[Video by Gawker intern Bill Zilla.]

See all the dudes were just yukkin' it up about White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs sporting a man earring in an old high school yearbook photo. A couple of the other beer-warmed and bloated college buds copped to wearing earrings in their salad days too. So, of course, crazy Mike Barnicle thought this was all hilarious and asked if they wore a "pearl necklace," too.

All the boys laughed while poor Mika just didn't get it. So she kept saying "What? What?" like she was standing by the door of the house, clutching her little purse, wondering why every time she came to visit her boyfriend all his brothers were snickering about something.

Sad. Though, at least she didn't try to set the place on fire again.

Scarborough mentioned that of the "hundreds" of shows he's appeared on, Stewart is by far the angriest host he's ever met. He's just so angry dangit! Joe thinks he suffers from the ole Napoleonic Complex or something. He's a comedian, he's rich, he's successful, so why isn't Jon Stewart just smiling like a coked-out circus clown all the time? Joe can't seem to wrap his brain around why he's so angry!

Now, we actually like Scarborough a bit and think he's one of the most intellectually honest conservative talking heads (Then again the competition in that regard isn't really that stiff!), but we love Jon Stewart, so we're really looking forward to seeing Stewart respond to this and we will laugh, laugh, laugh when he makes Joe look like a Herculean idiot on his show. Sorry Joe, we have our allegiances and we're sticking to them.

If we're analyzing the statements of a guy who launched an attack that killed 3,000 Americans in the same terms that we use to assess the efforts of a comparatively harmless hack like Rep. John Boehner to keep his head above the political waters, then we guess that's a good thing. And there's certainly nothing wrong with pointing out the obvious political and media-relations elements to bin Laden's strategy. Still, Chuck—the political analysis game has its limits.

Let's put it in crass political terms: Your chief political opponent for the hearts and minds of the Muslim world is about to come to the two most important countries in Islam—Saudi Arabia and Egypt. And he's going to give a speech. So of course you want to try to give a prebuttal. In many ways, this is just what any political opponent of the president would do. You want to get into the stories.

Of course, Obama can hit back at bin Laden's charges by painting him as out of touch with the concerns of working Muslims, and by subtly hinting at his age and health issues, which polling suggests is a problem. The big worry in the Obama camp is whether bin Laden will play the "infidel card," and whether the folks who live in Saudi Arabia—which some describe as "Riyadh and Jeddah with central Pennsylvania in between"—can be persuaded to see Obama as one of them.

UPDATE: Jake "The Octogon" Tapper, who earlier today decided to remind Matt Drudge of Obama's "Muslim roots," reports that the White House has responded to Osama's message:

"This president and his outreach are very threatening to bin Laden and al Qaeda," said a senior administration official. "It's terribly bad news to bin Laden and al Qaeda. They're beginning to lose the propaganda war."

We thought "war room" was a dead metaphor—when you hear that phrase, you don't think of generals planning attacks anymore, you think of George Stephanopoulos lying to someone on a gigantic cell phone. Looks like it's alive again, though.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.While Conde Nast is fighting off financial decline and swine flu, rival publisher Hearst is doing marginally better! Hearst's mags are losing less advertising than competitors, and some of its new titles are showing great promise. The NYT attributes this to "against the grain" practices like keeping articles offline and raising newsstand prices, but it may just be the lack of swine flu giving them the advantage.

The New York Times raised its prices today, to $2 weekly and $5 on Sunday. Since we just saw the "worst quarter in modern history for American newspapers," it seems fair. [Pic: Newyorkist]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The wait is over, America: Starbucks has become the official joe of Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough. Will Joe Scarborough still be able to impartially report on the coffee industry in light of this new partnership? Who cares?

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Bill Rancic, winner of The Apprentice, was assigned the task of replacing the Chicago Sun-Times building with condos. A tipster sends this photo: COME AND GET EM BILL. [Clarification: this pic is from 2004. So, the poignant moment has passed.]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Giant Magazine tells us that a rumor from last Friday that they're going to fold after their next issue is "false": "GIANT is currently working on its September/Fall Fashion issue, on newsstands early August," says a spokesperson.

MSNBC's Morning Joe had the disgraced former New York governor on this morning to talk tough about all those Wall Street scoundrels and tell us how he'd be dragging them all to the Tombs by their starched collars right now if only he hadn't banged that hooker. But Spitzer dropped his Top Cop pose when Scarborough brought up Rattner, the extremely well-connected former New York Times Reporter and friend of Arthur Sulzberger Jr. whose former investment firm is under investigation by New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo for paying off middlemen in order to get state pension money.

"Every time I say Steve Rattner's name and ask why he's still working in any capacity while this investigation is going on, everybody looks down around the table," Scarborough told Spitzer. "Everybody's scared of him. And why is it that it looks like he and his firm was involved in a scheme that you would have busted up... and it seems like they're going after everybody but Steve Rattner?"

Instead of tapping into his legendary righteous indignation when it comes to Wall Street excess, Spitzer told an incredulous Scarborough that Rattner is "a very nice" and "extremely smart guy who appears to be doing a very good job" and who most certainly did not commit an "illegal abuse of power."

Of course not! How could the vice chair of Spitzer's 48th birthday party [pdf] be guilty of such shenanigans? (Dick Grasso should have kicked in). No, Joe, no one will go after Rattner. He knows everybody.

It's no surprise to see Zuckerman's Daily News editorializing that the Bush administration is "yesterday's news... with the crucial exception of having to prevent major banking houses like Citigroup from collapsing." What is surprising, though, is that MSNBC would allow Zuckerman to do the same on Morning Joe and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue the other day without so much as noting the conflict. Village Voice has a fuller rundown. A clip of Zuckerman's flackery is above.