On the March 17 edition of Red Eye, a "comedy" show Fox News puts on for insomniacs and media narcissists, Gutfeld said Canadian soldiers do yoga and made fun of a Canadian lieutenant general's name (Leslie!) and said we should invade Canada because the country's military is contemplating a one-year "operational break" from Afghanistan.

Canadian Defence (they don't spell it right) Minister Peter MacKay called the comments disgusting and demanded an apology. Partly everyone got mad because four Canadians died in Afghanistan on Friday. (Yoga accident, you ask? No. IEDs.)

Thrilled to be the talk of Canada, Gutfeld apologized:

The March 17 episode of Red Eye included a segment discussing Canada's plan for a "synchronized break," which was in no way an attempt to make light of troop efforts. However, I realize that my words may have been misunderstood. It was not my intent to disrespect the brave men, women and families of the Canadian military, and for that I apologize. Red Eye is a satirical take on the news, in which all topics are addressed in a lighthearted, humorous and ridiculous manner.

She says this was back in the spring. Perhaps in March, when we asked what the hell he was doing at a Microsoft party and noticed him touching himself a lot during photoshoots. But whenever it was, while Del Conte tried to get an interview with him started, he was furiously checking his BlackBerry mumbling that he'd been on Gawker. He then started looking at her tits.

Natali's tale is in clip form above. And to indulge our number one fan, here's a brief roundup of his post-mercury-poisoning antics.

• Before getting fired from/quitting his Broadway show Speed-the-Plow, he spent a night off sending a mass text message to ladies, telling any/all of them to come to his hotel room. Whoever got there first, won him for the evening. That's how he ended up with his current girlfriend, 23-year-old model Ashley Chontos.
• He also, inexplicably, sent a "six paragraph" text to View prattler Sherri Shepherd.
• E! gossipeuse Ted Casablanca says that Piven was actually fired from Speed-the-Plow, rather than quitting.
• And, finally, he went seeking treatment for his suspicious ailment in Thailand, of all places.

Gutfeld has been hassling Doocy to add him on Facebook for weeks, even though Doocy had hit Facebook's 5,000-friend maximum. So Gutfeld must have forced Doocy to unfriend someone to make room. How cruel! Watch how Gutfeld puts the "rot" in "homerotic" as he suggests he offered the slightly fey Doocy sexual favors to get his friend request answered.

Greg, sorry to break it to you, but you're a little late with your request. Didn't you hear Doocy is maxed out on Facebook friends, having hit the site's limit? Gutfeld is also having viewers place bet on who will answer his friend requests the fastest. He calls it "facebetting." I think the guy's doing this wrong. Here's a cheat sheet out of Silicon Valley on the optimal way to use Facebook for cynical self-promotion.

So yesterday, during an ideas meeting, a staffer pitched a story about Sarah Palin, focusing on how little we know about her time in college.

My blood pressure spiked, because naturally her history — or lack thereof — is far less murkier than Barack Obama’s.

Far less murkier.

But it didn’t seem to matter, because no matter what you have against the man, it just doesn’t stick.

See: homoeroticism, aforementioned.

Seriously, the man isn’t a presidential candidate, he’s a really hot chick. You know what I mean, right?

Yea. Kicker?

Face it: If you found out that your new girlfriend, who happened to be Megan Fox, worked with ACORN, hung around with Bill Ayers and used to do coke back in college, would you care?

Of course you wouldn’t! It’s Megan Fox!

Congratulations. You’re now The New York Times.

Ha. If you're reading, Greg, respond in the comments: What is your unironic opinion of Tucker Max? Thanks. [Fox News]

• WATCH VIDEO

...maybe that's true. Nick's made dumb hires before. And maybe it's why Nick needled him the other week. (Nick says he just needed an excuse to post the embarrassing story).

But—if Gutfeld's tale is true, it's certainly not something I knew about. I just make fun of Greg because I think he's annoying.

(Full disclosure: I met Greg once, long ago, at a party at Nick's place. And he was kinda funny, in person, in a rude, fratty way. I think New Yorkers just find that schtick so amusing because it's a novelty in the media scene? There can't be many meathead state school grads at the Observer.)

Gutfeld: Nick Denton 'Doesn't Like People Saying No to Him Apparently' [FishbowlNY]

After a hard day covering Fashion Week, in September 2006, Gutfeld was at Port 41 with a group of other magazine editors and writers. It was late, Gutfeld had been drinking, and he's not known for his discretion even when sober. According to one of the many present that evening, he began regaling the crowd with an account of a small dinner party hosted by Steve Perrine, former creative director of Men's Health, now editor-in-chief of Best Life, a magazine for middle-aged men who lead lives of silent desperation.

Now Perrine himself does not. In the past, at least, he's talked quite openly of his swinger's lifestyle and even alludes to it in interviews. Here's a podcast interview with Personal Life Media. "I’m leaving the party, I get my balls, I pick up some other guy’s balls. I get home, they don’t fit. I’ve got to call him up, 'I think I have your balls!' So that’s always difficult." Hmm, well, he's alluding to something there, anyway.

So, according to Gutfeld, he and a date went round to Perrine's for dinner a few years ago. Steve Perrine, who later became an expert on acrimonious divorces and child-custody disputes, was still with his first wife. The party was just the four of them. Gutfeld claimed he had no particular idea of the evening's agenda, but the dinner ended with his date in bed with Perrine, while the Red Eye opinionator was left with his host's wife. She was so upset, at the situation or Gutfeld's reluctance to exercise his partner-swapping rights, that the macho former magazine editor spent the evening sitting on a log, consoling the sobbing woman.

Now this tale, several years old, has probably been distorted both in Gutfeld's telling, and the subsequent retelling as it's made its way around the magazine world. It's no wonder the story is so confusing.

Assuming it's partly true, why on earth would Gutfeld allow his date to go off with the predatory Perrine when he didn't want reciprocation? And, even if wildly exaggerated, why would Gutfeld, a man who has traded on a reputation as one of the few red-blooded heterosexuals in media, tell a story which makes him look an impotent cuckold? There's only one explanation: late at night, at a bar or on his TV show, Gutfeld will say literally anything to get attention.

I've never actually had a problem with Fox - nor they with me - despite all the false gossip.

Marsden, who has been described as a Canadian version of Ann Coulter and who now spends her time running a political recruiting company, also blew a kiss at Fox News chief Roger Ailes:

I've always been a big fan of Roger Ailes - and am always honoured to be asked to contribute to anything this great man has built.

RUN. FOR. YOUR. LIVES.

Subject: Scoop for you

[snip]

I was in DC this past weekend to emcee at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Yesterday, it was brought to my attention by a friend in the media who was also in attendance that my former co-host at Fox News, Greg Gutfeld, insisted on planting security guards on "Rachel watch" at the door of the CPAC Reason Magazine party - just in case "scary Rachel" showed up.

Greg might want to know that he's thoroughly safe. No one could pay me anymore to be in the same room as him - as my leaving Red Eye has already proven.

Incidentally, I was on a date that night in Georgetown with someone exponentially more high-profile and infinitely more secure in his manhood than Greg Gutfeld.

Feel free to quote, however you see fit. The only downside in doing so is that Gutfeld might reach a total of 10 viewers.

Subject: Also

If Gutfeld desperately wants to avoid me that badly, perhaps I could suggest not crashing events where I'm scheduled to speak.