Bosses were "infuriated," the Post reports this morning, and O'Brien is now out.

Speculation will inevitably turn to whether O'Brien was drunk when he wrote the email, but a coworker already told the Post it sprang from his "insecurity and jealousy." Which are the sort of emotional problems that tend to come vividly to the fore when one is no longer blunting them with drugs or alcohol.

[Post]

"Hi, folks, I just spent a couple of days in Iowa - I'm a little bit of a favorite son there - and I spoke with maybe a thousand people and was very hands-on. Even Joe Biden said, 'You should be running (for president)!' But what I came away with was, these people can't afford gas, books, food or schools or movies!

"I was approached a hundred times by people asking, 'Can you help us?' I tried to tell them we care, but they didn't buy it. They wanted to, but watching Anya and Lara [Spencer] pick out accessories makes the viewers want to vomit. I'll get killed for this, but I'm actually the one not afraid for my job. I want people to be happy." [...]

Of the e-mails, he explained to Page Six, "I'm trying to create a discourse. The American people want honesty. I just raged against the machine. We can change the world."

Yes We Can! While many might chalk this missive up to petty workplace politics, we prefer to think that O'Brien emerged from his tete-a-tete inside the Obama camp with legitimately renewed optimism for the power of a syndicated entertainment news magazines to save the world. Why squander their electronic pulpit with worthless advice on where to find affordable chunky knits for fall, then, when they could easily use that segment to focus on Brad Pitt's worthy adventures cruising through a flooded lower Texas in an airboat, ruminating out loud about affordable and lightweight housing construction?

• 'INSIDER' HAS BLEEDING HEART [NY Post]

"Hi, folks, I just spent a couple of days in Iowa - I'm a little bit of a favorite son there - and I spoke with maybe a thousand people and was very hands-on. Even Joe Biden said, 'You should be running (for president)!' But what I came away with was, these people can't afford gas, books, food or schools or movies!

"I was approached a hundred times by people asking, 'Can you help us?' I tried to tell them we care, but they didn't buy it. They wanted to, but watching Anya and Lara [Spencer] pick out accessories makes the viewers want to vomit. I'll get killed for this, but I'm actually the one not afraid for my job. I want people to be happy."

"Lara" is apparently Pat's successor on the show. Alrighty.

[P6]

Mendte is accused of opening Lane's email "hundreds" of times, and possibly of leaking some of the information he found to the media. Investigators are currently trying to match up the timing of leaks with the emails that they know Mendte opened—including a bunch from her lawyer, which may be related to a lawsuit Lane filed against CBS3 after her police-smacking incident. Bad! This is considered the same as opening someone's mail at home, legally speaking. So why did he do it, allegedly? Even gossiping colleagues aren't sure:

Several current and former CBS3 newsroom staffers, who agreed to speak yesterday on condition of anonymity, said they were shocked at the suggestion of animosity between Mendte and Lane, who became an anchor team on Sept. 15, 2003. The combination quickly boosted the station's appeal: Mendte, the hometown guy, raised in Lansdowne, hired away from NBC10 after six years; and Lane, the rising star from Long Island, hired from Miami.

But two sources said their off-air relationship had its highs and lows; they seemed to be barely speaking by the end of last year, they said.

It's also unclear why the feds would get involved in a case like this, except to make an example out of a high-profile TV star. The curse of tabloid television hosts in action! Ironic, too, that Mendte's best YouTube clip involves him falling down on the job:

[Inky]

"At one point he was at the deli waiting for his number to be called, when a woman recognized him and started the whole "Oh my God," thing. Pat wanted no part of it and just bailed."

Pat was described by the source as looking "painfully, painfully thin with sunburned skin - 'bordering on scorched'", which leads us to believe that the fan in question may just have been a normal customer frightened for her life, not an autograph seeker. If we saw Patty scornfully waiting on line at the supermarket with chocolate crumbs dangling from his salt-and-cinnamon cookie duster, we'd start in with the "whole 'Oh my God'" thing too. Good luck getting better, Pat. Next time you're on a Pringle run, we'd advise picking up some moisturizer.

• PAT O'BRIEN OUT OF REHAB, INTO JUNK FOOD [TMZ]

"Hey, you got your coke and hookers all over my incredibly hilarious, yet stereotype-riddled portrayal of a developmentally-disabled person!"

"Hey, wait a minute! This speedball of mismatched sneakers, dialogue delivered at wildly fluctuating volumes, Bolivian marching powder, and the aforementioned sex professionals is fucking delicious!"

"I know!"

"Let's get fucking crazy!"

"Wheeeee!"

TVGasm caps their excellent Riding the Bus With My Sister coverage with the inevitable Roise-Pat mash-up.

