Best:

9. Boston Globe reporter tells married source "Don't shave" — This was almost a non-scandal, just a stale affair that happened in Miami the year before. But the emails! "I haven't shaven since I left Miami. Thought you would like that image :)"

8. Jared Paul Stern's wife cheats, there are pictures — At first we couldn't believe the former Page Six gossip writer's wife would have sex with a random business partner, but then there were photos. As if getting fired from the Post amid nasty extortion allegations wasn't sad enough on husband Stern. Tragic.

7. "Steve Ratner has paid my wife $500,000.00 to leave me." — The head of private equity at Credit Suisse was driven from his job by a man whose wife he slept with. The guy spammed a tawdry tale of humiliation into newspaper comments sections. A sympathetic feature in the Times only deepened the humiliation. The internet is to blame, as always.

6. Lara Logan, CBS News' Iraq-based homewrecker — She was a correspondent in Iraq, slept with a contractor named Joe Burkett (and this other guy, who works for CNN!) and then got pregnant. The first guy's wife was not happy. There was something about sexism and double standards but, really, it was just all awful and every involved came out looking pretty terrible, Logan very much included.

5. The "redneck" father of Bristol Palin's baby — Tobacco-chewing, self-described redneck Levi Johnston, 18, knocked up Sarah Palin's daughter right before Palin was named John McCain's running mate. His mere existence was a scandal to the coastal elites, who looked at him and were all "eww," especially during the convention. He still hasn't married Bristol like he promised!

4. Max Mosley's Nazi- or prison-themed S&M orgy tape — News of the World had five hours of video in which a British racing boss is disciplined by German-speaking women in some kind of make-believe prison-camp. Mosley denied it was a Nazi thing and won a suit against the tabloid for invasion of privacy. When will America learn to manufacture a proper, quality sex scandal with elaborate bondage and tons of video?

3. Madonna and A-Rod — They claim not to have slept together while Alex Rodriguez was married, but Madonna was, at the very least, emotionally close enough to the Yankees slugger to be named an "other woman" in his wife's divorce proceeding. The couple also felt the ned to meet at a New York restaurant in secret. Then, after the divorce, they flew all over the world together.

Maybe they really do just study Kaballah and stare at each other, but isn't Madonna getting kind of old for these games? Wait, sorry, that was sexist.

2. John Edwards cheats on his cancer-stricken wife, lies about it — Sure, other politicians have cheated on their sick wives and gone on to distinguished careers, but Edwards lied to the press, ran from National Enquirer reporters and hid in a bathroom, delayed any explanation for weeks and then issued a fishy, limited admission that, yes, he did screw former campaign videographer Rielle Hunter. But that love child isn't his!

No one's really convinced, and by delaying the inevitable Edwards became a political non-entity at the precise time his populist, anti-corporate message looked more prescient than ever.

1. Gov. Eliot Spitzer and his prostitute, Ashley Dupre, are busted — Many people enjoyed the comeuppance of Mr. Holy McSmartypants, the former Wall Street-busting state attorney general turned arrogant governor. The feds got him, for whoring.

One of Spitzer's hookers, Ashley Youmans (stage name Ashley Alexandra Dupre, hooker name "Kristen") had a MySpace account, had made video for Girls Gone Wild as a teenager, had a song on the internet, for sale and had made a music video. Everything was in place to explode her story.

Like Edwards. Spitzer, too, was ahead of the curve in calling out the rotting uselessness of then-respected American financial institutions . Oh well.

Worst:

• Miley Cyrus wears lipstick in Vanity Fair, let's panic: She's wearing only bedsheet at age 15! Sex! Aggggh! She's a terrible role model and probably a witch! No wait, that Jewish lesbian mystic hypnotized her and instilled devil sensuality into her! Actually, it turns out she's been doing silly sorta sexual poses with her cameraphone, on MySpace, for various boyfriends forever, and she quickly acquired a 20-year-old man, and then said she'd love to work with Annie Leibovitz again.
• John McCain maybe sexed a lobbyist, on a jet: The Times stuttered and stammered this accusation over months, and then couldn't bring itself to even make it. God. Like there were no other, more solid McCain scandals to go after?
• Sarah Palin cheated on her husband: Ya, that one really panned out decisively. It's actually pretty heartening that Katie Couric's old-fashioned journalism on old-fashioned topics is what made the difference. Not that sex isn't a relevant issue, but, come on: path of least resistance.
• Cindy McCain kisses another man!: They couldn't get this out before the election was over? At least then it might have drummed up some interest. Nothing has been heard about it since. Even if it pans out: Depressing.

Both Logan and Burkett were married (and both also reportedly separated, though the Enquirer glossed over that point), both are divorcing, and Logan, according to Kurtz, expects to marry Burkett eventually.

