Both Logan and Burkett were married (and both also reportedly separated, though the Enquirer glossed over that point), both are divorcing, and Logan, according to Kurtz, expects to marry Burkett eventually.

We're happy that things seem to be working out for Lara, though Burkett does not actually sound like much of a catch. Between the fact that he's a mysterious "civilian contractor" and the fact that his other marriage ended in the bitterest divorce ever on account of him spending the entirety of it—including the pregnancy and birth bits—war profiteering in Iraq, maybe he is not the marrying kind? Or maybe that's just his psycho ex-wife, who took the story to the Enquirer in the first place.

We just feel bad for CNN reporter Michael Ware, the other other man, for being totally overshadowed in all this.

Logan did not even think she was able to get pregnant, because she is missing a fallopian tube, so this homewrecking Baghdad warzone baby is truly a miracle. Once it is born it can take over Meet the Press.

It's sort of a fact of war reporting that, you know, people are going to fuck around. They're far away from home, they're only in contact with other journalists, contractors, and soldiers. Passions run high! Etc! But the other fact of the matter is that if there is going to be a scandal of this nature, chances are decent that it will involve a man and a lady. Like in this Logan situation, where we're not hearing much about CNN correspondent Michael Ware, one of the alleged "beaus." Well, we're hearing plenty about him, but he's not in the headlines. So there's your sexist double standard, obv—we castigate the pretty lady for having sex and boys will be boys.

But there's an exception! (Once again, sort of.) Balk, refuting the idea that we wouldn't "read these stories about a male correspondent," reminds us of Dexter Filkins and John Burns. Filkins and Burns are star New York Times reporters who were involved in an imbroglio when another Times correspondent emailed their wives exposing their overseas extramarital affairs. That reporter, Susan Sachs, was fired. So the affairs of Burns and Filkins were exposed, yes, but most of the coverage was about that firing, and Howard Kurtz didn't even mention the names of Filkins and Burns, even though, as in Logan's case, those names were already "out there."

So yes everyone is being totally unfair to Lara Logan but whatever, it won't really cost her much more than a headache, we're pretty sure.

It's all these Clinton-friending liberal rich people who keep getting into messes these days, isn't it? When's the last time you heard anything about rich Republican financiers and executives flying about the nation with models, fucking teenagers, and carrying on sex orgies with movie stars? Is it the liberal connection to godless Hollywood? Former United Artists CEO and Bush Super Ranger Jerry Weintraub stays out of the headlines. Ken Lay was busted for fraud, not massages.

Hell, maybe liberals just have more fun? That's the point of liberality, isn't it? Those European values, that subjective morality, the godless thing? Clinton was impeached for having too much fun in office. Nixon never had fun ever except when he got zonked on painkillers and insulted the Jews, which is not really anyone's idea of a truly good time. Epstein never saw anything wrong with what he did. He just likes massages!

But why the need to congregate around Burkle? To hang out with him? Why did Epstein and Chris Tucker need to fly around on Jeff's private jet? Why does Clinton need to fly around the world on everyone's private jet? Liberal types do like to improve the world, and the rich ones are narcissistic enough to believe that they can do it personally. So they network and party and fuck models while flying to Africa to cure AIDS! Conservative zillionaires just rack up huge profits, contribute money to candidates who can ensure that they'll continue to rack up huge profits, and mind their own fucking (criminal) business. The liberals need to have cake with Arianna Huffington and Bono, for some reason.

So it may just be that Burkle embodies these characteristics the most. The most narcissistic, the most convinced of his own rightness, the most desperate to network with powerful people in the hopes of reshaping the world.

And then they all get tied up in sex scandals and your house is foreclosed, the end.

The story is a little thin: the basis appears to be a source telling Us Weekly that "all the doormen are talking." But it's plausible. It might not be politically correct to say, but Madonna's long displayed a liking for Latin men. And the troubles of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan attract less public attention than they did; and the price of celebrity baby exclusives is beyond the capacity of anybody but OK's Richard Desmond. In that context, Janice Min's team at Us Weekly can hardly be blamed for splashing an affair between two bona fide superstars. Its competitors must be devastated this morning, but not as much as the New York Post, for whom this would have been the most perfect story: a singer who made her name in New York with the city's most hated sports celebrity.