• Rosie, It's Pat on Line 1 [TVGasm]

We're not even going to TiVo this one.

• Pat O’Brien Survives Dr. Phil’s Tough Love [Defamer]

Pat: Everybody has a bottom. And I hit my bottom that horrible weekend in New York. Do I remember most of it? No. And that's where the bottom is. It was a weekend of fun, I thought, a weekend of drinking, which turned into a little bit of craziness.

Dr. Phil: This ended badly with you being on the cover of every tabloid and many of the newspapers in the country, so it was more than a little bit of craziness.

Pat: Right.

Dr. Phil: You go to a restaurant, you and your girlfriend, and you encounter this other woman ... So you're drinking and doing coke?

Pat: Small amount of coke, a lot of alcohol.

Dr. Phil: A small amount of coke is like being sort of pregnant.

Pat: It is a horrible, horrible drug.

We believe that the correct answer would be "Cocaine is a hell of a drug," but we're not going to quibble too much, since the good doctor did cut off O'Brien before he could claim that he only blasted coke up one nostril, and it wasn't the good shit anyway. In any event, O'Brien is appearing on Dr. Phil's show today and will return to his post on The Insider tonight, leaving the world to twiddle its thumbs until the inevitable, highly-entertaining relapse. Fingers crossed for a disputed credit-card charge at a shady Koreatown massage parlor!

• Transcript of Dr. Phil's Talk With Pat O'Brien [Dr.Phil.com]


• Dr. Phil To Administer Televised Tough Love To Pat O'Brien [Defamer]

It's a shame that O'Brien's already shot his primetime special with Dr. Phil, who now won't have the opportunity to punch O'Brien in the mouth and question the wisdom of a recovering addict hanging out in the desert with 50,000 opportunities to fall off the wagon.

• Dr. Phil To Administer Televised Tough Love To Pat O’Brien [Defamer]

This didn't take long: Pat O'Brien, fresh from rehab, will have to face Dr. Phil next week in a prime-time CBS special. Dr. Phil McGraw will "confront O'Brien about the incidents that led up to his stay in the recovery program, the issues he faced while in treatment and the stories about his personal life that made headline news," CBS said Friday.

O'Brien will talk about how he will deal with his colleagues when he returns to work and how to approach life without alcohol, CBS said.

We imagine that O'Brien gained some valuable life skills during his time in rehab and has been given a carefully calibrated outpatient program of hookers, blow, and "fucking going crazy" that will ensure his continuing sobriety.

• Dr. Phil Confronts Pat O'Brien in Special [AP]


• Pat O’Brien Televised RedemptionWatch [Defamer]

• Defamer CrazyTalk: Pat O’Brien, Sweeps Savior? [Defamer]

We know it's a little late in the day* for any Defamer CrazyTalk™, and we're totally riffing here, but wouldn't it be five flavors of awesome if Pat O'Brien, ruddy-faced and clean as a whiskey-free whistle after a month of rehab, was getting ready to shoot a primetime special with Dr. Phil that would air next week during sweeps, and would precede a triumphant, sweepstastic comeback to The Insider? Yes, that would be awesome, but that's just CrazyTalk™—you know, like all that stuff about how O'Brien headed to rehab at precisely the same time those sexy phonecalls hit the internet. Please, don't listen to us, we've been hitting the Vicodin for a good hour now, and who knows what we'll say next. Hey, is that a squirrel with a unicorn horn? We gotta go catch that little guy and see if he wants a cocktail!

[*Originally posted around 5:30 pm 4/25, just so you don't think we've totally lost our minds to the Vic and can no longer differentiate between morning and early evening.]

• Defamer Crazy Talk: Pat O’Brien Hiding Out In Rehab? UPDATE [Defamer]

The last time I saw Pat O'Brien was in the 90s. I was practicing my golf game at the Studio City par three course driving range. O'Brien made a grand entrance, trying to communicate with body language that a superstar was among the peons. Then he started trying to execute shots with a 9 iron. He was absolutely the worst golfer I ever saw. None of his attempts was anywhere close to what a good golfer would hope to see. Most of his shots were dreadful shanks or pathetic dribblers. Which is all well and good, but O'Brien kept trying to milk praise from everyone around him. "Wow! Look at that!" he would say repeatedly, "Great shot!" he would proclaim, hoping someone would be dumb enough to agree with him. But nobody was dumb enough to fall for it.

We really hope that O'Brien didn't choose the golf course as his "happy place" as he languishes in rehab. That kind of tragedy would be too much to bear.

• Defamer Crazy Talk: Pat O Brien Hiding Out In Rehab? UPDATE [Defamer]