Much props to David Bass—who now works with plugged-in political PR firm Qorvis, [UPDATE: Bass actually left Qorvis a couple years ago, and is now with Raptor Strategies] after serving as deputy publisher at the Weekly Standard—for not hiding behind a "no comment." You can see how he might be embarrassed by the fact that the FBI said he "appeared drunk and abusive on the flight, demanding alcohol and refusing flight attendants' orders to sit down." Bass explained to Politico the stunning confluence of events that led up to his totally misunderstood behavior on the flight:

Bass said he wasn't drunk on the flight, but rather had been taking Benadryl for an allergic reaction.
"I didn't see any reason why I couldn't get a glass of wine," he said. "I was extremely sleep deprived. I have a bad history of traveling south."

Antihistamines combined with travel in a direction contrary to the preferences of one's internal compass? Any doctor will tell you that's a recipe for an airborne outburst—including crawling over the passenger next to you while demanding wine— through no fault of one's own. On top of that:

Bass said he had been in Honduras on a business trip and hadn't slept for five days before boarding a Continental Airlines flight from Houston to Washington on Friday.

Not sleeping for five fucking days? He's a hardworking professional. "It didn't seem like reality to me," Bass said. We bet! Update: Politico just updated their story to say he hadn't slept for three days, not five after Bass called to clarify that he had been traveling for five days and not getting much sleep.

[Politico]

Let's all agree that, sure, it would probably be good from a public health standpoint if alcohol ads were banned. But that would hardly erase alcoholism. Or "binge drinking," which is a catchier way to express the phenomenon in trend stories. Every party with a stake in this issue, though, must take an absolutist, laughable position. Everyone is half right and half lying.

The doctors are obligated to overstate the persuasive effects of alcohol ads in order to convince the government to consider such a drastic, money-evaporating ban. The media outlets are obligated to make tortuous mouth-noises about being concerned about the problem and everything but look we really really need that money, sweet Jesus, please lord, we need those alcohol ads (close to $300 million worth, btw), it's a god damn recession, okay? And the ad agencies—well, as Ad Age reports:

Dave Trott, creative director of London agency Chick Smith Trott, said, "People who blame advertising for binge drinking have misunderstood the whole purpose of advertising — it's about stealing market share, not persuading people to drink."

Hahahahahaha! Alcohol advertising is not about persuading people to drink. You and your crazy notions! The truth is that humans, battered by the grim fortunes of this cold world, will often turn to the soothing but destructive embrace of the bottle. Particularly the Irish.

Ciaran O'Reilly, managing director of Refresh Digital Communications in Dublin, said, "The realities are that it would be the view of a lot of informed people that advertising is not the root cause of the problem. Living in a darker and more-miserable climate seems to have a direct correlation with alcohol levels."

[Pic via]

Watch as the nearly incomprehensible Winehouse lays down sick rhymes, like "Listen. I can write ten raps a night, it don't matter, but you know that it's tight." She also describes herself as a "Jewmaican."

She did this all with the singer Zalon, who really should have stopped her.

Smoking indoors. And everybody was so drunk! What a sad, emotionally disturbed time it must have been. Untreated depression was rampant, no doubt. The funniest part is when Gay says, "There's nothing like that today." Well.

[The] USA TODAY Wine Club will feature USA TODAY reader tasting panels throughout the country selecting wines for the club. The quarterly pack features wines sourced by experts and chosen by USA TODAY readers.

Who better to select your wine than USA Today readers, pictured? The newspaper industry, ladies and gentlemen. This is it.

[Video by Gawker intern Bill Zilla.]

Here are the findings from a new survey of binge drinkers which makes me scoff:

The researchers focused on 14,000 "binge drinkers " - people who said that at least once month that they had five or more drinks on a single occasion. About 12 percent said they had gone driving within two hours of their last bout of heavy drinking.

Uh huh. So nearly 90% of binge drinkers went out and got drunk and then did not drive. Amazing. Instead of asking drunk to voluntarily reveal how reckless they are, try this, scientists: 100% of binge drinkers, minus the % living in big cities and likely to take mass transportation, minus the % with designated drivers, minus the % willing to call a cab and leave their own car parked at the bar, equals the drunk drivers.

So roughly 68%.
[Pic via]

DeVito claimed that his slobbering interview with a Philadelphia newswoman on a morning show was all an act, that he was "in character" playing the pathetic slob her portrays on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Whatever, whether he was really drunk or not, we still want to go out and drink limoncellos all night long with Danny DeVito.

If you're like "I would only throw up and punch people and scream and start riots and fuck strangers and pass out when I'm drunk and that's the whole point," well, that's not REALLY HARDCORE, is it?
[via Adrants]

Everything ended happily — including for the drunk guy, a financial planner whose career might have been ruined had Mote pressed charges. AgencySpy has the long, convoluted tale of how Mote and a friend tracked down the thief at his apartment building and witnessed him piss himself as she reclaimed her belongings. It's a story best told in status updates:

Because everyone knows that Irish people are nothing more than filthy drunks who reek of booze-stink all the ever lovin' day, the morning shows used the occasion to talk about beer and whiskey and magic drunk-getting coffee and, you know, drank it! Well, on CBS' Early Show they were taking demure little pretend sips and doing fanciful jigs. But Hoda... Hoda went full Kotb and glug-a-lugged throughout her entire hour. Temporary co-host Billy Bush (Kathie Lee is currently lying in the middle of the street in a pool of her own Jameson, her wig ablaze) was a terrible enabler, encouraging Hoda like so many Claire Huxtables to chug-a-lug. Hoda, watch how they do it on CBS. They don't actually get crunk. You could learn something.