Follieri's story is different, really, because while the other rich actress- and model-dating horndogs find themselves in hot water for whoring and partying, Follieri's facing jail time for pretending to be the most pious motherfucker in New York. He boasted of imaginary connections to the Catholic Church to scam money from investors that he needed to keep up his lifestyle of being a the perfect wealthy, charitable Catholic.

As the Church faced fallout from the child abuse scandal, Follieri stepped up to help them unload their real estate properties and convert them into morally agreeable businesses. He hired the nephew of of the Vatican's secretary of state and went around claiming to be a "representative for the Vatican." But Follieri's only real connection to the church was a guy who could arrange to get him a tour of the garden every now and then. But the scam worked! Thanks, as always, to how easily duped the self-righteous rich can be.

While his love life with Anne was flourishing, in 2005 Raffaello found his most high-profile partners for the Follieri Group yet. That year, he became friends with Doug Band, a young aide to former President Bill Clinton. Doug, who was often seen cavorting with Raffaello in Manhattan restaurants like Nobu and Cipriani, served as a matchmaker. He introduced Raffaello to a Canadian real estate developer named Michael Cooper, a meeting for which Raffaello paid $400,000. More importantly, Doug introduced him to Bill Clinton and his close personal friends, including supermarket magnate and billionaire Ron Burkle. In April 2005, Ron formed a joint venture with Raffaello, called Follieri/Yucaipa Investments, to develop unused Catholic properties. Ron pledged $105 million to help his new business partner in this pursuit. One year later, Raffaello made his own significant donation, pledging $1 million to the Clinton Global Initiative, a charity founded by the former president. This move gave Raffaello a chance to spend more time with one of the most influential men in the world, and he seized the opportunity to vacation with Clinton in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. In a picture taken at that time, Raffaello has his arm draped around Bill Clinton on one side and Anne Hathaway on the other. Everyone is smiling for the camera. ­Raffaello seemed to have it all: fame, success, money, friendship, the perfect girl.

Doug Band! You may remember him as Bill Clinton's guy Friday, who has a terrible habit of introducing the former president to complete scumbags and then also failing to keep Bill's own behavior in check.

By 2007, Burkle was suing Follieri for misappropriation of that million dollars. Because Follieri used it to pay for his penthouse and his lavish lifestyle, which he needed to keep up appearances as a successful friend of the Vatican. It really all would've been easier if he'd actually just made connections at the Vatican and managed real estate for them for real, right? But the one time they tried to do this, with a church in Philadelphia, it burned down and they sold it for no profit.

But once the Burkle suit was settled and the jet company sued him and the NYPD arrested him for bouncing a check and the PR company sued him and his foundation's only employee quit AND it became apparent that Andrew Cuomo was going to indict him, you would think actress Anne Hathaway would've given up on him? Or that he would've given up on his scam? Not so much.

So yes, it was an audacious and impressive lie that he lived, but it looks for all the world like he actually bought into it himself.

The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively that CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes foreign correspondent, Lara Logan, has been named as the “other woman” in a Texas couple Joe and Kimberly Burkett's bitter divorce.

Burkett’s wife Kimberly, 32, was so distraught with his cheating that she took an overdose of Valium

Kimberly Burkett's attorney Susie Chmielowiec told The ENQUIRER, “Kimberly believes Lara stole her husband – and now they’re trying to steal her little girl."

And in a twist that’s as shocking as any story Lara has covered, sources are charging she also had another affair, and her two lovers got into a brutal battle over her in Baghdad!

Sources charge that the Emmy winning Logan began her affair with 36-year-old U.S. State Department contractor, Burkett in war-torn Baghdad.

And yet another scandal brews in the steamy mix: Lara’s reported romance with a star CNN correspondent – whose jealousy exploded in a battle royal with Burkett in a Baghdad “safe house.”

“Not only is Lara having a torrid affair with a married man – she apparently has more than one lover!” Chmielowiec charged to The ENQUIRER.

When CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric heard about Lara’s sexual shenanigans, she blew a gasket!

What is your favorite part of that story? Katie Couric blowing a gasket is good, but we particularly enjoy the bit where an affair is "as shocking as any story Lara has covered." Because, like, she reports from war zones, where people are fighting wars and stuff.

