[Video: Richard Blakeley]

Riding up the elevator with this late twentysomething female blogger was Tina Brown, who was discussing her new book about Princess Diana with another party guest; upon arrival in Mrs. Mosbacher's apartment, one was quickly offered champagne in a cut crystal flute, as well as a dainty linen napkin, by a handsome young man in a tuxedo.

"Are you friends of Christo?" a woman said, in Italian, to a small group of guests who had set themselves up in the library. They were picking at the chocolate bonbons and cocktail nuts. On Mrs. Mosbacher's desk, whose surface is covered in green leather, is a book entitled "Adam's Favorite Trip to France." Each page is a photograph of Adam in various places around the country, with an accompanying sentence, like "Adam enjoys eating in his favorite restaurant very much." Adam is Mrs. Mosbacher's dog.

A waiter came around, offering pigs in a blanket. On a large round table in the dining room were other snacks: Spring rolls, several varieties of caramel and chocolate-flavored popcorn, a massive crystal chalice filled with shrimp cocktail, and in the center, an untouched chocolate cake with the image of Mr. Buckley's book created in frosting.

Soon, the guests were instructed to gather in the living room, where Mrs. Mosbacher—who goes by the last name of her third husband, Robert, a businessman who was the Secretary of Commerce under George Bush the First, and to whom she is no longer married—was going to give a speech in honor of Mr. Buckley. Mrs. Mosbacher was wearing a flowy shirt over leggings and open-toed mules, and a large gold crucifix on a gold chain around her neck. Her hair is copper-red. She is the CEO of the cosmetics company Borghese, and she seems to use their products prodigiously. She is also co-chair of the finance committee of the Republican National Committee.

In her speech, Mrs. Mosbacher said how so thrilled she was to have this party in honor of Mr. Buckley and his wonderful new book, and mentioned his girlfriend, the very tall, very 28-year-old Jolie Hunt, who is the Global Director of Corporate & Business Affairs at IBM. Then Mr. Buckley had the floor. He asked how this night was different from all other nights, which elicited a chuckle from the crowd. Despite the quirk of the party's being scheduled on the first night of Passover, Mr. Buckley said that in fact, his Jewish editor and publicist were there. His Jewish editor is Jonathan Karp of Twelve Books, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group, whose mission is "to publish the singular book, by authors who have a unique perspective and compelling authority." Mr. Buckley praised his girlfriend for helping him write the book, especially getting the whole late-twenties thing right. After the speeches the Jews in the room mostly rushed for the elevator. There was still time before sunset to get to a seder.

And so, the WASPs left in the room—and Joan Collins, who was wearing a leopard-print raincoat and a leopard-print shirt, and posed for pictures—continued sipping champagne and white wine. Taki Theodoracopulos kissed Ms. Collins. A blonde woman of a certain age was complimented on her jacket, which she said was vintage. She had purchased it at a shop on South Beach where she buys all her vintage clothing. A woman proclaimed that she had been Spy magazine's first receptionist, and freelance journalist Lloyd Grove said he and Mr. Buckley were friends from way back. A young reporter from Vanity Fair was holding two copies of the book, one of which he needed autographed for "his boss." Introductions were offered to Mr. Buckley, and he expressed surprise that a woman who exactly fit his narrator's demographic profile not only existed, but was standing right there in front of him. —doree

Lessons you'll learn:

• Barbara has a recognizable lisp.
  
• Barbara was out of her depth during Donald and Rosie's feud.
  
• Barbara has lots of famous friends.
  
• Barbara had a great idea with The View but, while it made her tons of money, it damaged her credibility.
  
• Rosie O'Donnell forced Barbara to back her on the air.
  
• "Many at ABC News" believe that Barbara talked trash about Rosie.
  
• Barbara Walters has been on TV forever.
  
• Diane Sawyer and Barbara are good friends, no matter what anyone says.
  
• Even Rosie O'Donnell's e-mails are written in free verse.
  
• Lloyd Grove got a woody for Barbara's "seductive purr."
  
• Barbara is a survivor: she's not gonna give up, she's gonna keep pushing, she's gonna work harder.

