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history
Michael Savage's Homo Hippie Past
Michael Savage, the fag-hating radio host who thinks autism is the parents' fault, may seem like your typical blustery foaming-at-the-mouth
like a prayer
Postcards From 'Times' Mommas
You know that prayer that begins "God grant me the serenity" etc. etc. (surely it rings a bell among the alkies in our audience)? It was composed in the 1940s by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. Everyone knows this! Except some Yale librarian has found records of people (all ladies!) quoting the prayer back in the 1930s! So now there's this argument about it, because Niebuhr's daughter has apparently been eating out on this Serenity Prayer thing for years (she wrote a memoir and everything). That daughter is editor and publisher Elisabeth Sifton, as today's Times story on the controversy notes. What the Times story does not note is that Elisabeth is the mother of New York Times culture editor Sam Sifton. [NYT via Doree]
consumer guide
Howard Wolfson, Music Critic
Hillary Clinton aide Howard Wolfson is now a regular contributor to Fox News, but in his heart of hearts, he'd like to be a contributing editor at Spin. As we've mentioned, he regularly sends out indie-heavy playlists of what he's listening to to friends, fellow flacks, and journalists. And we finally found his 2004 end-of-year list! Complete with blurbs! Wolfson's top ten, and other assored bits of music criticism from the be-sweatered communications consultant, after the jump. More »
retro
2004 is Back!
How, we ask you, could someone named "T. Boone Pickens" possibly be bad? T. Boone is, as you have probably guessed, a Texas billionaire. An oil billionaire! But he does not spend his billions on running moonshine or buying the world's largest cement pond. No, instead Pickens—who will be played by Charles Durning for the remainder of this post—funds slanderous attack campaigns against Democratic political candidates. The campaigns feature lies so ridiculous that the only people who regularly take them seriously work at every cable news station and many newspapers. More »
war his hell
Lara Logan and the War Correspondent Sex Scandal Double Standard
CBS war correspondent Lara Logan was recently promoted to "Chief Foriegn Affairs Correspondent," but no one noticed because OMG SEX SCANDAL! The Enquirer broke it, the Post semi-legitimized it, and it's been mentioned now in, like, real newspapers and everything. She slept with some people in Iraq! One of them was married! Some wonder if there is maybe a double standard. Would we hear about the dalliences of male journalists in the war zone? Well... sort of? More »
classic rumors
Wintour's Alleged Tryst With Conde Nast Boss
It's Anna Wintour's 20th anniversary as editor of Vogue, and the be-bobbed one has certainly earned her title as one of the most feared figures in fashion. But it's worth remembering that she hasn't had a smooth ride. In fact, Wintour was beset by a salacious—and probably false—sex scandal rumor as soon as she took her job. Here, from the pages of Jerry Oppenheimer's biography Front Row, is the story of the alleged Wintour love connection with her boss, Si Newhouse—and how Wintour's reaction became a rare and fleeting moment of feminist pride inside Conde Nast: More »
dynasties
The Follieri Crime Family
Raffaello Follieri always looked the part of the Italian aristocrat. Impeccably dressed and permanently tanned—like a more attractive version of Zach Braff—he arrived in New York as a dashing young business tycoon with inside connections to the Vatican and a plan to use those connections to make millions. In short order he landed stunning actress Anne Hathaway as a girlfriend and drew attention from some of the most powerful financial figures in America. His father was Pasquale Follieri, an Italian businessman and his son's partner in the Follieri Group, an shady concern that promised investors big returns from real estate dealings with the Catholic Church. But that's not all that Pasquale was; just two years after he helped establish his son in New York, he would be a convicted financial criminal, in an eerie foreshadowing of Raffaello's own fate: More »
feuds
Arianna Insists Her Dislike of Tim Russert Was Nothing Personal
Portfolio media reporter Jeff Bercovici cornered blogstress Arianna Huffington at a party and interviewed her. He asked, awkwardly, about Tim Russert. As you may recall, Arianna did not like the deceased newsman. She devoted a great deal of time and energy to criticizing his interview style, guests, questions, and status. To be fair, her points were often cogent and correct! But the other thing is that Tim's wife Maureen Orth wrote a terribly nasty story about Arianna back in the '90s and also called her then-husband gay (he was, and is). Then Arianna was accused of hiring a private investigator to tail Maureen and Tim. Which she denies. Still, she says, Russert Watch was nothing personal. More »
awkward
Arianna Huffington's 15-Year Feud With Tim Russert
So. As we noted this morning, blog mistress Arianna Huffington didn't weigh in on the unexpected death of departed Meet the Press host Tim Russert until well after everyone else, and once she did, she didn't have much to say. Because of the old axiom about how much one should say when one doesn't have anything nice to say. (HuffPo's regular feature "Russert Watch" has gone blank—technical glitch
This Is Why His Running Mate Should be Gene Wilder
Much as there would be no Gawker without Spy, there apparently would be no Barack Obama without I Spy. Interracial buddy cops invented tolerance! [Slate]
Much as there would be no Gawker without Spy, there apparently would be no Barack Obama without I Spy. Interracial buddy cops invented tolerance! [Slate]
charts & graphs
Today, the Associated Press announced that Barack Obama is officially the Democratic nominee for President. Which means that the Hillary Clinton campaign is finished. It's been a long, long time. Two years, actually! We first tracked the history of the Clinton campaign back in April, when it was just probably doomed. Now it's time to revisit that history, this time with a big fancy chart. The data points are Barack Obama's closing prices on political futures betting site InTrade. The higher the closing price, the more likely investors think his nomination is (with 100 being dead-on certainty). Click to enlarge the chart, and to re-read our April history explaining the significance of the dates mentioned. Now updated with relevant "May" and "Early June" information!