Of course none of this is really shocking at ALL because foreign correspondents basically all sleep with everyone they can. It's stressful work and adrenaline runs high. Though some war zones are more conducive to this sort of thing. It depends on heat, relative humidity, and availability of showers.

Update: SO the print Enquirer further claims that Logan's second affair is with CNN reporter Michael Ware, and that Ware fought Burkett over it in Baghdad.

Then the contractor dude who announced in court that he's having this affair with Logan told his wife that he killed people in Iraq. Which is maybe not true?

Finally, Lara was "entertaining" some people in Baghdad when Ware came in and then him and Burkett fought for HOURS and even ended up in the CNN safehouse! It's amazing they had time to cover the war, what with all this drama.

Lara supposedly "sputtered" something when an Enquirer reporter inquired about her husband, and her husband is said to have had no comment. Whee. We're still not clear on how Katie Couric is involved?

CBS NEWS LARA LOGAN DIVORCE WAR [Enquirer]

People still profess confusion about which ad man had his way with JC Penney's image, making an unauthorized teen sex ad and submitting it to the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. Neither the pissed-off retailer nor its apologetic ad agency would name names, and Ad Age yesterday concluded, "Just who is responsible for creation of the ad... is a bit cloudy." But it's not, really. Is it? It's got to be Mike Long, of Epoch Films. Read why, and watch one of Long's other "fake" Penney ads, this one a bit terrifying, after the jump.

In a statement distancing itself from the ad, JC Penney said the spot "was created by a former employee at JC Penney’s advertising agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, solely as an award submission."

Saatchi & Saatchi, meanwhile, said the commercial was "created by a third party vendor." That's probably Epoch Films, since Penney's chief marketing officer told the Wall Street Journal "the video may have been filmed after hours by a producer at Epoch who was working on the Penney ads for Saatchi," as the Journal put it.

So if both Penney and Saatchi are telling the truth, we're looking for a former Saatchi employee at a third-party vendor, probably Epoch Films, where he probably worked on Penney ads.

It just so happens that the man credited with directing the teen-sex spot, Mike Long, is (according to Ad Age) a former Saatchi staffer. He now works for Epoch Films. And his credits there list work for JC Penney.

The only other former Saatchi man credited on the ad, Tony Granger, does not appear to work for Epoch and told Ad Age he "would not have presented" the advertisement. Then he added, "neither would any of the team." Hmm. Granger might want to rethink that, because Long has presented this sort of work in the past. Find below another ad by the rebel director, apparently dating to last fall and also "fake," according to Silicon Alley Insider.

"Long... apparently did these as a giggle," the Insider wrote. Well, not entirely, since Long also has the fall ad listed in his online portfolio on the Epoch Films website (as also stated by the Insider). And some people, at least, appear to have been under the impression the ad actually aired.

Crazy idea, advertising people: Give out awards and list in your portfolios advertisements you were able to convince your clients to actually, you know, run. Or, even better: Let any teenager who can grope his way around iMovie enter your competitions, whether he has customers or not.

Long's fall JC Penney ad:

[Silicon Alley Insider, Ad Age]

Amusing that a dude so obsessed with the right-wing canard of the liberal media would found a "non-partisan" blogging organization that exists solely to suck up to the established press, right? Anyway, back in 2004, Cox sent this email to 9 TOP BLOGGERS inviting them to become members of his new club. The new club's purpose was "to promote its members." That was really about it. It was also about a little logo you could display on your site.

I envision three types of memberships..."FOUNDING MEMBER", "MEMBER", "HONRARY MEMBER". The MBAA Logo will indicate one of the three types. Obviously this is your only chance to get what I expect will be a coveted FOUNDING MEMBER logo.

Man, we are so disappointed that we missed that boat. We all know how much cred a FOUNDING MEMBER OF THE MBA badge gets you these days.

And now, over the years, as those founding members accidentally let their memberships lapse, the MBA has grown into Robert Cox's personal publicity organ. Mainstream media need someone to show up on TV and represent bloggers? Call Cox! He's got a prestigious title from a real-sounding organization, and that looks way better on an identifying chyron than some weird U.R.L.. Cox has made the most of it, as an investigation by Teresa at Making Light reveals. He doesn't blog very much or very well, but he shows up at every single conference foolish enough to invite him. And he's turned his right-leaning advocacy group into a money-maker!

