We saw the disgrace that unfolded recently when Scarlett Johansson's putative e-mail relationship with Barack Obama was exposed for the sham it was, so it's with great care that we broach revelations that George Clooney is reportedly the Senator's new Hollywood BFF. As seen in the accompanying video, however, Obama's new Special Envoy for Text-Message Policy (West Coast) drew attacks Monday from the reactionaries at the Fox News institution Red Eye, which touched on Clooney's underqualifications as both a leading man and a filmmaker: "Do you want to take advice from the man who looked at the Batman and Robin script and said, 'Let's do this'?" Indeed, while we admit bristling at last week's GOP smear linking Obama to Paris Hilton, even we must acknowledge that the "nipple suit" is a far-too-sizable albatross for anyone to contend with come November. [Fox News]

While out burning rubber with his motorcycle gang in Italy, popular actor/director/producer George Clooney was hounded by an aspiring writer. The writer had been waiting for face time with the Oscar winner for nearly four days, during which time she completed four rewrites of her blockbuster script. The woman described her spec as Mad Men meets Silent Running by way of Judd Apatow and believed it to be the perfect vehicle for the Cloonester. The woman said, "Nobody has pushed the limits of the science fiction genre quite this hard and I think George is the perfect individual to bring this unique vision to the screen." Clooney instructed the woman to leave a copy of her script at a nearby coffee bar and he'd pick it up right after his ride.

Now that Scarlett Johansson is finally hitting the road to stump for the upcoming Vicky Cristina Barcelona, reporters have seized on the opportunity to ask her about the important man in her life. No, not her fiancé Ryan Reynolds — we're talking about presidential candidate/father figure Barack Obama. You may recall how the actress made headlines back in June for discussing her email relationship with Obama, a sexy media fantasy that titillated reporters before the Obama campaign itself debunked it. Now, Johansson is claiming that the whole affair got too much attention because of the media's "extreme sexism":

Before embarking on a sailing expedition to U2 front man Bono's house, silver fox George Clooney went over all the safety procedures for the yacht with his passengers. After his presentation — which included a PowerPoint slideshow explaining which side is port and which is starboard — Clooney wore a life preserver until the seafaring vessel docked at Bono's. While some of his passengers laughed at him, The Cloonester stood firm, largely because his aunt Rosemary always told him that he should be a leader, not a follower.

Did you know that in the UK it's actually illegal for liquor companies to imply that their product will help you achieve "seduction, sexual activity or sexual success"? Crazy, right? But the byproduct is that even George Clooney-the sexiest man alive (according to women or whatever)-has to play like a good boy in his European ads for Martini vermouth. Oh, he's so couth. He just wants to twirl that fake mustache and meet you later on to get to know the real you. Don't believe the hype, ladies; he can't love you like a blogger can. Scoff at his act, after the jump:

Actor Steve Guttenberg's insane interview in today's Observer kind of creeps up on you. In the beginning, you're thinking he's an amusing 1980s movie star with a bit of a chip on his shoulder about his faded fame. A once-deferential maitre'd is depicted shoving the actor aside to make way for Tom Cruise, "and I'm like, 'Holy fuck.'" A 120-year-old club for actor types sparks in Guttenberg's head the status-anxious thought, "Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, who cares? ...it's like time, the great equalizer." Guttenberg is shown haunted by the memory of his peers shunning John Travolta when it seemed he'd never live up to Saturday Night Fever again. The actor says, referring to his dating exploits, "the Goot is on the loose," and you figure he must have been making a joke. But then he starts sounding weirder and weirder, and maybe kind of like a jerk, and the next thing you know he's talking about his compulsive drinking, lying and womanizing.

