McCain last night tweeted about how she was spending her evening eating takeout and reading an Andy Warhol biography. To accompany this radical take on an evening in, McCain uploaded a picture of her in her usual home alone outfit of sweat pants and a tank top. And apparently this set of shitstorm of conservative condemnation — apparently young women should not be encouraged by their role model Meghan McCain to expose any part of their breasts, ever — and fat jokes.

So then McCain says she's quitting this awful Twitter place forever, except maybe not really, because she wanted to "sleep on it" and probably woke up this morning realizing she now has the moral high ground again and fodder for a whole slew of new outraged Daily Beast columns:

There's another thing Meghan McCain has that she didn't have "about 16 hours ago," which will keep her on Twitter forever: lots and lots of fresh new attention. For her perky and hugely well articulated political positions, of course. Both of them.

• Poor Sarah Palin! The former Alaska governor wants to charge $100,000 for speaking gigs, but sources say many lecture circuits think she's nothing more than a "blithering idiot" and don't want to shell out the bucks. [Page Six]

  
  

• How far they fall: Eddie Furlong's wife Rachael Kneeland filed a restraining order against the Terminator 2 star. She claims he "grabbed me, bruised me, pushed me, made threats of more violence" and smokes cocaine like a mad man. [TMZ]

  
  

• A medical examiner has officially ruled on suicide in DJ AM's death. It was an "accidental overdose." Still sad, though. [NYDN]

  
  

• Meghan McCain doesn't have the highest opinion of journalists: I am pretty much completely disillusioned with journalists after my time... I think all of it's bad." Wait, don't you write for Daily Beast? [Mediaite]

  
  

• Who knew so many people would want to see Jude Law and Hugh Jackman in the flesh? Their new play, A Steady Rain, broke Broadway's record for single tickets sold in a week. [Reuters]

  
  

• Ew! U2's current tour costs a little over $750,000 each day. And, despite Bono's Earth-friendly ways, a lot of that goes to the 200 trucks that transport equipment, lights and food. [The Sun]

  
  

• Madonna wants to get her embryonic boyfriend, Jesus Luz, DJ gigs at East Village bars, including homosexual establishment Eastern Bloc. [Page Six]

  
  

• Penelope Cruz can't — or won't — say if she prefers kissing Scarlett Johansson or Charlize Theron. They are both, she says, "pretty beautiful partners." Also, she won't say if she's having Javier Bardem's baby. [Vanity Fair]

  
  

• Let's all pray for Gwen Stefani, for some evil robbers tried to break into her mansion while she was in Singapore. Tragic. [NYDN]

  
  

• Conan O'Brien made fun of Newark, New Jersey, last week, and now the city's mayor, Cory Booker, has posted a YouTube "banning" him from the city's airport, which is basically like telling someone they can't eat glass. That place sucks. [NY Post]

  
  

• BBC executives chided gay comedian Graham Norton for making fun of lesbian haircuts. [Daily Mail]

  
  

• So, Diddy's leaving Warner Bros. for Interscope, but WB won't let him take all of his Bad Boy artists, so he's going to have to find new talent. Good thing he has a billion MTV shows that revolve around that very concept. [Page Six]

  
  

• Oscar-winning Pulp Fiction writer Roger Avary was sentenced to one-year in jail yesterday for a DUI accident in which his passenger died. [MSNBC]

McCain, the Senatorial daughter who managed to become a media sensation by bucking conservative idiocy, used her ever-important Twitter today to raise hell against director Breck Eisner's remake of Creature from the Black Lagoon:

Is there a remake of "Creature From The Black Lagoon" coming out?!? Tell me hollywood isn't ruining my all time favorite movie...

Sorry to break it to you, Ms. McCain, but Hollywood has indeed honed its sights on your favorite movie. And it's coming out in 2011. Our condolences.

But, while McCain's all revved up and looking for celluloid blood, can we please direct her to Day of the Day of the Triffids? If there's one movie that should remain untouched, it's that. Oh, Triffids and The Tingler. Unless someone can exhume and reanimate Vincent Price, we're not interested.

Here's a whole article by the LAT's media critic about how Meghan McCain is the next big media superstar. I mean look, she has the famous name, the Twitter, the opinions about issue things, the TV shows, the internet, the tattoo, the youth, the rebel, and the politics stuff. Downside, she's dumb.


Your daily BusinessWeek update, whether you like it or not: With Wasserstein out of the running, looks like Bloomberg's gonna get it. Stay tuned for more daily BusinessWeek updates!


Now that Glenn Beck has been eradicated from the face of television through ad boycotts, some other non-Republican people are organizing a boycott of Lou Dobbs. Good luck to you haters.


