To be fair, Clinton didn't have much of a choice, because Meet the Press host David Gregory asked the former President whether the so-called conspiracy, first assessed by Hillary Clinton, still exists, to which Clinton replied in the affirmative.

Sure it is. It's not as strong as it was, because America has changed demographically. But it's as virulent as it was. I mean, they're saying things about him. You know, it's like when they accused me of murder, and all that stuff they did. ... But ... it's not really good for the Republicans and the country, what's going on now. I mean, they may be hurting President Obama. They can take his numbers down. They can run his opposition up. But, fundamentally, he and his team have a positive agenda for America. Their agenda seems to be wanting him to fail.

Well duh they want him to fail. But, that's beside the point, because the "conspiracy," if it should even be called that, may actually be more powerful than the one that worked against Clinton. With all the new media outlets, not to mention Fox News, it's easier to mobilize the masses and work them into a fury. No, there's no impeachment planned, but there are even more complicated and insidious roadblocks at the right's disposal.

And, sadly for the big O, Clinton's comments are only going to fan the flames. If there's one man the ultra-right hate more than Obama, it's Bubba, and having him jump in the fray will simply embolden and further ostracize the President's critics. Plus, a sizable amount of Clinton's drama came from his, shall we say, encounters with Monica Lewinsky. Injecting that particular memory into the right's already petulant collective consciousness could create a sticky, stinky brew of fresh Obama hate.

Oh, look: Ann Coulter's already ranting about "semen stained Kleenex." Great.

McCain was a guest on Meet the Press today and was quizzed on the whole Palin resignation fiasco by David Gregory. He smiled and oh-goshed Grandfatherly and acted like all of this was just dandy and that he has no regrets about plucking little ole simple Sarah from the wilds of the Klondyke to run the country in the event that he, a 72 year-old man with a history of cancer, had to step down for, like, dying or whatever. No, McCain can find no fault with any of what she did and he doesn't regret picking her and she's still a hope for the future of the party blah, blah, blah.

Poor John McCain—The old "maverick" doesn't have the sack to say what you just know he really feels and believes deep down—That he toiled away for years as a prisoner of war, refusing to bend to the demands of his captors all the while, and for decades as an able public servant, only to see his shot at the presidency, not to mention a historical legacy looked upon with almost universal esteem by future generations, destroyed by one horrendously God-awful decision. Congratulations John McCain—Sarah Palin, the complete antithesis of you, is your legacy.

And speaking of Palin, a report in Monday's Times suggests that stress was causing her to lose her hair.

Friends worried that she appeared anxious and underweight. Her hair had thinned to the point where she needed emergency help from her hairdresser and close friend, Jessica Steele.

"Honestly, I think all of it just broke her heart," Ms. Steele said in an interview at her beauty parlor in Wasilla, the Beehive.

Perhaps now we're getting to the real motivation behind Palin's decision to step down—Pageant girl vanity?

• Jeff Goldblum and Harrison Ford are not dead, despite the plethora of rumors that have been floating around on the internet that they were both casualties of The Week America Died. [Daily News]
  
  
• Joe Scarborough was scheduled to be a guest this Sunday on ABC's "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos, but had to cancel because David Gregory cried like a little schoolgirl because he wanted Scarborough on Meet the Press or something. [Page Six]
  
  
• Chris Brown has been ordered by the courts to stay at least 50 yards away from Rihanna, but Rihanna and Chris both want the order dropped, probably so they can bone. [Daily News]
  
  
• The newly single Kate Gosselin wore a bikini in her front yard with the paparazzi around to make Jon eat his freakin' heart out at what he's missing out on! [Daily News]
  
  
• Kim Kardashian says she has a huge girl crush on Megan Fox, the deformed-thumbed shunner of flower-bearing British children. If I was my boy Reggie Bush, I'd do everything possible to stage an "accidental" run-in between Kim and Megan very soon. [Sun]
  
  
• Celebrities around the world did what celebrities around the world do when one of their own dies—They Twittered about it endlessly. [Mirror]
  
  
• Ashlee Simpson is stepping out around New York wearing black leather from head to toe, trying to look all hot for her boy Pete. [Sun]
  
  
• Kanye West is joining the lineup at a music festival in Britain and fireworks are sure to fly because Oasis is playing their too and Kanye and Noel Gallagher, both epic pricks, hate each other. [Mirror]
  
  
• Leonardo DiCaprio's ex, Bar Refaeli, is the new face of Garnier Fructis products, which she claims to have been using personally for years. For some reason we doubt that. [Just Jared]

  Pic via Daily News

After a quick glance to make sure the accident victims were still breathing or whatever, domestic mogul Martha Stewart focused on the important stuff: her poor grasses!

