After Tina Fey's massive exposure as Sarah Palin on pre-election SNL, the season premiere of 30 Rock was given every chance to succeed. That push resulted in the show's highest ratings ever, but the show is far from out of danger: it still finished in third place in its timeslot behind CSI and Grey's Anatomy, and now it has to contend with the dreaded second-episode drop-off. Fey was obviously planning ahead for that, saving an Oprah cameo for tonight. Click for three clips in the preview, including a classic Alec-Tina scene.Last week's premiere shifted all the puzzle pieces from last season back into a more familiar arrangement. In tonight's episode things are back where they should be, including Jack Donaghy knowing how to put down his inferiors as only he knows how to do. While our favorite part of 30 Rock is the ensemble cast that creates porn video games and frustrates Liz Lemon, new viewers may be more interested in the Fey-Baldwin dynamic. And that's what we really love about the show: a boss and employee that actually enjoy working together and insulting each other...together. In tonight's episode, Oprah plays herself running into Liz Lemon on a plane. Two more clips, including a great Tina-Alec scene, follow. Click to view

At yesterday's Web 2.0 Summit, Kleiner Perkins whiz John Doerr — a man so successful he can get away with wearing the same three ties for ten years — told attendees that Barack Obama should skip over Googlers Eric Schmidt and Vint Cerf, and instead hire Kleiner Perkins partner and Sun co-founder Bill Joy as his national chief technology officer. Obama's job description was focused more on counter-terrorism intelligence and IT supremacy. Doerr thinks that's misguided: “The most important thing he's got to do is kick-start a huge amount of research and innovation in energy." Energy tech is Doerr's current focus at Kleiner, of course. But it's unclear to me whether Joy is now a leader or a dilettante on the topic. Doerr also suggested the U.S. "staple a green card to the diploma" to keep foreign-born engineering students from going back home after graduation. Throw in a fixed-rate mortgage for gossip bloggers, and I'll endorse the whole package.

Have you heard of Rahm Emanuel? He's just announced that he'll be Barack Obama's new White House enforcer! Or "Chief of Staff" as they call it "inside the Beltway." Rahm only has nine fingers, and there were rumors, once, that he lost the tenth to a Syrian tank while serving in the Israeli Army. That rumor is false—he lost it to a meat slicer—but Rahm's dad did serve the Israeli cause. As a terrorist! Rahm's dad is Benjamin M. Emanuel, a Chicago pediatrician and, in the 1940s, a member of Irgun, the militant Zionist group that attacked Palestinians and the British throughout Palestine. They killed 90 people in a Hotel bombing in 1946 and then there was this little massacre that got out of hand in Deir Yassin. Now Ben, according to the Times, "passed secret codes" for Irgun. We've no clue what that means. But according to the rules of guilt by association, Ben Emanuel is a terrorist and Rahm Emanuel is associated with terrorists and Barack Obama is palling around with terrorist sympathizers, from 40 years ago. This will help, once again, with making The Jews feel comfortable with the secret Muslim Arab as President. Reaching across the aisle!

Hollywood PrivacyWatch: 11/5 — At Mozza, sitting facing the window on Highland, jokingly ask GF if there's anybody behind me in the joint more famous than us? She replies "there is now" and the deuce next to us gets filled with some celeb I can't see and his girlfriend. Nobody pays them too much attention. The guy tries to establish his wine geek cred by asking if the HW knows James Sokolin, "a very good friend of (his) in New York." I recognize the voice and turn to see MATT DILLON. There's no way this guy is 6' tall. If he is, I'm Howard Stern. After their apps he moves to the banquette with his hottie Asian GF, some kissy-huggie and at that point the supplicants pour forth to pay their obeisance. Meanwhile, five LAPD black and whites (back east we call them "cruisers") and a helicopter are chasing a mob of demonstrators at Highland & Hollywood. [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.]

