"We at DOI are not surprised to hear that Mr. Montvel-Cohen was arrested on theft and money-laundering charges," said Rose Gill Hearn, commissioner of the city's Department of Investigation, which probed the looting of the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club in Co-op City.

It was Montvel-Cohen who, as development director for Gloria Wise, convinced other club officials in 2003 and 2004 to give $875,000 of taxpayer money to the radio network where he was a top executive and co-founder.

He also received loans from the club of more than $45,000 that were never repaid.

With moneymaking talent like that, he could be a Republican!

But seriously, Air America was quite a terribly run business.

[NYP/ NYS]

Strange to say, these are not good ads precisely because they are so good. The point of a commercial is to make the viewer fall in love with the product, in this case the hot cars Avis is pimping. But the viewers of these commercials are more likely to give their affections to the product's victims, for it is from their point of view that the narrative has been presented.

While Avis's intention is, no doubt, to advance its corporate fortunes through these commercials, the image the ads project is less than flattering. Avis comes across as the supplier of temptation, the enabler of seduction, a corporate madame. Its stable of "hot cars" lure men and women to default on their responsibilities, to throw away the tried and true, to surrender to the meretricious glitter of the new. But these wiles are defeated by the sympathy we are made to feel for those who have been harmed by them.

Who would have thought that in the early years of the 21st century, advertising would give us a morality tale of such power?

Sorry Stanley. You're not quite ready for the Bobosphere.

After getting scooped on the Davis-Spitzer story by the Post yesterday (or not?), the NYDN today strikes back with a cover story touting how they have exclusively obtained her black book with all her clients. We were offered the same black book yesterday, in an unsolicited email. The guy doing the offering was looking for a cash offer himself. I'm pretty positive it's the same black book that the NYDN ran with for their story, because the snippet we got includes some of the same info included in their story. Wonder how the paper got it? We'll let you know if we find out.

Not only that: the NYDN says in their story, "But law enforcement officials yesterday shot down a report that then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been identified as a regular client of bottle blond Davis." With no real elaboration.

Meanwhile, the Post today reports that Jessica Cutler, the whorish DC blogger "Washingtonienne," actually worked for Davis' escort service for a while. Cutler refused to say whether she did or not. More importantly, the Post refers to it as "a Manhattan call-girl ring that counted Eliot Spitzer as a client." Which would seem to indicate they're standing behind their story yesterday.

One thing is clear: If either paper had this story really nailed down and air tight, they would be giving it much more play. If the Daily News had rock-solid proof that the Post fucked up on the Spitzer connection, they would certainly make that a blowout story. Likewise for the Post—which didn't even put the Kristin Davis story on its cover today, opting instead for a piece on Yankee Hideki Matsui's wedding. And the fact that the Times, which has the most rigorous sourcing standards of all three papers, hasn't come down on either side of this tawdry but certainly newsworthy story makes us believe that hard facts are hard to come by.

So why not settle for informed speculation and inside rumors, then? If you have any insight into how this story is playing out, email us.