We're happy that things seem to be working out for Lara, though Burkett does not actually sound like much of a catch. Between the fact that he's a mysterious "civilian contractor" and the fact that his other marriage ended in the bitterest divorce ever on account of him spending the entirety of it—including the pregnancy and birth bits—war profiteering in Iraq, maybe he is not the marrying kind? Or maybe that's just his psycho ex-wife, who took the story to the Enquirer in the first place.

We just feel bad for CNN reporter Michael Ware, the other other man, for being totally overshadowed in all this.

Logan did not even think she was able to get pregnant, because she is missing a fallopian tube, so this homewrecking Baghdad warzone baby is truly a miracle. Once it is born it can take over Meet the Press.

It's sort of a fact of war reporting that, you know, people are going to fuck around. They're far away from home, they're only in contact with other journalists, contractors, and soldiers. Passions run high! Etc! But the other fact of the matter is that if there is going to be a scandal of this nature, chances are decent that it will involve a man and a lady. Like in this Logan situation, where we're not hearing much about CNN correspondent Michael Ware, one of the alleged "beaus." Well, we're hearing plenty about him, but he's not in the headlines. So there's your sexist double standard, obv—we castigate the pretty lady for having sex and boys will be boys.

But there's an exception! (Once again, sort of.) Balk, refuting the idea that we wouldn't "read these stories about a male correspondent," reminds us of Dexter Filkins and John Burns. Filkins and Burns are star New York Times reporters who were involved in an imbroglio when another Times correspondent emailed their wives exposing their overseas extramarital affairs. That reporter, Susan Sachs, was fired. So the affairs of Burns and Filkins were exposed, yes, but most of the coverage was about that firing, and Howard Kurtz didn't even mention the names of Filkins and Burns, even though, as in Logan's case, those names were already "out there."

So yes everyone is being totally unfair to Lara Logan but whatever, it won't really cost her much more than a headache, we're pretty sure.

The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively that CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes foreign correspondent, Lara Logan, has been named as the “other woman” in a Texas couple Joe and Kimberly Burkett's bitter divorce.

Burkett’s wife Kimberly, 32, was so distraught with his cheating that she took an overdose of Valium

Kimberly Burkett's attorney Susie Chmielowiec told The ENQUIRER, “Kimberly believes Lara stole her husband – and now they’re trying to steal her little girl."

And in a twist that’s as shocking as any story Lara has covered, sources are charging she also had another affair, and her two lovers got into a brutal battle over her in Baghdad!

Sources charge that the Emmy winning Logan began her affair with 36-year-old U.S. State Department contractor, Burkett in war-torn Baghdad.

And yet another scandal brews in the steamy mix: Lara’s reported romance with a star CNN correspondent – whose jealousy exploded in a battle royal with Burkett in a Baghdad “safe house.”

“Not only is Lara having a torrid affair with a married man – she apparently has more than one lover!” Chmielowiec charged to The ENQUIRER.

When CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric heard about Lara’s sexual shenanigans, she blew a gasket!

What is your favorite part of that story? Katie Couric blowing a gasket is good, but we particularly enjoy the bit where an affair is "as shocking as any story Lara has covered." Because, like, she reports from war zones, where people are fighting wars and stuff.

Of course none of this is really shocking at ALL because foreign correspondents basically all sleep with everyone they can. It's stressful work and adrenaline runs high. Though some war zones are more conducive to this sort of thing. It depends on heat, relative humidity, and availability of showers.

Update: SO the print Enquirer further claims that Logan's second affair is with CNN reporter Michael Ware, and that Ware fought Burkett over it in Baghdad.

Then the contractor dude who announced in court that he's having this affair with Logan told his wife that he killed people in Iraq. Which is maybe not true?

Finally, Lara was "entertaining" some people in Baghdad when Ware came in and then him and Burkett fought for HOURS and even ended up in the CNN safehouse! It's amazing they had time to cover the war, what with all this drama.

Lara supposedly "sputtered" something when an Enquirer reporter inquired about her husband, and her husband is said to have had no comment. Whee. We're still not clear on how Katie Couric is involved?

CBS NEWS LARA LOGAN DIVORCE WAR [Enquirer]

Straight men across the nation sat up and took notice when Lara Logan told Jon Stewart that it was impossible to get her stories on the air at CBS News. How could that be, they all asked, when she is so adorable? Americans apparently don't want to hear that more of us died in Afghanistan than in Iraq last month even if that news comes from a total cutie!

Even Frank Rich noticed!

So now it is your patriotic duty to express outrage about this, even though dude, you totally have no chance with her.

[NYT]

But if her reporting evokes the glory of her predecessors, such comparisons go only so far.

Ms. Logan is a 34-year-old South African who just 15 years ago was a hostess at the Water Club on the East River.

And that's what sets Lara Logan apart. Not her shiny hair or her hard body, but the fact that she was a hostess when she was 19. See? When we were 19, we already waiting on actual tables.

War Zone 'It Girl' Has a Big Future at CBS News [NYT]