  You're welcome.

  Barbara Falters [NYM]
  

• Maria Bartiromo: too palsy with her subjects. [NYT]
  
• Tribune: The Energizer Bunny of boring media stories. [WSJ]
  
• Bonnier: $225M for Time 4 Media. [NYP; interview with Bonnier VP here]
  
• Lloyd Grove: Gonna have to do a write-around on the Barbara Walters New York mag profile. [WWD]
  
• Ken Baker: Handling Michael Eisner's upskirt videos for Us. [Jossip]
  
• Greta Van Sustern: Work done. [TVNewser]
  
• Post: promotions. [NYP]
  
• Media: Slashing jobs. Hope that 20 grand your folks dropped on J-school was worth it. [UPI]
  
• Correction of the Day: "Today, we described Katie Cruise's "power pants" as "flesh-covered". We meant "flesh-coloured", of course. Thanks to the readers who pointed out the mistake. Your thoughts on Tom Cruise's involvement are almost certainly defamatory." [Guardian]

• Time layoffs: Here's who's already gone. [Mediaweek]
  
• David Carr has a blog. [NYT]
  
• Scripps backpedals. [Romenesko]
  
• Sumner Redstone's daughter makes society debut. Yay, meritocracy! [NYP]
  
• If you haven't been following the whole McCaw/Santa Barbara News-Press story, this is a pretty good summary. [NYT]
  
• Larry King: Nancy Grace is "harpoonish." Oddly, this is not a reference to her physical appearance. [Miami Herald]
  
• The Times won't tell you exactly where to go to find Eli Lilly documents under injunction, but it will give you the exact words you need to type into a search engine that will direct you to them. [NYT]
  
• Lloyd Grove: Likes "Judge Judy," gin. [WaPo]
  

If you've been paying attention to Gawker this year, you should recognize most of the names on this list. (We've given you a little preview at right. We'd never leave the Tinz off our list!) They're the people who've distracted you, intrigued you, and sickened you (often all at the same time!) in 2006. If you've fallen behind, consider this our New Year's gift to you. We're feeling magnanimous.

Without further ado, the list of Gawker's Personalities of the Year, in no particular order, after the jump.

• Judith Regan: The publisher of her eponymous imprint ReganBooks continued her reign of provocation most of the year, but almost no one could've anticipated her swift, sudden, unceremonious fall from grace. We thank her for injecting a possibly unprecedented degree of insanity and unpredictability into the normally staid publishing industry, and hope that she resurfaces soon, anti-Semitism and all.
  
• Tinsley Mortimer: Ah, the Tinz. What do you say about a 31-year-old socialite known for a "handbag line" and her seemingly endless proclivities for partying? Oh, and giving one of the more retarded interviews to the Post in recent memory. For 2007, we hope she and Topper finally call it quits, if only because seeing her officially single would be amazing.
  
• Derek Blasberg: Total fashion fag and socialite hanger-on (we refuse to use the word "walker"), and one of our more recent obsessions, male socialite Blasberg, joined at the hip with black socialite Genevieve Jones (see below), has managed to parlay a stint at Vogue and some freelance writing into Page Six mentions and having Lindsay Lohan at his birthday parties.
  
• Genevieve Jones: There's something different about Genevieve Jones, don'tcha know? The Baton Rouge native, who has no job and no discernible source of income, has insinuated her way into the upper echelons of New York society, and might be behind Socialite Rank. Then again, she might not. Then again again, does anyone really care?
  
• Alex Kuczynski: After the publication of her memoir-slash-cautionary plastic surgery tale Beauty Junkies, Alex K. was everywhere—ev-er-y-where—waxing poetic about her own beauty and everyone else's comparative ugliness. We continue to be amazed that the Times allows her off-leash in their pages. Then again, it's Thursgay Styles, and they'll publish anything.
  
• Julia Allison: The latest in a long line of women who've landed in New York determined to Make a Splash, Allison has flirted and blogged her way to ... what, exactly? Well, she goes to a lot of parties, and she gets photographed a lot. Also, we hear she reportedly writes a dating column for one of those free papers. Anyone heard anything about that?
  