The Wall Street Journal's Alan Murray either confused direct messaging with Tweeting, or intentionally offered to buy lunch for 2,400 followers.

NBC's David Gregory had to explain he isn't really a Twitter star, he just plays one on this old thing called "television."

Jeff Jarvis, media revolutionary, declared former MSNBCer Dan Abrams his own, personal Trotsky.

Nicholas Carlson said the revolution will, in fact, be Twitterized, but we suspect he didn't mean it.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets - or send us more Twitter usernames.

(Top pic via Martha Stewart)

Scarborough, appearing with GOP strategist Mike Murphy in a roundtable discussion with host David Gregory, said, "I suspect that Cairo speech really scared the Grand Ayatollahs...If they were going to fix an election, this was the time to fix it."

Now, even the most hardcore Obama supporter would be hard-pressed to credit a single speech by the President with triggering a revolution in a Middle Eastern country, but Scarborough's theory that his words at Cairo University may have freaked out Iran's string-pullers to the point where they became too aggressive in their election-fixing, thus sparking a revolution by outraged citizens, does have a ring of plausibility to it.

And this sort of intellectual honesty is one of the reasons to like Joe Scarborough.

Video via Media Matters

Hey, it's a tabloid war! Not a real one—a celebrity tabloid war. Us Weekly ran a two page spread making fun of In Touch for its long history of wrong Brangelina stories. In Touch was like "Whatevs, thanks for the free publicity, LOL, LYLAS!" They added, "Got another fake Brangelina story to write, GTG!"


Both Rachel Maddow and Anderson Cooper have seen their shows pull in the lowest ratings of the year in the past week. At the same time, Meet The Press also got its lowest ratings since David Gregory took over. You know what this means: David Gregory is gay.


Design magazine I.D. has hired a new editor, because its entire three-person editorial staff left to start their own company. Only one will survive! Or at least that would make the whole thing more dramatic. And, the London style magazine i-D is cutting back to six issues per year. Get a new name people!


North Korea now says that it will put Euna Lee and Laura Ling, the American freelancers for Current TV, on trial next month for "hostile acts," like entering North Korea. "Under North Korea's criminal code, a person convicted of hostile acts against the state faces at least five years in a labor camp." Delta Force now, please.

Here is a lie, from Jake Tapper:

He's also keenly aware that there's a problem when the reporter becomes too much a part of the story. While his exchange with Robert Gibbs elevated his profile, that was not his objective. "The YouTubed exchange with Gibbs is a perfect example of something I didn't care for, not because I think I was wrong, but because the tone of that conversation took focus away from the more important issue - transparency - and put it where I don't particularly care for it, into a debate about me and Gibbs and who was right and who got the better of whom. Which serves no one," Tapper says.

Yes, the point of on-camera arguments between White House correspondents and press secretaries is always the noble pursuit of the truth, right? It's never just about setting yourself up as "tough" enough to eventually host a Sunday show or anything.

The thing is, Rush Limbaugh and National Review are jumping on the Tapper wagon for the same reason that idiot liberals all decided they loved David Gregory back in the say: because he was good at beating up on Scott McClellan. Good for him, he made a dumb guy look dumb.

Arguing with the press secretary is not actually a good way to get useful information for your audience. In fact, it is never a way of getting useful information for your audience. The secretary's job is to stonewall and lie. He will not eventually concede the argument and be like "ok, Tapper, you win, here are those lobbyist recusal documents!" Your job, correspondent, is to actually get the damn documents yourself, through reporting maybe! Unless of course you are too busy reporting important news on how the president lied to you about the smoking!

"I'd have to see," he said when asked about the Alaska governor, and suggested he might support Louisiana Governor Bobby "Kenneth the Page" Jindal or Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. Anyone hear the sound of a bus running over someone?

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon producer Gavin Purcell hopelessly shopped for shoes.

CNET News reporter Caroline McCarthy stayed focused on the big, important story of the day.

Slate writer John Dickerson exhibited profound laziness.

Meet the Press host David Gregory fell victim to Twidiocy.

Techmeme editrix Megan McCarthy made a joke about Google's nondiscovery of Atlantis.

Anyone else's tweets we should keep an eye on? Send us more Twitter usernames, please.

The inauguration and near-socialization of finance was already stoking Washington, D.C.'s ascent. Then came the squabbling over Kennedy's exit.

The feud, lasting a few intense hours, started with the New York Post's scoop about Kennedy withdrawing her name from Gov. David Paterson's consideration. The tabloid offer no details initially, but the Times soon confirmed with its own source, as did Newsday, along with the Associated Press's Albany bureau.