Actually wait, don't. Keep on keepin' on. You're more fun (read: bearable) this way.

Thanks to video intern Nicole Keller for the clips!

Earlier that evening Nara was all up in Niagara bar in the East Village, drawing shit all over the walls, and what did they do? Put plexiglass over it. That shit is valuable. This proves that drunks are smarter than the NYPD, although not as romantic about the impermanence of art:

[The Tangent/ AMNY]

See, the president goes on and on about his "black" dad and "white" mom but he never acknowledges the importance in his life of "his great-great-great-grandfather Falmouth Kearney," who came to America in 1850 because Ireland is was a hellhole. Ok, let's check in with the annoying people:

"He's as much Irish as he is Kenyan," said Irish American Democrats President Stella O'Leary. [really?? -ed] "He's been very wrapped up in his African-American heritage. But we will welcome him with open arms."

And all these Irish Americans now demand that the President turn the White House green for St. Patrick's day, or something, who knows what they actually want from him, but it will be stupid in a really demeaning stereotypical way. Maybe they want him to dress up as a cop and hate black people? (Kidding, kidding! That's only 19th century Irish immigrants, not today's vibrant and inclusive community of drunk layabouts!)

But can we go even more asinine with the quotes? Yes we can!

"He doesn't want to dilute his brand by introducing other nationalities," said Darrell West, government studies vice president at the Brookings Institution. "He has told a very powerful story about growing up biracial. If he adds the Irish piece, that message gets distorted."

Yes, right, he wouldn't want to dilute his biracial brand, that is probably what he is thinking about when he purposefully neglects to mention the "Irish piece" of his biography that has absolutely nothing to do with his life or story.

The real reason he won't talk about the Irish stuff, of course, is because he was secretly born in County Cork to a Muslim Leprechaun. We read it in Wikipedia!

Access Extra Tonight host Billy Bush was filling in for Ms. Gifford this morning, and he and Hoda flipped through some photos of a recent vacation. Billy, referring to one picture, said "it looks like you're keeping the Pinot Grigio industry alive and well." Hoda, not missing a beat, responded: "You have no idea how much sheeee was drinking." Because, hah! What can Kathie Lee do to her if she's not there? Except, you know, shame and debase her some more when she gets back. Sigh.

Thanks to hero intern Bette Bentley for compiling this wonderful video of America's Drunkest Former Nixon Staffer Journalist mumbling things about children and boots.

CORRECTION, JESUS: Diane Sawyer did not attend a single ball! She was up all night reporting. So they just had her on GMA after a full 24 hours of being on television despite the fact that no news actually happened yesterday, or this morning. It was a sick Jackass-style stunt of some kind we think?

• Is this really just because Australians are all drunks anyhow?
• Or is it because all ad people are cokeheads, no matter where they're from?
• Could these numbers possibly be any higher in Australia than they'd be in the American ad industry?
• Does this mean that the ad industry has even more drunk cokeheads has than the media?

Informed answers in the comments. (I say yes, yes, no, and who knows?) [via AgencySpy]

Dunleavy was born in Sydney, Australia in 1938. He moved to New York as a stringer in the mid-1960s, and made his way to the Post after Rupert Murdoch bought it in the late 1970s. In 1977 he found time to publish a book called "Elvis- What happened?", a behind-the-scenes look at the life of The King that came out just weeks before Elvis died. Hm. In the 80s Dunleavy was a lead reporter on A Current Affair, the Post of television.

He was famous for being a rabid right-winger—the type of man who figured that if you got your head cracked by the cops, you probably deserved it—and for being a lush. Some of the typical Dunleavy stories:

• "There was the night a blizzard buried Manhattan and Dunleavy, "reclining" with a young woman in a snowdrift outside Elaine's, and had his foot run over by a snowplow. Snarled Pete Hamill of the Daily News, 'I hope it was his writing foot.'"
• "Celebrated for first-punch fights at Costello's now defunct saloon and for sleeping overnight in a straight-backed wooden chair in the Post's city room when the paper was on South Street, in recent years Dunleavy has been favoring a booth at Langan's, a pub near the Post's current midtown HQ, for his recuperative overnight naps."
• Dunleavy hated Bill Clinton, and during his presidency loudly advocated for the release of Wayne DuMond, an Arkansas man in prison for raping Clinton's third cousin in 1984. DuMond was almost certainly guilty. But "Dunleavy also referred to the young woman, a minor at the time of the assault, on the record as the 'so-called victim,' and asserted 'That rape never happened.'"
• And a classic Dunleavy Gawker Stalker: "I was at Langan's on 47th at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, and Mr. Dunleavy was there. We only noticed him after he fell into some chairs and onto the ground. The hostess rushed over and immediately started saying loudly that the chairs were in his way (despite the fact that he was obviously sauced). He got up and then propped himself by the doorway, until a bartender came over with a glass of water for him. Dunleavy took it and left the bar."

He inspired a lot of outrage, but at least he was a character. Now that he's retiring for good, fellow rabid Post columnist Andrea Peyser is truly the Last Man Standing.

We'll see you all at the party.

NYT stories by Sarah Lyall, a selection:

6/2/06
"It's Springtime for Soccer, And For Rowdy England Fans"

1/11/06
"Ever Since Falstaff, Getting Sloshed Is Cricket"

7/22/04
"British Worry That Drinking Has Gotten Out of Hand"

9/2/02
"What is it About British Men? Cheap, Drunk, and Stiff-Lipped."

5/1/00
"Later Pub Hours? Europe Tells Britain It's Time."

There's more!