The Atlantic's launched a new site that ranks the top 50 political pundits, making it the Mediaite list of drab political punditry, and equally useful. In a review, David Carr says he "generally gets his fill of opinions from his cab drivers." Well so does Thomas Friedman, and he's #4 on The Atlantic's list, so this site is still useful.

MSNBC is carrying the live feed of the funeral. [Top photo credit: CJ Gunther/Getty Images]

The nice thing about this photo? Ted Kennedy would've made a great joke about it. [Nice work, Brian Snyder of Getty Images]

Widow Victoria Kennedy, mourning. [Photo credit: Brian Snyder/Getty Images]

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, married to Kennedy's niece, Maria Shriver. He used the same face at the end of Junior. [Photo credit: Brian Snyder/Getty Images]

Jack Nicholson doesn't need your stinkin' fashionably late arrival. He's pictured here wondering if this is as good as it gets. [Photo credit: Brian Snyder/Getty Images]

Nancy Pelosi continues the Democratic powerhouse parade through the funeral. She's pictured here hugging Angela Menino, the wife of Boston's mayor, Thomas Menino. [Photo Credit: Brian Snyder/Getty Images.]

Obama just eulogized Kennedy as the "soul of the democratic party." His complete remarks can be read at Daily Kos. A highlight, after Obama called him the "Greatest Legislator Of Our Time":

Teddy walked into a meeting with a plain manila envelope, and showed only the Chairman that it was filled with the Texan's favorite cigars. When the negotiations were going well, he would inch the envelope closer to the Chairman. When they weren't, he would pull it back. Before long, the deal was done.

Ted Kennedy Jr. spoke about sailing with his father. "My father taught me that even our profound losses are survivable," is going to be the pullquote line from his eulogy. [Photo Credit Jewel Samad / AFP / Getty]

The classy commenters are Free Republic are comparing the Kennedys to the Ku Klux Klan, naturally.

John McCain doesn't seem too upset to be at a funeral. It's his birthday! [Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]

Speaking of which, "Columnist for TheDailyBeast.com/Writer," one Meghan McCain, is in a celebratory mood.

Mediaite noted that coverage is dominating the airwaves. Well, yes.

This is the face of a man who has nothing better to do these days than suppress farts, as he's pictured doing now. [Credit: Brian Snyder/Getty Images]

Good thing there's someone to scold him. [Credit: Brian Snyder/Getty Images]

Kennedy was described as a lover of music. Yo Yo Ma performed, CNN has video.

McCain's making publicity rounds again, in some kind of incredible quadruple-floop-reverse-psychology media strategy that falls somewhere between the minds of Willy Wonka and Crispin, Porter +Bogusky. It involves her going to liberal media outlets and talking smack on the Republican Party, appearing to piss off Daddy, and burying the lede (that she's, like, so the future of the Republican Party). This time, she totes kicked it with her Geigh Friends at Out, and had this to say about the McCain/Palin campaign's breathing version of the Sickle and Hammer, political casualty Joe The Plumber:

"Joe the Plumber — you can quote me — is a dumbass. He should stick to plumbing,"

Know your place, silly prole mascot! You excavated shit for a living before you ruined her shot at awesomeness and that's all you're ever going to do now that she can't Roll With Her Homies in DC. Meanwhile, she also told Out that, besides advocating the legalization of gay marriage, she'd "be flattered to be considered the anti-Ann Coulter, the anti-Rush Limbaugh," and managed to completely avoid discussing Sarah Palin. Nice. She also supposedly got Rush Limbaugh to tell her to go Arlen Specter and just peace out on the Republicans, which Dad's definitely going to love.

Meanwhile, she continues to add editorial luster to The Daily Beast by coming down on Young Republicans election of a racist to their leadership post, is advising young people to fuck cowboys (and not horses), and is not preggers/did not see Tupac get shot, and is currently getting trashed on DayQuil as I write this.

There's quite simply nothing to be said or done that could adequately express how utterly confounding, impressive, and awe-inspiring Meghan McCain's media strategy is. She's the Lady Gaga of political nobodies; it's like Dash Snow died, and she stepped in. Every publicist in the world should be taking notes, as this is how you defy expectations: subversively call everyone on their bluff and wait for them to keep thinking you're full of shit before the joke becomes an Andy Kaufman-esque reality.

Or just extend teenage belligerence into some kind of professional career. Either way, genius.