You know what's next for any lame duck president: the inevitable post-presidency memoir. Only problem, other than the fact that he struggles with basic grammar and syntax: Bush is a hugely unpopular outgoing president, and most of the country hates him. Publishers are wondering what the market for a potential Bush memoir would be, and the consensus is: um, awkward! No publisher is clamoring to give him $15 million like they did Clinton; certainly "the foreign rights interest will be considerably less," says the SF Chronicle. How have other unpopular presidents handled their memoirs?The current wait-time from moving out of the White House to publishing a book appears to be about two years. Taking into consideration the time it takes to write (or ghostwrite) a book and put it through the slow publishing process suggests that most presidents have gotten their book deals right after leaving office. Here's what past unpopular presidents did with their memoirs:

The stock market is down nearly 500 points this afternoon, we're in the middle of a deep recession, and tens of thousands of New Yorkers have lost their jobs. But if by some crazy chance you've managed to avoid the pain and suffering and you're looking for, say, a five-bedroom penthouse in Midtown, it's never been a better time to swoop down and make an offer. The prices of dozens of luxe apartments have been slashed in recent weeks. And while the rental market hasn't been crushed just yet, prices are very, very negotiable. That $60,000-a-month rental? You might just be able to offer up $30K a month and walk away with a deal. After the jump, the 20 most expensive apartment rentals in Manhattan, including Donald Trump's insanely overpriced $200,000-a-month penthouse at 502 Park, and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's equally ridiculous $47,500-a-month West Village spread.

Some dude in Hollywood named Todd Shemarya is getting sued by his ex-assistant, who claims that he sexually harassed her and was a big racist and walked around naked at work and several other unsavory things. The original story noted that Shemarya's firm " bills itself as the "number one" talent agency in the world" that claims to represent a slew of A-List stars like Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio. Naturally this snowballed, and yesterday Page Six called Shemarya "A TOP Hollywood talent agent - whose roster includes Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Aniston and Matthew McConaughey." But one brave writer at Variety had the balls to point out: Todd Shemarya is nobody:

Good news for Eliot Spitzer! The U.S. Attorney's office announced this afternoon that the former governor will not face charges in connection with that little scandal that ended his political career back in March: "We have concluded that the public interest would not be further advanced by filing charges in this matter." [NYDN]

I hate it when companies leak to the New York Times before they leak to me. AMD will lay off nearly 500 employees. But as Ashlee Vance notes, that leaves 14,960 more to lay off next quarter.

"NO MORE MR. NICE GAY," read one of the many signs last night in Los Angeles as Defamer attended a huge anti-Prop. 8 rally that drew several thousand — then set them marching all over the city. (Your Defamer was also partial to another sign, referencing the easily-passed, animal rights-granting Prop. 2: "I Want What the Chickens Got!") It was powerful, emotional stuff, and even more fireworks should erupt today at 2pm, when the crowd takes their fight to the Mormon temple on Santa Monica Blvd to protest the many millions the church sunk into passing the anti-gay Prop. 8. Until then, though, let's relive the night the best way Defamer knows how: with celebrity spottings and silly anecdotes! You can see the Robert Rodriguez-less Rose McGowan protesting up above — who else was there, and who wasn't?

Video has surfaced of Sacha Baron Cohen's storming of a Yes on Prop 8 rally outside City Hall over the weekend, posted by an irate Third Rail Media who claim the British comedian's crew physically pushed their cameras out of the way. As it's hard for us to get too swept up in the struggles of guerrilla videographers attending a rally protesting basic human rights for gays, we'll instead focus on the antics of the Austrian fashionista: Yet again, Bruno risks his own bodily safety in the name of his higher prank-comedy calling, and in the process secures some mildly amusing footage in which he explains to an angry religious zealot that his sign, "ASHERS ARE FOR SCHEISSING, NOT FOR SHTUPPING," actually places both men safely on the same side of the Gays Are Sinning Sodomites Who Must Be Stopped At All Costs debate.

President-elect Obama asked Illinois Congressman and hard-charging political attack dog Rahm Emanuel to be his Chief of Staff. Emanuel's brother is Ari Emanuel, the Hollywood agent who famously broke away from ICM to start his own agency. On the HBO series Entourage, Jeremy Piven plays an incredibly thinly veiled fictional version of Ari Emanuel, named Ari Gold. Ari Gold, in the new season of Entourage, was weighing an offer to leave his agency to head a studio. Meanwhile, Rahm Emanuel still hasn't decided if he wants to stay on as a powerful Congressional Democrat or move to a position of great power but less autonomy in the Obama White House. Above, watch fictional Ari struggle with the choice, and below, real-life Rahm hems and haws on television. Real life imitates fiction imitating the brother of real life.