More »
The Visual History of the Longest Primaries Ever
Today, the Associated Press announced that Barack Obama is officially the Democratic nominee for President. Which means that the Hillary Clinton campaign is finished. It's been a long, long time. Two years, actually! We first tracked the history of the Clinton campaign back in April, when it was just probably doomed. Now it's time to revisit that history, this time with a big fancy chart. The data points are Barack Obama's closing prices on political futures betting site InTrade. The higher the closing price, the more likely investors think his nomination is (with 100 being dead-on certainty). Click to enlarge the chart, and to re-read our April history explaining the significance of the dates mentioned. Now updated with relevant "May" and "Early June" information!
More »
history
Old New York's Favorite Filthy Newspapers
Newspaper and magazines are maybe dying because they are simply not as awesome as they used to be. The American Antiquarian Society has put together a book called The Flash Press: Sporting Male Weeklies in 1840s New York, and those sporting male weeklies make our modern-day tabloids and lad mags look like they're put together by a bunch of kittens and marketed to little girls. They are called The Flash Press after The Flash, a weekly founded by a drunk Bostonian named William Snelling. He wrote a poem about how much he hated all the other poets in the nation, then moved to New York to spend more time at brothels. Eventually he founded that four-page weekly paper, dedicated to "Awful Developments, Dreadful Accidents and Unexpected Exposures." Was he the original blogger?! More »
scott mcclellan
Scott McClellan: Former Hottie
Book-writin' Bush traitor Scott McClellan is not well-liked by anyone these days, but it was a different story back in Austin High School in the mid-1980s. As a classmate tells Joshua Stein: "He was a senior when I was a sophmore and there was a golden light bathed around him at all times. He was sweet and smart and all the things that senior boys should be (when you're a brace face sophomore)... He was also on the tennis team (HOT!)...." Hey, he's on the Daily Show tonight for what we're positive will be one of those terribly awkward Jon Stewart interviews, and not one of the funny or fawning ones. [My Memoirs]
ominous doings
Obama Will Be Rupert Murdoch's Next Tony Blair
Lovable media mogul Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp, has been going around predicting a landslide victory for the Democrats this November and also big-upping Senator Barack Obama—he called Obama a "superstar" and a "complete phenomenon" at a conference yesterday. He apparently nudged his pet tabloid the New York Post toward an Obama endorsement in the New York primaries (despite his early attempts at making friendly with the Clintons). And as the Post goes, so goes, well, other News Corp holdings. So maybe Fox News will let up on Barry a bit? They've never been terribly friendly to McCain anyhow. But why would this noted conservative tyrant endorse Mr. Liberal Hope? He's done it before—with a friendly little weasel named Tony Blair. More »
history
Booze, Blow, and Bush: A Love Story
How much did President Bush drink? When did he quit? Did he quit? And what else did he do? There are absolutely no definitive answers to any of those questions, and most of the witnesses and parties involved are suspect or worse. Still, with the publication of former press secretary Scott McClellan's book, complete with re-airing of those old cocaine rumors, it might be fun to investigate the out-going president's drug history, as found both in the public record and the fever dreams of conspiracy artists. More »
drugs
McClellan Shocker: Bush Too Drunk to Remember How Much Cocaine He Did
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan was the doughy, ill-informed punching bag the press needed after a couple years of smarmy wise-ass Ari Fleisher. But now he's getting his revenge, as all big dumb doughy dudes must after they realize their "friends" just pretended to like them. He wrote a book. It's called What Happened, and it's about how everyone in the White House was a stupid idiot, especially President Bush, who is so stupid that he just convinces himself of bullshit so he doesn't technically have to lie. "The media won't let go of these ridiculous cocaine rumors," McClellan heard Bush say in 1999. "You know, the truth is I honestly don't remember whether I tried it or not. We had some pretty wild parties back in the day, and I just don't remember." Ha! So maybe he tried cocaine, but if so he was already mid-blackout and who can recall between all the homosexual encounters, animal sacrifices to pagan gods, and stripper-raping that they were doing! After the jump, Karl Rove complaining about how Scott McCellan sounds like a raving DailyKos liberal. Just because Karl Rove misled him regarding the Plame affair, leading McClellan to blatantly lie to the press, destroying his credibility and career! More »
campaigns