He began charging dues shortly after he got some big dogs to sign up for free (see? we're legitimate!).

And so his group, initially founded to professionalize and legitimize bloggers, now exits to enrich Robert Cox and make him the Official Face of Mainstream Blogging for old media. And he's using his friendship with the print press to put together a list of guidelines we must follow if we wish to quote the Associated Press without getting sued.

Oh, and Cox also guards his Wikipedia entry as if it was his child. So go have fun!

AP to negotiate with sham “Media Bloggers Association” [Making Light]

The new anchor is Laurence Ferrari, whom the Telegraph describes as "an experienced anchorwoman and recently voted France's most glamorous journalist." Here's the funny thing: the old guy, Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, did not make friends with President Sarkozy when he called him a "little boy" a while back. Ferrari, on the other hand, has had to deny rumors of an affair with Sarkozy that supposedly took place before he met his wife Carla Bruni.

And Sarkozy is good buddies with the head of the network, who was a witness at the wedding and is a godfather to Sarkozy's son.

So basically this is like if Barack Obama was good friends with CBS head Sumner Redstone, and had convinced him to replace genial old Bob Sheiffer with Katie Couric, whom he allegedly had had an affair with.

Or like if Bush had gotten rid of Dan Rather. And had had an affair with Bob Sheiffer?

Anyway, scandal!

French TV turmoil as 'Sarkozy's glamorous blonde' takes limelight [Telegraph]

There is nothing revelatory about their deliberations, though its ability to embarrass all parties concerned should not be underestimated...

Jones recounts for the umpteenth time her disputed story about how she was summoned to a room in the Excelsior hotel in Arkansas, in May 1991...

Flowers says: "We have been accused of being part of a rightwing conspiracy. Are you part of that?"

Jones: "No I'm not. I'm conservative but I'm not a big political person. I can get on with anybody."

Having cleared that up, they end the videos with a hug. Jones tells Flowers: "You're just wonderful." A beautiful ending to a not so beautiful tale.

The Guardian said the video seems timed to embarrass Clinton at one of his lowest moments, when his angry statements on the campaign trail have helped torpedo his wife's presidential candidacy and just after rumors swirled the ex-president messed around with actress Gina Gershom.

But from a financial standpoint — surely more important to Jones and Flowers, at this point, than humiliating Clinton — the timing is disastrous. With Clinton's wife out of the presidential race and without any future role yet lined up, the public can finally ignore the Clintons, and old dirt about Bill seems even less relevant (and interesting) than it would have in, say, January.

[Guardian, Gennifer And Paula]

Mr. Spitzer is moving aggressively to occupy a niche created by the credit crunch, the subprime mortgage crisis, a surge in foreclosures, and a declining real estate market. He is looking to mine for riches in projects that banks are no longer willing to finance.

Distressed real estate funds — also known as "vulture" or, more euphemistically, "opportunity" funds — typically promise returns of more than 20% and are active in Florida, Nevada, and Southern California. They rely heavily on pension and university endowment investments. Mr. Spitzer is said to be envisioning projects valued between $100 million and $500 million.

This is precisely the sort of thing Spitzer could never have gotten away with back when he had to pretend to care about Regular Folk, so really that whole hooker thing has turned out to be something of a boon! As he told the union officials, people have been surprisingly supportive of him when they stop him on the street. Especially Europeans! Sex is "no big deal," he says people tell him. And the Europeans probably say "ees no beeg deal" or "c'est la vie!" Or "way to fuck hookers, Mr. Governor! Now please pay me significantly less than I paid for this property I bought and flip it for a small profit!"

Spitzer Mulls Starting Vulture Fund [NYSun]

Prosecutors have records of Spitzer's transactions, phone records and taped conversations with Emperors Club, and are confident they need little more to nail him on charges that could include violating prostitution laws and money laundering, sources said... Spitzer had to resign his office after the Feds caught him on tape making arrangements for a "date" with Dupre at a hotel in Washington, DC, on Feb. 13.

So the Feds are carefully lining up witnesses even though they already had Spitzer on tape, drove him from elected office and screwed up his marriage. Excellent: The goal here should be to drag this out as long as possible, and to ruin the maximum number of lives.