• Aleksey Vayner: The enterprising Yale senior with the ridiculously inflated (some might say pathological) sense of self, whose resume-video was the resume-video heard 'round the world. Also known for being the charter member of the Douchebag Hall of Fame.
  
• Jared Kushner: What do you do when you're 25, your father's just been let out of jail, and you've got a spare couple billion lying around? First, you buy the New York Observer in what some have called a fire sale. Then you buy the most expensive building in the history of the United States. Then you give interviews to various press outlets that imply that you can't wait to be the next Mort Zuckerman. A fine goal, indeed.
  
• Jared Paul Stern: The gossipmonger got busted by Ron Burkle and his wiretap, but nary a peep about the lawsuit has been heard in quite some time. In the meantime, Stern sold his book, Stern Measures, for somewhere in the six-figure range. Oh, and also, we let him take over the site for a weekend. Oops.
  
• Marisha Pessl: Marisha! Book hot, stage hot, TV hot, blog hot—who cares? All we know is that as long as the Special Topics in Calamity Physics author continues her reign of unfiltered bon mots, we'll have lots of fodder.
  
• Lloyd Grove: We continue to be amazed that someone so bland was ever taken seriously as a gossiper. Now that his "multimedia" opportunity appears to have fizzled, we fully expect him to have a column in Thursgay Styles.
  
• MisShapes: Where would we be without Leigh, Greg, and Geordon to make us feel fat and unstylish every day of our lives? We'd probably be doing a lot more drugs, that's where.
  
• Kaavya Viswanathan: Harvard's poster child for plagiarism has picked herself up and dusted herself off, surfacing at various Harvard parties and in a women-in-business networking and philanthropic group. We foresee law and/or business school in her future. Maybe she and Aleksey will cross paths someday.

  [Image via]

Walking into the lobby where the party was held, which, rumor has it, was not even in the actual building, just a rented promo space, I was struck by a sudden urge to get ridiculously drunk. Luckily, since I got there right at 9 p.m. like the good little slave I am, pretty much the only people there were me and some bored-looking ladies in yellow dresses serving cocktails. Nice. Also nice? One of the other three people there was Mr. Balazs himself. (Did you know it was pronounced with a soft "g" at the end, like it rhymes with mirage? I didn't. Awkward.) Anyway, dude is smoking hot, all tan and perfect haired. Nice work there, Uma. But I digress. So the space looked sort of like an old bank, with the bar being where the tellers used to be. On either side of the room were sample units. It was kind of like getting drunk at a fancy Ikea. A really fancy Ikea. One with couches made of what appeared to be horse skin. (Do people do that? Does anyone know?). Also, rich people apparently like to bathe together, because the bathtubs were big enough for at least fifteen anorexic model types. There were belly dancers with fire and one chick working a hula hoop like I have never seen. Enjoy:

It's just fascinating how the other half lives. This being my first party crash, I was understandably nervous. My nerves were calmed however by the arrival of my fellow Gawker peeps: editorial director Lockhart Steele, interns Scott and Stephanie, photographers Katie and Nikola, and videographer Richard. The few glasses of wine didn't hurt either.

I realized quickly that my usual party MO — standing in the corner and making fun of people — was not going to be acceptable, so I tried chatting up a few folks. After telling Lloyd Grove I was his biggest fan, (Not even a lie! I miss that Lowdown!), I tried to mingle with two women from Women's Wear Daily. Unfortunately, they barely made eye contact with me until I told them I worked for Gawker. Maybe they smelled the Old Navy on me. (Note to self, next time write down snotty ladies' names for use in write-up.)

By 11:30 p.m. everyone was drunk enough to start smoking inside and I had the pleasure of getting a once-over from Mr. Fabian Basabe (Impressive!). It was a good time. I mean, booze is booze, no matter how rich and important the people serving it are, right? The biggest disappointment? Moby, whose name appeared on the shot list but was nowhere to be found at the party. Sad.

Beaver Bar Grand Opening [Photos]