The New York media had home field advantage, since the story ran through Paterson's office. But the Capitol Hill press wasn't about to be upstaged on its own senate by a bunch of grubby Albany reporters. They picked up their cell phones, called Ted Kennedy's people — we're assuming, since that's where a DC reporter would go for the Kennedy scoop — and began publishing breathless denials.

The Washington Post lead its story by stating that while "New York media" was reporting Caroline Kennedy had withdrawn her name, there were "Kennedy family confidants angrily dismissing those reports." It later clarified the confidantes had said the reports were "smears aimed at undermining her chances."

David Gregory, of NBC's Washington-based Meet The Press, appeared on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show and led with word from "a source in the Kennedy family... that Caroline Kennedy has not — not — withdrawn from consideration." Here's the video, which, in fairness, includes some sober caveats from Gregory:

AP was embarrassingly fast to disclaim its own story, reversing itself entirely:

After wavering briefly, Caroline Kennedy renewed her determination Wednesday to win appointment to the U.S. Senate seat once held by her slain uncle, Bobby Kennedy, a person close to the decision said.

...The AP initially reported Kennedy had withdrawn from the race but corrected the story about an hour later after the person who gave that information said it was an error.

Presumably this correction then had to be corrected when it turned out the original story got it right.

But the New York press embarrassed itself too!

Specifically, the Post's Frederic Dicker face-planted badly, reporting just this past Monday that Paterson was "certain" to pick Caroline Kennedy for Hillary Clinton's old senate seat, according to "several unhappy contenders for the job." Drudge Report ran the story under the headline "It's Caroline!"

Dicker is the dean of state political reporting, if only because he's the only member of the press corps who can stomach Albany. His competitor at the Times, young Nick Confessore won't move upstaet. And yet Confessore scooped Dicker on the purported reason for Kennedy's departure, concern over the health of her ailing uncle, who has a malignant brain tumor and suffered a seizure at Barack Obama's inauguration.

Dicker's response? To blatantly contradict his report of two just two days earlier. Instead of Paterson having his heart set on Kennedy, the guv was now telling her she didn't have a shot. At least rival Confessore's version, in which Kennedy made the decision to leave, left the Post's earlier story looking more plausible.

Dickers' saving grace is that he and the Post scooped everyone on the news that Caroline Kennedy was out. There's a good lesson there: If you're wrong, be the first one to point it out.

(Because the Post had broken the story, the Daily News joined the Washington press in quoting Kennedy family sources denying Kennedy was out (mentioned in this Newsday story). The rival tabloids must always piss on one another's work, even if it means an alliance with DC.)

So basically Todd is replacing David Gregory, the smug Karl Rove dance partner who did get the MTP gig. That's nice and all for Chuck Todd, but you have to feel bad for him for losing out to a guy like Gregory, who—according to scientists—does not possess a personality. FishbowlDC says "the entire newsroom cheered loudly" for Todd. They're glad David Gregory is gone, you see. [Pic via]

He tells useless WP media regurgitator Howie Kurtz:

"I'd be crazy if I wasn't nervous about it," Gregory said. "Succeeding Tim Russert is humbling, and I think I'm appropriately nervous."

And on the same day, told the NYT:

In a telephone interview, Mr. Gregory, who is 38, acknowledged that the task before him was challenging. “I’m honored,” he said. “I feel humbled and very excited. I’m not nervous or apprehensive about it, but it is daunting.”

WELL ARE YOU OR AREN'T YOU? He hasn't even started and already, scandal.

The seat was left vacant when longtime host Tim Russert died early this summer, with Tom Brokaw acting as interim host until now. Gregory is the Chief White House Correspondent for NBC News, and is married to Beth Wilkinson, a former Fannie Mae executive and the lawyer who got Timothy McVeigh executed. So, um, good work everybody! Watch a clip of Gregory hard at work, below.

Sunday NBC executives made calls to people who had been considered as potential hosts or panelists on “Meet the Press,” letting them know a decision had been made. The list of contenders had at one time been long, including two other NBC correspondents, Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell; the MSNBC host Chris Matthews; the PBS host Gwen Ifill; the CNN correspondent John King; and even the “CBS Evening News” anchor Katie Couric, who had been a longtime host of “Today.”

Well, there are your leakers right there. NBC News notifies a bunch of media bigwigs about the job they didn't get, for which Gregory was the longtime frontrunner, and the network is surprised there was a leak why?