[Post, AP]

The supermarket magnate introduced Gershon and Clinton at some dinner party. Poor Burkle. Now he'll never get that open invitation to the corridors of power!

Burkle sat down with L.A. Weekly for a lengthy and revealing interview just before the VF story went up, and for a guy who has billions of dollar and fucks whomever he likes on his private jet, he's a defensive sad-sack and depressingly un-self-reflective.

The billionaire seemed sincere in his fondness for Clinton, and although he didn’t say it outright, Burkle seemed offended by the idea that he used Clinton simply to make more billions. Burkle, though, apparently forgot statements he made to Forbes. In a December 11, 2006, piece titled “The Rise of Ron Burkle,” the billionaire described Clinton’s post-presidency work for Yucaipa as “invaluable,” noting, “My best call in corporate America isn’t one-hundredth of what President Clinton is just picking up the phone and saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got this idea, want to come talk about it?’”

Burkle also reveals more about the odd Page Six extortion scandal that made him a Gawker Celebrity. The basic story: Page Six realized that Bill's association with a swingin' billionaire conincided nicely with the Post's unspoken political aims, and they began insinuating many things about Ron and Bill. Then, either Burkle met with Page Six writer Jared Paul Stern to arrange a truce and was then extorted, or he lured Stern to a meeting by offering to fund his clothing company. Then he accused Stern of extortion and got him fired. No charges were ever filed.

It was all part of Burkle's attempt to get to Rupert Murdoch, a billionaire with the kind of power and political acumen Burkle wishes he had. Amusingly, Burkle's attempt to get the Post to be nice to him and Bill probably had the opposite effect. While Hillary made successful inroads toward courting Rupert during her Senate run, the Post (and Rupert) quickly returned to Clinton-bashing form as she began to lose to upstart Barack Obama. Of course, according to Ron, if he really cared about that sort of thing he'd just call his good buddy Rupe up on their Red Billionaire Phones:

Burkle openly admits he’s hardly above trying to manipulate the media. He says Stern is wrong about the details of their dustup, and that if he really wanted to get to Murdoch, he would merely have called him up — billionaire to billionaire — and “cut a deal.” In fact, Burkle says, “Murdoch wishes he made a deal.”

And then him and Richard Branson and Warren Buffet would go out for ice cream.

Now Burkle would like to be a go-between for Hillary and Obama but neither Hillary nor Obama actually like him, so whatever. He still has lots of money, though, and the general election is young!

"I was at my bar American Trash last night and Neal Boulton was there. One of the usual meatheads got wasted and picked a fight with a guy he thought was a fag. He called him a fag. and some guy who we figured out later was Neil stepped in and gave the guy who called the gay guy a fag a major pounding out on the sidewalk. Boulton got hit pretty hard but slugged back big time. It was nothing till we realized who was fighting who and that Neal is gay and all. Dude had balls. The cops came but Neal had already fled on his bike [probably his motorcycle - Ed]. The guy's got some balls man. The guy he beat down was DOWN as in down for the count, too. fuck!"

“No one in the real estate world will, pardon my French, give a shit about the prostitutes... Guys in our industry, if he started attending real estate board functions, they’d get a kick out of it,” said the consultant. “We live in this sort of perverted, celebrity-driven world.”

Centerfolds just a few floors down from his desk.

Sounds like a supportive environment. What could possibly go wrong?

[Observer]

As Jack Shafer points out, Purdum's reliance on unnamed sources is annoying and troubling. BUT! Besides a paragraph or two insinuating without proof that Clinton has been sexing a number of ladies across the world, most of the damning material in the story is from the public record and disputed by no one.

Like Clinton's habit of hanging out with Steve Bing and Ron Burkle! Bing's paternity problems are matters of undisputed fact, even if the details (who sued whom?) remain sketchy. Burkle's love of 19-year-olds seems to be undeniable.

And then there's the weird business dealings. The billions of dollars he's made from Burkle for doing god-knows-what. The scummy donors to his foundation and library. Jeffrey Epstein. Misuse of his pension. This stuff is, once again, beyond the realm of smears and allegation. It's all fact.

Basically the "allegations" that annoy Clinton so much are the ones attributed to Clinton aides and former staffers—that he's angry all the time, that he doesn't control his language anymore, that since his heart surgery he hasn't been the same. And Clinton's bizarre rant against Purdum demonstrates that all those points have merit.