Meghan McCain Will Be Heard [Out]

• Lindsay Lohan, America's favorite walking Petri dish of human social disease, has been celebrating her birthday for weeks now it seems, but this weekend is finally the official birthday party, and she's being paid $70,000 to host a party for herself at the MGM Grand in Vegas. [Page Six]
  
  
• Meghan McCain's sure to be shitty book isn't even out yet but she's already laying it down that she wants Hillary Duff to play her in the movie Hollywood makes out of the book because she's "really hot." Oh, and she wants Bradley Cooper to be in it to because he's "so hot." Meghan McCain is Paris Hilton. [Gatecrasher]
  
  
• Farrah Fawcett was laid to rest yesterday. Her former Charlie's Angels co-stars turned out and her son Redmond was released from jail for the funeral. [Sun]
  
  
• The photographer who took the photos of Michael Jackson on stage during his last rehearsal says that Michael felt reborn and energized to be on stage again and performed for an hour and a half without a glitch. [Mirror]
  
  
• Creepy old lizard Larry King refuses to fly on commercial planes. Instead he gets around by private jet, which is probably a good thing, because who'd want to sit next to Larry King on a cross-country flight? [Page Six]
  
  
• Courtney Love's doctors have diagnosed her with having malnutrition and basically told her that she needs to get some meat and potatoes in her or she's going to die. [Mirror]
  
  
• Fox is really desperate to hold on to Simon Cowell for the next season of American Idol. So much so that they're offering him $144 million bucks, 4 times the $36 million he made last season, to stick around. [Daily Mail]
  
  
• Former New York Times head honcho Howell Raines is spending his days fishing in the creek like an old country hick. [Page Six]
  
  
• Some British billionaire's wife had to be carried out of Guy Ritchie's pub after she partied the night away with young buck Justin Timberlake. Jessica Biel was not reported to be around. [Daily Mail]

For a while now we've been mildly fascinated by Meghan McCain. When she first popped up in the public consciousness through her "work" on her father's failed presidential campaign, there was something sort of endearing about her. We wanted to like her. But as we've become more and more exposed to her with the passage of time we've come to find her, well, pretty fucking grating, intolerably insufferable, the complete and total embodiment of everything wrong with a whiny-ass generation of privilege that wants, no expects, everything to just fall right into their precious little laps without having to do shit to earn whatever it is they desire.

So Meghan's out there calling bitches out in her Daily Beast column, painfully attempting to enter into the punditry, signing "high six figure" book deals, dropping F-bombs on Twitter, and acting like a cunt-y diva at gala events, all on the back of her father's name. So what's the deal with Meghan McCain? What is it that she's angling for here. Does she truly hope to become a "voice" for a new generation of progressive Republicans, a genuine agent of change, or is she just another fame-whore high on life in the public eye.

Tonight she was on the Colbert Report droning on and on and on about how much the Republican party needs to change its stance on just about everything, from gay marriage to sex education (Meghan is very, VERY "pro-sex") to how it markets itself to younger voters, but then she turned around and talked about how totally AWESOME the Republican party is, except for, you know, all of the batshit crazy wingnuts who're provided political shelter within it (Speaking of batshit crazy wingnuts, McCain declined to offer any comments on Sarah Palin). All in all McCain was, well, sort of likeable in that "oh you poor, confused little girl" sort of way, definitely stricken by a deeply-rooted identity crisis, and, oh yeah, did we mention that she loves to fuck?! And that's pretty much it.

The interview closed with Colbert landing the line of night, delivered just after McCain had launched into another one of her many "pro-sex" diatribes: "When you say 'pro-sex woman' I think the Republican's numbers go north."

Zing.





Meghan McCain on The Colbert Report [Colbert Nation]

Time media critic James Poniewozik experienced intra-Time Warner corporate stupidity.

Chicago Tribune schadenfreude beat reporter John Keilman bragged about his marriage.

Wired editor Danny Dumas did not pimp his ride.

Financial-advice yeller Suze Orman Twittered at her girlfriend.

Senator spawn Meghan McCain represented the filthy-mouthed, sleepless future of the GOP.

Special thanks to Twitter tipster Matt Cherette for today's tweets! Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

• Meghan McCain got into a spat with security at the White House Correspondents' Dinner because they wouldn't let her friend in without a ticket. And oh, she didn't really care for Wanda Sykes or the temperature in the room or the golden stable where they forced her to keep her pony during the event. (Daily News)
  
  
• Luke Russert was hired by NBC to blog and Twitter and be a "youth correspondent" and whatever and now he's just acting like a bratty 23 year-old who has no business having the job he has. Go figure! (Page Six)
  
  
• After 15 years, Jimmy Fallon finally has a college diploma. (Perez)
  
  
• Lily Allen's potty mouth has led to her being banned by the BBC. (UK Mirror)
  
  
• A woman has filed a restraining order to prevent Ryan O'Neal from begging her for phone sex while his wife, Farrah Fawcett, is dying. (Sun)
  
  
• Joan Rivers is unwavering in her belief that Annie Duke is a Nazi. (E Online)
  
  
• Alexandra von Furstenberg has been dating a much younger guy named...wait for it...Dax! (Page Six)

Also, hey, guess who doesn't understand any of the politics of the things she is writing about? Meghan McCain, that's who!