NBC makes a nice mint on Meet The Press, but the real cash cow is Today, and Gregory is reportedly being put into a holding pattern at the former so he can eventually be called on to host the latter. Which means the wine-loving clown will soon be doing one of his infamous happy dances, as remembered in the clip above (culled from Monday's comments!).

He's full of himself—you have to be to pull those Sam Donaldson stunts with Ari Fleischer—but has never really demonstrated a great intellect. He's never proved himself as an interviewer, which leads us to believe he'll just pull the "the research team dug up a quote from you that slightly contradicts some other thing you said" card way too often. But he's tall!

His show was boring, but Gregory is still more famous and network tv-ready than Chuck Todd, the actually astute political analyst who became a minor MSNBC star during the election. It's broadcast chops, not journalistic ability or smarts, that actually qualify one for Meet the Press.

Also he does impressions. He's famous for his shitty impressions. Everyone in Washington with a reputation for being "funny," with the exception of Barney Frank, is a complete tool.

Here is a clip of David Gregory drunk on Imus (another sign of tooldom: doing Imus).

• Barack Obama gave Leonard Nimoy the Vulcan hand sign at a campaign event. In case we needed confirmation of his complete dorkhood. [P6]
• NBC News' David Gregory is married to the former general counsel for Fannie Mae, which is now under FBI investigation. News Corp'.'s Page Six wonders if he maybe shouldn't give up journalism forever, in shame. In the meantime, watch out for his dangerous advocacy journalism. [P6]
• Britney Spears would very much like to acquire that sex tape of her that doesn't exist, so she can make it not exist to an even greater extent. [Sun]
• Janet Jackson postponed some more concerts due to illness. Meanwhile, her fiancé partied until 2 am, albeit for a charitable fundraiser.

Halfway through his stint at the 6 p.m. hour on MSNBC, Mr. Gregory’s numbers are solid but not remarkable. For the second quarter of 2008 (from late March to late June), Race for the White House averaged roughly 526,000 total viewers and 161,000 in the 25-54 demographic—roughly twice the audience that Tucker Carlson averaged during the second quarter of 2007.

Twice Tucker is a form of damnation by faint praise.

...over the past several months, the show has rarely made news.

The Observer said it doesn't help that Gregory's show relies on the network's own political contributors as talking heads instead of on actual newsmakers.

This results in a pogram so unmemorable that even NBC's Tom Brokaw screwed up its name, calling it Road To The White House, when ending an episode of Meet The Press. Brokaw also indicated the other NBCer on Meet The Press that morning, political director Chuck Todd, would be making frequent appearances "in the weeks to come" — a sign that Todd, also rumored to be in the running for Russert's job, was well ahead of Gregory.

Another of Gregory's competitors for Meet The Press, former far-right congressman Joe Scarborough, has received laudatory coverage in the Times and New York magazine lately for his MSNBC show Morning Joe, a far cry from the way the Observer is treating Gregory.

This all goes to show that sometimes being a hard-working, aggressive reporter is not always enough to advance in TV news. But don't count Gregory out yet — if this 2006 Tonight Show clip of Gregory imitating George W. Bush is any indication, the correspondent has a wide range of untapped skills.

[Observer]

I was an intern for Charlie Rose back in '03, and at that time David Gregory was a frequent guest, usually on remote from Washington. I would watch the less-than-congenial, highly abusive, and generally abrasive Rose do the usual pre-show banter with Gregory; whereby they'd both bask in their own sense of self-satisfaction for a while, then make jokes about President Bush (not that everyone doesn't, but it did destroy the illusion of journalistic objectivity for me).

My best guess is Gregory is definitely taking 'star' lessons from the diva/mentor himself, Charlie.

The dude is a total jerk.

Once, I was hanging with some friends in DC and we decided to go to the Capitol. We agreed to meet at a certain point at the front steps when we were done. There were maybe 8 of us. Well it turns out that David Gregory was reporting from the lawn of the Capitol around the spot where we were meeting up. The guy did his report, turned around, and proceeded to berate us and curse at us for being fame seeking assholes for ruining his shot and then asked if we wanted his autograph.

Whiner, arrogant, pious, self centered puke - that's him!!

And Fitted Sweats asks the important question: what if you were stranded on a tropical island with him?

David Gregory would insist being stranded was all your fault in the first place. He'd make a weird headband from an old dress shirt. Go jogging. Then start asking about what Presidents you've met. "Come on," he'd say. "Has to be at least one, right?" You'd say no. Meekly. Then he'd say "What was your GPA in college?" And spend the whole time undermining you. And being his typically douchey prematurely gray self. If he dies, after writing some bad poetry on a cave wall with a rock, he's too pasty to cannibalize.