Also the "intervention" thing, which Purdum defends by saying that the aforementioned anonymous Clinton staffers are the ones worried about Bill's maybe-cheating. Which, you know, is at least plausible, even if it is the most "tawdry" part of the story. A man is judged by the company he keeps. And also by the well-documented extra-marital affairs he's been forced to admit to under oath in the past.

"The editor of Esquire— he sent us an email yesterday and said it was the single sleaziest piece of journalism he'd seen in decades. He said it made him want to go take a shower and he was embarrassed to be a journalist when he read it."

"You know he didn't use a single name, cite a single source in all those things he said. It's just slimy. It's part of the national media's attempt to nail Hillary for Obama. It's the most biased press coverage in history. It's another way of helping Obama. They had all these people standing up in this church cheering, calling Hillary a white racist, and he didn't do anything about it. The first day he said 'Ah, ah, ah well.' Because that's what they do— he gets other people to slime her. So then they saw the movie they thought this is a great ad for John McCain— maybe I better quit the church. It's all politics. It's all about the bias of the media for Obama. Don't think anything about it."

So, just to recap: Clinton utterly trashed a reporter based on a story Clinton had never read; dragged a competing editor into the fight based on a private email (that he may or may not have quoted accurately); then insinuated without substantiation that Obama pushed a preacher to make racial remarks about Hillary Clinton. It's getting hard to keep track of who, exactly, is sliming who with poorly-checked facts.

[Huffington Post]

Ron Burkle
Relation to Bill Clinton: They became friends back in 1992 because both were self-made men who came from nothing and now could have sex with anyone they wanted. Burkle, a wealthy supermarket magnate, gave Bill a job after Bill left the White House.
Sexual Misadventures: "Good friends" with Gisele Bundchen! Also, flies around on his private jet with random NYU girls.
Net Worth: $3.5 billion.
Youngest known special friend: The NYU girl supposedly on Air Burkle with President Bill is supposedly 19. The lady Burkle was with in the VF story was also 19! (He gets older, they stay the same age.)

Steve Bing
Relation to Bill Clinton: Bing is a big donor to the Democratic party. Also, he has a private jet that Bill likes to ride on!
Sexual Misadventures: Well. There was a paternity fight with Elizabeth Hurley. And another with the ex-wife of billionaire Kirk Kerkorian.
Net Worth: Around $1 billion.
Youngest known special friend: Unknown!

Jeffrey Epstein
Relation to Bill Clinton: Unclear! We know he once flew Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey, and Chris Tucker to Africa on his jet, once. That was before the various lawsuits and allegations, obv.
Sexual Misadventures: Well. He enjoyed massages. From underaged ladies! He was sued by a trangendered woman who claimed he made her his sex slave. Another anonymous lady is suing him for sexually assaulting her.
Net Worth: Totally unknown. We will accept guesses and estimates.
Youngest known special friend: 14. Yeesh.
Distinguishing characteristic of penis: Allegedly egg-shaped.

Bill Clinton
Relation to Bill Clinton: Is Bill Clinton.
Sexual Misadventures: Sued for sexual harassment by Paula Jones, accused of assault by two other women. Clinton admitted to one extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers, and, well, there was that Monica Lewinksky thing.
Net Worth: $10-50 million (w/ Hillary)
Youngest known special friend: Well, Monica was 22.
Distinguishing characteristic of penis: Allegedly bent.

Snelling edited the paper along with one man who owned a saloon and another "who had been arrested for bawdy-house rowdiness in 1836," the best possible thing in history to have been arrested for, probably. The paper was about trashy gossip and tips on brothels, chambermiads, and courtesans. They were all charged with libel, obviously, after they revealed that a Wall Street merchant "had worked as a 'fancy man' for a prostitute and asserting that he was, among other things, lascivious, sordid and crapulous." (The more things change, right?)

After the charges were dropped against one of the editors, he started a rival scandalsheet devoted to attacking Snelling. After Snelling got out of jail, they started a new paper together called The Whip.

By that summer, there were two more flash rags, The Rake and The Libertine, and a printer and cartoonist named Robinson was busy selling dirty drawings with titles like "Do You Like This Sort of Thing?"

Basically, bloggers need to step up their game.