This may replace holograms as Election Night's most stunning TV accomplishment: While the rest of us were recognizing the historic evening with a drink or 20, the South Park foremen cranked their assembly line into perversely high gear with animated snippets from both Barack Obama and John McCain's campaign-ending speeches. And as we should have figured, their statesmanship was simply a means to a lucrative, criminal end at a drunken nation's expense. Leave it to Trey Parker and Matt Stone to squelch our hard-earned hope that a new era is upon us — or at least that the geography-deficient divazilla Sarah Palin may yet take that long, much-deserved hiatus from our television screens. At least she's wearing leather this time around; that is change we can believe in. It's after the jump.Click to view

Middling designer Kenneth Cole is well known for writing his own pun-tastic advertising copy after only seconds of thought, and he hasn't lost his razor-sharp mind. Yesterday there was already a Kenneth Cole billboard up for Obama's election: "A precedent we can be proud of.—Kenneth Cole." He had one ready for a McCain election, too: "Out with the old...In with the older.—Kenneth Cole." In case of a third party victory, he could have gone with: "OMG I'm so surprised I didn't even think one up! Well okay how about like, 'Third is the word.' Yea, I like that because it has, like, different levels. Raoul, send that one over to the billboard people.—Kenneth Cole." [NYT]

♦ Michelle Obama may end up on the cover of Vogue in the next few months: "It's been a long-standing tradition to photograph the new first lady. So needless to say, we are very interested in working with Mrs. Obama." But Ebony may get there first. [WWD]
♦ Shares of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. plunged today following the company's announcement it's revising its 2009 forecast. [Bloomberg]
♦ New York television critic John Leonard has died. [Vulture]
♦ A round of layoffs have hit Hearst, although the exact numbers haven't been released. [Folio]

Despite the frequency with which willowy, young models end up shacking up with fat, old billionaires, Elite Model Management would like to make it very clear that it is not an escort agency. You cannot just pay some enormous fee, pick a stick-thin girl from a lineup, and then take her into a room for some "companionship." This explains why the modeling agency was none too pleased when it found out that a Manhattan escort agency was using the Elite name (and the domain elitemodels.cc) to market $7,500 prostitutes.

Pasty British expat writer Toby Young has news for you, America: your new president isn't "black," so stop acting all excited. "[Am] I the only person in the world who's noticed that Barak [sic] Obama isn't black?" he wonders. "Slaves were black. Barak [sic] Oboma [sic] isn't descended from slaves. He was born in Hawaii and raised by two white people." Can you school us any more on the intricacies of the blacks, Mr. Nilla?

The job of the White House press secretary is a ridiculous one—DCs most overpaid "journalists" toss out leading questions they know the answer to, the press secretary replies with stonewalling, outright lying, or repetition of talking points, and everyone files the same information-free report—so it's fitting that President-elect Obama's probable pick for the job has extensive experience on the world's most ridiculous cable news network, Fox. During the campaign, Gibbs specialized in neutralizing and befuddling the dimmer bulbs of Fox, like Sean Hannity and the crew of buffoons at Fox & Friends. Want a preview of the theatrical arguments of 2009's White House press briefings? Click through for Gibbs in action. First, Gibbs spins circles around Steve Doocy and Fox's resident morons on the subject of EVIL BILL AYERS:

Do terms like conservative and liberal actually mean anything, or are they just empty labels that people toss around? Frequently the latter, says a group of Columbia University psychologists.

Jesus Christ, while you weren't paying attention Disney has been busy insinuating itself into every niche of your consumer lifestyle. Do you consider yourself a fashionable person with fancy urban tastes who would never be caught dead wearing the winking Goofy sweatshirts and Tinkerbell baby-tees that are so popular in America at large? Better check your labels. Disney is determined to be included in your style, at all costs! The Death Star-like company is branching out, launching "exclusive" fashion lines that are only sold at upscale stores, home furnishings, and other products designed not for those people who love Mickey Mouse. Repeat: you may own a Disney product that does not have Mickey Mouse on it.