In 2000, a reporter asked John McCain what he'd do if his daughter got pregnant. He said he would allow her to make her own choice. That is called being pro-choice. Meghan McCain admires her dad for his courage to be pro-choice despite his party's position on the matter.

But seriously, here was a father, delicately navigating a question about his teenage daughter and being true to the kind of father he had always been, and the Republican Party was outraged. It didn't matter that my parents raised me to know that, regardless of the mistakes I might make, they would allow me the dignity and courage to make my own choices. That's the kind of trust my parents have always placed in their children-yet the GOP still needed to get involved and have a say in what I did with my body.

Here's what I've never understood about the party: its resistance to discussing better access to birth control. As a Republican, I am pro-life.

Wait, what? You're... but... you just said... GODDAMMIT MEGHAN READ A BOOK.

Peppy alternapublican blogueuse Meghan McCain threatened the Bay Area with a visit.

Suze Orman frowned on the acquisition of guacamole via credit card.

Pejorative-epithet-deprived media personality Bonnie Fuller recounted her face-to-chest meeting with Voldemort.

Gawker alumna Jessica Coen maintained her sense of proportion.

Chicago journalist Rob Elder experienced the diminution of print media firsthand.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

The screed is directed at an unnamed "fellow beast writer," which we take to mean someone who writes, as McCain does (incomprehensibly!), for the Daily Beast. In response to the suggestion that McCain has never done anything, she ticks off her accomplishments: tutoring kids at a church, delivering flowers to hospital patients, internships at Newsweek and Saturday Night Live, all the way up to "multi-award winning website mccainblogette.com, which is officially the first blog in history to document a presidential campaign."

Except for this one, called the "Official Kerry-Edwards Campaign Blog," from 2004.

Oh, Meghan. Here's her rant:

Who's the nasty mean man who got the whole thing started? Wonkette thinks it's ThinkProgress blogger Matthew Yglesias, who (accurately) wrote yesterday that McCain has "never accomplished anything or held a job," since Yglesias has written for the Daily Beast. Way to make a girl cry, Matt. Don't you know that the Beasties are all supposed to have each others' backs?

McCain took the rant down, probably because it was a lie.

You can read Meghan's full remarks to the gay Republican group here, in case you are interested in learning about how highly Meghan thinks of herself for being so young and progressive and young. Whee. The politics of failure have failed, Meghan announces, and Republicans can't just join Twitter and expect to win young voters! They have to join Twitter and have kicky gay hairstylists and read Pitchfork!

This is her explanation of "what it means to be a new, progressive Republican."

So tonight, I am proud to join you in challenging the mold and the notions of what being a Republican means. I am concerned about the environment. I love to wear black. I think government is best when it stays out of people's lives and business as much as possible. I love punk rock. I believe in a strong national defense. I have a tattoo. I believe government should always be efficient and accountable. I have lots of gay friends. And yes, I am a Republican.

Has Meghan ever examined why she is a Republican? No, whatever, she doesn't think about politics outside of these purely stylistic tribe-based frames. "I love punk rock. I have a tattoo." Good for you, those facts have nothing to with anything.

Does Meghan know that "Progressive Republican" actually refers to a specific set of issues beyond "I love giving lip service to my gay friends and think recycling is pretty cool"? Does she know that back in 1912, the year her dad lost his virginity to a stripper in Guam or something, a group of Republicans actually started a "Progressive Party" and that this party was not about "a strong national defense" and the government staying out of everyone's fucking business but, in fact, the opposite of those things?

The platform called for women's suffrage, recall of judicial decisions, easier amendment of the U.S. Constitution, social welfare legislation for women and children, workers' compensation, limited injunctions in strikes, farm relief, revision of banking to assure an elastic currency, required health insurance in industry, new inheritance taxes and income taxes, improvement of inland waterways, and limitation of naval armaments.

