today producer Lexi Dauber apologetically canceling a scheduled remote Q-and-A with Matt Lauer to make room for Leno news. We just got another batch covering the 48 hours after the arrest, and guess what? Dauber and her fellow Today producer Stephanie Siegel all of a sudden really wanted to talk to Blagojevich!

The traditional route for a reporter desperately trying to convince someone to submit to an interview when it's obviously not in their interest to do so is to drop all pretense of toughness and objectivity and lie to them: We will be your friend! Not like all those other mean reporters. While Dauber and Seigel's e-mails to Guerrero are understandably sympathetic, an internal write-up of a phone call with Siegel outlining the terms of her interview request shows what they were really willing to give up. Matt Lauer or Meredith Vieira would call Blagojevich before the interview to "go over the line of questions," and Seigel stressed that "they are sensitive."

CBS's Early Show also went the simpering route, telling Guerrero that there is "far too much hearsay going around" and offering Blagojevich an opportunity to "set the record straight" and "clear his own name." They were even willing to "rent a private space to keep him away from the rest of the media's view." We all know how annoying prying reporters can be.

ABC News' Diane Sawyer, on the other hand, didn't try to buddy up to Blago. To her credit, Sawyer's producer offered a fairly straightforward pitch that managed to avoid over-the-top sycophancy.

Larry King's producer relied on the rogue's gallery that has traipsed through King's studio in the past, positioning the host as the go-to guy for crooks, liars, and other humiliated figures—go with us and you can be in the fine company of Jeffrey Skilling, Gary Condit, and Bob Packwood!

King's CNN colleague Anderson Cooper wasn't even trying: His producers sent in a perfunctory, We-asked-Governor-Blagojevich-to-come-on-the-show requests that they knew weren't going to open any doors.

Likewise the producer for CNN's Campbell Brown dashed off an email that would allow her to dutifully report that a request was in.

Sometimes brevity is your best bet when dealing with a harried flack who's clearly deluged with requests. That's what Andy Shaw, a political reporter for Chicago's local ABC station, decided to go with.

That kind of approach is important when you know your target is dealing with all manner of zany proposals. Like a request for comment from "a representative for Dan Ackroyd [sic] and Jim Belushi" on their call for Blagojevich's resignation. When a press aide forwarded that message to the governor's press assistant, she responded, "What? I want you to explain."

(For the record, it looks like that was a hoax call—we can't find any evidence that one-half of the Blues Brothers and the talentless brother of the other, dead, half ever made such a demand.)

The most pathetic request comes from Pat Curry, the news assignment editor for WGN, a local Chicago station. He wasn't even asking for an interview with Blagojevich—he wanted Guerrero himself to come on, and delivered a masterwork of flattery and faux sympathy. "I wouldn't expect you to be able to comment on a federal investigation, and could easily brush that off," Curry wrote, signing off with, "Humbly, Pat Curry."

A producer for a local Chicago talk radio show hosted by husband-and-wife pair Don and Roma Wade wins the award for discretion, declining to put in writing the "incredible offer" he had for Guerrero.

We'll never know what that offer was, but guess who got the first post-arrest interview with disgraced Gov. Rod Blagojevich?

You can read the whole batch here. Interestingly, not one e-mail from Fox News turned up. It could be that they relied solely on the phone, or that their e-mails somehow got missed by our FOIA requests. Or maybe they figured it wasn't worth trying.

A tipster passed along this video which, as CNN anchor Don Lemon points out, is very disturbing. And for many reasons.

First, the commercial does a great job filling its viewers with dread: happy, go-lucky teens having an afternoon of gossip obviously careen toward disaster. Second, once that disaster hits, it goes on, and on, and on. There's shattered glass, blood, bones breaking. Then, as if that's not enough, a small child and dead parents are introduced. Seriously, don't watch this if you don't want to be severely, perhaps irreparably damaged.

That said, we must admit it's very effective. And you can be damn sure we won't be texting and driving in the near future. It's so unsettling, in fact, that some wonder if it should have been aired at all. We think it should be, because, as seen in that now classic Canadian PSA in which a young sous chef is scalded beyond recognition, people need to be reminded that accidents — or "unintended consequences," as CNN guest Michael Sinclair refers to such situations — scar, maim, and kill people everyday.

In fact, according to Sinclair, who comes from the Automobile Club of New York, drivers are 23 times more likely to have "unintended consequences" while texting. Chew on that! (Just don't do it while you're driving.)