We therefore must say of Alex Balk, our onetime colleague that his best effusions now are the mumblings of a sot. What has he left but to crawl his way through the world, leaving his slime behind him.

Sex and the City (1840) [NYT]

Steve Bing, whose colorful private life includes fathering a child out of wedlock with the actress Elizabeth Hurley and suing the billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian for invasion of privacy, alleging that private investigators for Kerkorian swiped Bing's dental floss out of his trash in a successful effort to prove that Bing's DNA matched that of a child delivered by Kerkorian's ex-wife, the former tennis pro Lisa Bonder.

Now. There isn't any proof that Bill's been engaging in his usual sexual escapades since he left the White House. But he's certainly been associating with colorful characters, and clearly not giving a shit about (or even noticing) the appearance of impropriety. Ron Burkle's his best bud, why shouldn't he fly around on "Air Fuck One" with various young models and NYU students?

ANYWAY the problem is that Clinton's "counselor," or his top aide, or his "butt boy," is this guy Doug Band, who is quite good at making sure Clinton gets to work on time but really not very good at keeping him away from bad influences.

The story (written by Todd Purdum, husband to former Clinton press secretary DeeDee Myers), also lists nearly every woman Clinton has been associated with since he left office, from Gina Gershon to that Canadian parliament member to some lady on an elevator. Naturally, Clinton's office wasn't too happy with the piece.

(Oddly, Radar has not mentioned this story!)

(BTW, Ron Burkle owns Radar)

Remember Felix Dennis, the kooky billionaire British magazine publisher who gave us Maxim? He recently admitted (while admittedly drunk) to having "killed a man" in an interview. (He later took it back, post-interview and post-sobering up.) For an new interview in Business Week, Jon Fine asks the tough questions in an attempt to clear up the murder thing: "I'll just be blunt. Have you murdered anybody?"

BW: I will ask one final question about it.

FD: You can ask it but I won't answer it.

BW: Do as you wish. Why say such a thing to a journalist?

FD: Have you ever drunk 5 bottles of wine? I think I could get you to say just about anything you wanted.,

BW: I don't think I would have said that.

FD: I think I could have got you to say it after five bottles of wine.

[Business Week]

Remember this? The drama surrounding to the run-up to the reality-show announcement, a Hamptons affair that Laliberte is now involved in? After socialite Emily Brill wrote about her "heart to heart" convo with Laliberte, he emailed us:

"I know Emily socially, I have never spent any one on one time with her. Half the time I am not sure what she is saying, she speaks very quietly...I have no idea what Emily is referring to, nor am I involved in any project with her. I would suggest that she employs a fact checker in the future."

Laliberte told Blackbook today, regarding Joshua Stein of Page Six Mag saying that he leaked info on his frenemies:

"Believe me, if I wanted to rat my friends out, I know secrets that could destroy their careers, and they know my secrets. All of my friends are people I love and trust. I've had fake friends who I now realize did throw me under the bus, but I have exorcised them from my life. As for Olivia Palermo, I never received the letter in the first place. And I certainly am not going to supply information to a website that caused me to receive death threats. Josh Stein thrives on gossip. Anyone who spends their life writing negatively on other people is not someone whose opinion I value."

"you know that whole style.com piece was written by derek blasberg. and he name drops himself in there too. ugh. why does he never take the heat. its so annoying."

[Blackbook]

[Photo: Emily Brill]

Writes Stein:

Kristian Laliberte has been selling his friends up river from day one. He sent the Olivia Palermo email to Socialite Rank that caused no small amount of pain for that woman. He's sent items to nearly every single gossip columnist reporting on the relationship-breaking contretemps of nearly every single friend he's had. Anyway, someone—-who I could not find out—-hacked into his Gmail account and sent those tipster letters to another anonymous account. They plan on revealing all Laliberte's perfidy in a few weeks time.

The National Enquirer, in a story headlined "Top Dole Aide Caught in Group-Sex Ring," reported that the Stones had apparently run personal ads in a magazine called Local Swing Fever and on a Web site that had been set up with Nydia's credit card. "Hot, insatiable lady and her handsome body builder husband, experienced swingers, seek similar couples or exceptional muscular . . . single men," the ad on the Web site stated. The ads sought athletes and military men, while discouraging overweight candidates, and included photographs of the Stones. At the time, Stone claimed that he had been set up by a "very sick individual," but he was forced to resign from Dole's campaign. Stone acknowledged to me that the ads were authentic.