That sand-diving, levitating make-out partner Sarah Larson has gone ahead and surprised us again. Ever since those racy photos from her pre-George days pleasantly shocked us a bit, we could always count on the Vegas hostess to say or do something not so intelligent and turn our frowns upside down. From showering Clooney’s home with scented candles to pouting over defamatory voice messages on George’s answering machine, Larson never failed to please. And the bobble-headed minx has done it again. When asked by Hello! what exactly she adored about George, she lists some yawn-worthy traits like humor(!), kindness(!), and famewhore enabling(!), but the one thing Sarah says she loved most about the guy who spent most of their relationship on crutches? His “dance moves.” Of course. Because judging by these photos of Clooney busting a move, those “interpretive” lessons he took a few years ago really paid off.

Formerly a featured member of the Rapid Downsize club currently bowing down to newly slim star Colin Farrell, Matt Damon has notably chunked up for his role in the true story of an FBI whistleblower in Steven Soderbergh's The Informant. And despite the part's fun-filled requirements that he stop going to the gym and live on sweet potato pancakes with crème fraîche, Damon is reportedly feeling more than a bit self-conscious about his new frame. While Ben Affleck has taken the opportunity to relive his glory days as a funny sidekick, lashing out at Damon by nailing one-liners like "the man has to buy two seats on an airplane!", chubby Matt is fearing the month of November, when People announces his successor as "Sexiest Man Alive."

Like clusters of onlookers awaiting the Vatican smoke signals that announce a new pope, all of Hollywood stirred abuzz today learning that George Clooney would finally weigh in with a letter addressing the conflict between SAG and AFTRA. And weigh in he... didn't, instead choosing a neutral stand essentially saying everyone's right and would they please just sit down and try hammering out something constructive for once? Seriously, folks:

Good Will Hunting actor Matt Damon has been spotted sporting some packed-on pounds while filming the movie The Informant. His character is, I guess, supposed to be just a "regular guy," meaning his abs aren't toned and washboarded and he maybe eats a cheeseburger every now and then. As actresses tend to ugly up their faces and put on prosthetic noses and teeth to get serious acting cred, it seems that actors often have to let themselves go in the waistline. I'm sure that says something about standards of beauty for men vs. women, but that's a whole exhausting topic that ends with yelling and a lot of Betty Friedan quotes. So instead we'll take a look, after the jump, at seven other guys who bulked-up for movie roles, with some mixed results.

· George Clooney's production company Smoke House has set up a pilot at Showtime called The Fall of Bob, a comedy about a guy whose life flashes before his eyes as he jumps off a building. We bet we know how the series finale ends! [Variety]
· Vin Diesel VehicleWatch! 20th Century Fox has bought Rip X, a pitch for an action movie in the vein of The Fast and the Furious. [Variety]
· Ready for the next Ugly Betty? Tough! Fox has ordered a pilot based on the hit Argentinian telenovela Lalola, about a "womanizer who is transformed into a woman — and must endure the same kind of abuse he used to dole out." [Variety]
· Laurie Metcalf joins the cast of The CW's Easy Money, and Anne Archer will star on Privileged on the same network. No word yet on what actresses they are looking at for coming-of-age teen drama Gobs and Gobs of Really High Currency. [THR, THR]
· Hilary Duff joins Winona Ryder, Sean Astin, Chevy Chase, and Jon Cryer (definitely a dream cast in some era), for Stay Cool, a "knowing-your-age comedy" from the Polish Brothers. [THR]

Months of speculation over whom DreamWorks might be courting to help underwrite its ugly exit from Viacom ended late Tuesday when The Wall Street Journal reported that Reliance ADA Group, a massive Indian conglomerate, is close to sinking $500 million to $600 million into Steven Spielberg's breathless bid for autonomy. As presumed, the deal would expedite David Geffen's eventual departure from the DreamWorks fold and allow Spielberg to keep the DreamWorks name, if not the projects currently in development with Paramount/Viacom — alas, Transformers 2 stays behind. CEO and Spielberg right hand Stacey Snider would follow as well.