And yes this party was mostly actually about Teddy Roosevelt's tremendous ego but, you know, universal health care, higher taxes, and social welfare: what do you think about those things, Meghan? We know you have a tattoo and listen to Franz Ferdinand, but what can you tell us about Robert La Follette? He was this guy who probably would've pointed out that your mindless repetition of the meaningless buzz-phrase "a strong national defense" actually just means "arming the fuck out the nation while people starve."

GOP head Michael Steele, who accidentally supported gay rights before he was elected chairman of the RNC, declined to speak at the annual convention of the Log Cabin Republicans. So instead they got Meghan McCain, noted huge fatty and budding pundit. Meghan, as a person below 40 who was not raised by religious zealots, supports gay civil rights. But as her dad, and as the group she is to be speaking before, have learned, you have no future in the Republican party as a leader of any stripe if you believe gay people aren't gross hedonists who should really just be grateful we're letting them on our competitive singing programs now and not get greedy, rights-wise.

So. In addition to the convention on Friday, the Log Cabin Republicans are launching a marriage campaign here in New York next month! Just in time for Governor David Paterson to watch his gay marriage bill be beached on the shoals of the state senate!

In Albany, bills are not introduced until they have enough votes to actually pass, so that no one may ever hear any debate on them, which might make legislators look bad. Gay marriage passed the Assembly once before, and could do so again, but in the Senate, a couple assholes will make sure it stalls. Because, you know, we've all seen how Vermont and Iowa have completely gone to seed this month.

Anyway, in our experience, Log Cabin Republicans are a pretty fun group, so def hit up this conference. Meghan's totally single, guys, so it wouldn't even make you gay, to attend.

McCain has been on an endless media tour witlessly promoting her ability to pretend as though she is talking about things and ideas without actually talking about anything other than her courageous willingness to talk about the things that she is not actually talking about.

But some idiot called her fat, so now she's going to write a book. From the New York Observer:

While we haven't quite nailed down what Ms. McCain's book will be about-no one at Hyperion nor Ms. Brophy returned calls this afternoon-but if her recent columns for Tina Brown and Barry Diller's Web site The Daily Beast are any indication, it will probably have something to do with the future of the Republican party, and how it must change to attract the votes of modern young people.

The reason you haven't nailed down what the book will be about, New York Observer, is because it will be about nothing. But McCain will use words like "blog" and phrases like "straight up," and talk about how girls shouldn't call other girls fat and how she doesn't understand Ann Coulter and how the Republican Party needs to figure stuff out and, like, get it together people!

Here's a sample Meghan McCain bon mot from her Daily Beast column, wherein she recalled the reaction on the part of Daddy's campaign to her suggestion that she start a blog: "A few people even asked me what's a blog." No! You can render that thought as, "A few people even asked me what a blog is," or you can render it as, "A few people even asked me, 'What's a blog?'" But that is not a sentence.

The scariest part: "This will be Ms. McCain's second book. Her first, a biographical picture book about her father entitled My Dad, John McCain, was published last September through the Alladin imprint of Simon & Schuster."

In other news, you still don't have a book deal.

Right, because Ingraham's national conservative talk show is, like Rush Limbaugh's, the pride of the Republican Party. It's only natural that supporters of the president want to shut it down, by somehow forcing Ingraham to say nasty things about Meghan McCain, instead of just letting her continue talking, embarrassingly.

No, if there's a conspiracy at work here, it would be one that has somehow made McCain's weak punditry relevant while raising Ingraham's profile, i.e. one with a distinctly right-wing flavor. But obviously no one involved is bright enough to pull that off, and thank God, because that means this annoying, mentally impaired "feud" will mercifully die, forever.

[video via Politico]

See, Meghan is John McCain's daughter, and outside of that fact there is precisely nothing about her worth paying attention to and she has nothing interesting to say, as she proves each week on Tina Brown's Fancy Blog For Fancy People Illustrated.

She was on TV, and she was inarticulate and boring. But then Laura called her fat! And now Meghan gets to take the high ground in a "I tried to have a serious debate about the issues and look what happened" piece. Of course if she wants us to pay attention to her "ideas" instead of her appearance, well, it will end up even more hurtful because her "ideas," thus far, have been "why don't boys like me" and "what's up with Ann Coulter?"

Here are some more of her ideas:

I also thought the media outlets that reported on Laura's comments about me were out of line. I don't listen to Laura's show, so if journalists hadn't picked up on it and reported on it, I never would have known what she said. I wonder how Laura would feel if at some point someone were to criticize her daughter's weight and broadcast it nationally on the radio.

What a good point. She wouldn't like it if someone were to be as mean to her as she is to other people.

So, Meghan, let it be said that no matter what you looked like, we here at Gawker would still be completely baffled at the fact that you have such a prominent platform from which to say it.