So. He wrote a letter to the FBI about Spitzer's hooker patronage. We know that. Also he has advice on how McCain can win the election that would probably actually work, if McCain is smart enough to run a Nixon campaign.

Stone also seems to have enjoyed Angels in America, as his description of legendary scumbag Roy Cohn closely matches a monologue the Cohn character delivers in that play. "'Roy was not gay,' Stone told me. 'He was a man who liked having sex with men. Gays were weak, effeminate.'" Glad we got that cleared up.

The Dirty Trickster [New Yorker]

Just like the myriad older women (and one wayward 14-year-old) who emulate the teetering, cupcake-smeared antics of Sex and the City, so too, it would seem, has a younger generation decided to take their cues from a decidedly ridiculous, over the top television show. Posts like "He fell so fast, even seventh graders won't hook up with him. Now that's GOTTA hurt. Dear Tommy, rip up those tickets to the top, because you're headed on a one-way trip to the B-list. Love, ITK," reek of Gossip Girl's influence, and it does give one pause. Yes some of us "adults" like this silly candy because we know it's silly candy, but I guess the kids might not really be seeing the same show as us. Students have blamed ruined friendships and unbearable agony on MissITK and her bitchy musings, conjuring up images of an Upper East Side resounding with wails escaping from the braced mouths of Our Future. "In the words of one of my friends, she said a little bit of herself died," keened an 8th grader at Hunter.

Though, hopefully you grow out of it. And everything gets OK. After all, the site is "immature," says a wizened 10th grader. "Gossip Girl is fiction. I think it's kind of meant to stay that way." Sage advice, old bean. [Sun]

If you're curious, Daily Intel has unearthed some links to the site, still in Google cache. The pages are gobbledygook for me, but try if you're so inclined, here and here. And, hey, wouldn't this be a great plotline for next season of GG? GossipGirl exposed! Sort of!

But the whole thing runs off the rails at the end, and the non-Spitzer Spitzer gets away with it, and no one gets to publish or gawk at pictures downloaded from MySpace. Instead the governor is permitted to keep his sex life private and his wife is left with both her dignity and independent political ambition intact. WTF? This is a detective show. I was implicitly promised the cheap thrill of watching imaginary justice visited upon make-believe criminals committing victimless crimes. Boo!

Here's a brief look at this alternate Spitzer reality. The guy who plays the governor has Spitzer's look down, although he's a bit young and has too much hair. Would-be Dupre is "Chanelle" in the courtroom scene — she doesn't look much like Jersey girl Dupre, and she's Brazilian or something so the governor just has her deported in the end.

TV Squad has a review of the whole episode.

The twins' publicist said the whole (heh) thing is "ridiculous," and an anonymous friend of the twins says "it's also my worst nightmare — that and getting a huge diet fountain soda that is mistakenly regular Coke — but I can def(initely) taste the difference, so it's their own fault if they fell victim." Oh, def. When I'm guzzling grande lattes to get off the no-food shakes, I'm definitely piquing my taste buds for milk fattiness. Worst. Nightmare. Ever. [The Scoop]

One of the poems that KidsPost published April 29 as part of its poetry contest was not written by the child who submitted it. The poem that appeared as "Horrible, Just Horrible" was actually written by Shel Silverstein and is titled "One Out of Sixteen." The child who sent in the poem originally told KidsPost that it was her work. Another poem on the page, titled "Eraser," was inspired by, but not credited to, Louis Phillips, who wrote "The Eraser Poem."

“My friend loves her,” said one 15-year-old sophomore who wouldn’t have class for another hour. Eye shadow and blush with a hint of glitter were brushed across her perfect face, giving her the look that Barbie gets when some young girl decides she could have even prettier pink cheeks. “Well, she love-hates her,” she corrected herself. Once her friend saw the pictures in Vanity Fair, “She called her a slut.”

It stung to hear the word; another version of it came up a moment later. Looking quickly at the image — Ms. Cyrus with her hair damp, her back bare, a sheet draped over her front — another Beacon sophomore looked not so much shocked as disturbed. “Is this who we’re supposed to be growing up to b