If you, like us, were beside yourselves with worry when National Wiener-Biting Champ [NSFW] Olivia Munn abruptly announced she would be taking some time off from her co-hosting duties on Attack of the Show!, we can offer by way of comfort the above recent photo. We assumed correctly that she was in Europe—only where we thought she'd be found in the tiny German town of Osendorf in Land Sachsen-Anhalt, where the World Wiener-Biting Championships are held every June, she was instead spotted in a small boat on Italy's Lake Como, accompanied by boyfriend and October Road star Bryan Greenberg, trash TV veteran Tate Donovan, and a third, unidentified brunette we'll refer to as Signorina X. All, it turns out, were guests of Lake Como's most famous resident, George Clooney, who'd later invite them to dry their garments on a medieval sock-toaster and retire to Villa Oleandra's dedicated pizza room for an anchovy-and-burrata pie so transcendent, none would ever again question the existence of God.

• Amy Winehouse performed for $2 million at an art gallery opening in Moscow, where she was either well-behaved and "totally lucid," or wobbling, sloppy, and not wearing underwear, depending on what you read. [Style.com/Rush & Molloy]

[Photo Credit: Bauer-Griffin]

· Warner Bros. is developing the spy thriller novel The Tourist as a potential George Clooney vehicle which will explode in the first reel and set the entire plot in motion. What about the goat movie? When does that one come out? [Variety]
· The WGA will hold a referendum next month to simplify its credit procedures, hopefully eliminating screenwriter name-gumbo like this. [Variety]
· If you're currently in production, we hope you're shooting in Waiverland, as SAG head Alan Rosenberg doubts any agreement will be reached by the deadline date of June 30. [Variety]
· Jack Black has dropped out of Borat-writer/director Todd Phillips's Man-Witch, a movie about a man who's a witch, supposedly because Black is concerned Phillips will shoot another movie called Hangover, about a bachelor party who wakes up in Vegas and realizes they lost the groom, first. May the best wacky premise win! [THR]
· Universal buys a comedy spec called Raindrops All Around Me, about "a socially inept high school teacher who learns to 'dumb it down' in order to fit in with the people around him." Said a Universal rep, "We think after a few more drafts to broaden the humor, Middle America will really eat this up!" [THR]

A George Clooney superfan got one step closer to finishing his scrapbook featuring signatures of the Good Night & Good Luck actor/director's former flames. Kevin Marr of Reseda started the book merely as a joke amongst friends in his divorced men group, but took on a life of its own. Marr said, "When I started to Google and Wikipedia things, I realized that the ole Cloonester is a major poon hound like me. So, I had to pay my respects to the maestro."

In a breaking celebrity-dumpee cup-enlargement stunner, In Touch Weekly is reporting that Sarah Larson, the woman who spent one year as George Clooney's girlfriend before being unceremoniously relieved of all arm-candy-tendering services, was actually recovering from breast enhancement surgery when she received the life-changing news. They report:

• Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon may have skipped the big wedding, but that doesn't mean they want to skip all the big presents. The duo has apparently registered at Bergdorf's, where they're encouraging friends to buy them fine china and expensive stemwear. [Page Six]

Even though she spent nearly a year silently standing by George Clooney's side at movie premieres and on jaunts to the United Nations, it seems that Sarah Larson forgot the first rule about Being George Clooney's Girlfriend. Namely, you do not talk about Being George Clooney's Girlfriend. Just days after her extensive interview with Harper's Bazaar hit the stands — one in which she confessed that "I don't think [George] has any trouble getting anything he wants" — she suddenly and quickly found herself on the receiving end of that maxim. Unfortunately for her, she learned that what Clooney wanted was for her to give back his garage door opener and hitchhike her way back to Vegas. Now, details have begun to emerge from the Larson camp about their breakup, ones that predictably cast a sympathetic light on the comely sandworm emulator. Serving as part of a vast right-wing conspiracy against noted lefty Clooney, Fox News reports: