It's Obvious Day on Twitter: NBCer Chuck Todd wonders why Barack Obama can't secure the political support of the man he defeated in the 2008 election, and the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz predicts that Oprah Winfrey may go to cable.

The night before Joe Halderman was busted in a sting operation for trying to extort David Letterman out of $2 million, the Late Show aired a parody of a Geico ad that seems, in retrospect, rather prescient.

Bee Shaffer turns 22 today. Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau is turning 90. Billionaire financier Leon Black is 58. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is 44. Wesley Snipes is turning 47. Muckraking defense attorney Ron Kuby is 53. Another muckraker, entrepreneur Mark Cuban, is 51. Theater director Oskar Eustis turns 51. Ezra Zilkha is 84. The Office's B.J. Novak is 30. And actor Dean Cain is 43 today. Below, the birthdays of some people celebrating this weekend.

Kurt Andersen enjoyed an intimate, sexy moment with Michelle Obama; a Chicago Tribune writer made an orgy of his meal and Micki Maynard rocked out. The Twitterati were feeling carnal.

In your Friday-like Thursday media column: Howard Kurtz types many words for no good reason, Rupert Murdoch denies wanting to own the NYT, the WaPo can't stop distancing itself from that sellout email, and journalism is practiced in Honduras.

HuffiPo's Nico Pitney was called on at an Obama presser to ask a crowdsourced question from Iranians. Dana Milbank called out Pitney in a Washington Post column for collusion with Obama's administration. They smacked each other down on CNN today!

First Matt Lauer of Today, now Howard Kurtz on CNN: What's with all the TV newsmen leaping to defend Miss California for opposing gay marriage "in my country?"

Howard Kurtz scolds Politico this morning for spinning stupid bullshit "stories" into Drudgebait, a critique we endorse. But: Physician, heal thyself.

Liz Smith went on CNN today and said she was "really inept at making [the Web] work." Then the deposed New York Post gossip proved it.

Honestly, what is up with CBS News anchorlady Katie Couric? First she lets a high-school reporter scoop her, and now she's too lazy to get to a studio for Howie Kurtz's Reliable Sources?

Look, everyone's a little excited about the inauguration. Here's a snapshot of a media elite which just won't shut up, in 140 characters or less:

Following the New York Times' non-bombshell "exposé" about how Angelina Jolie expertly controls her image and weaseled People magazine into only running good coverage on her and her family, People fired back denying everything. And, yawn, now the whole non-issue has carried over to Washington Post sadsack Howard Kurtz's CNN show Reliable Sources. Kurtz spoke with people like an Extra junket correspondent who basically said what we all knew: that every celebrity blurb is heavily padded and protected and handled. Duh. Let's not treat frigging press junkets like some serious journalistic endeavor. They are the exact opposite. People editor Larry Hackett was on too, and he made only one thing clear:

Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post's useless media critic whose column is the actual physical manifestation of "conventional wisdom," is upset. About Obama! Specifically, about the fact that every newspaper and magazine and TV network has decided that Obama worship is the proper coverage strategy at the moment. The media is engaged in outrageous "mythmaking," Howie Kurtz observes, long after all the worthwhile media critics have analyzed this point to death. Howie's method is to list every example of a media outlet celebrating Obama's victory, then to wrap it all up with a conclusion that you may not have considered yet:

Let's check in with Washington Post media guy Howard Kurtz. What's he up to today? He wonders how the press will deal with Obama, and vice versa, and instead of coming to any interesting conclusions about anything he quotes some people saying the press will turn on Obama and some people saying the press will cheerlead for Obama and none of it means anything, it's just free-floating cliche and partisan cant. Here are two paragraphs that basically sum it up:

Let's check in with famous and successful media critic Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post. What is Mr. Kurtz writing about today? The Monday after John McCain's much-discussed appearance on Saturday Night Live, his second of the general election campaign and coming just weeks after his running mate Sarah Palin's well-publicized cameo, Kurtz's column is, of course, about how Obama is on TV all the time, and all the television talk shows are In The Tank for Barack Obama.

It's probably safe to say that Howard Kurtz is the most prominent member of his disreputable clan, the media critics. He analyzes the press full-time for the Washington Post, one of the few national papers left, while the Times has no one regular press critic. Kurtz also has a tv show of his very own! How did he swing such a cushy job? By regularly producing the kind of trenchant media analysis on display in today's column, about a magical fantasy world in which Barack Obama is losing. In this bizarro universe, the Obama campaign is poorly managed, beset by gaffes, and the candidate is a national joke. It's really useful thought exercise, if you're into thinking about things that don't relate to reality. This is his thesis:

Dear Project For Excellence in Journalism: please just stop. Stop doing these studies or just stop releasing your so-called "empirical" findings to the press. Because Howard Kurtz "reporting" that the press is so mean to John McCain and so nice to Barack Obama all the time is not "excellent journalism." It is more like "the Project for No Context and More Bullshit in Journalism." Christ, PEJ, how does it further excellent journalism, learning this factoid:

Well yes, sure, of course we can. But how? It's easiest to just blame greedy bankers or something, because Wall Street assholes act the same way in good times and in bad, and we lionize them in good and castigate them in bad (also we deregulate them in good and bail them out in bad, but whatevs). But now we have our media-blaming excuse: Howard Kurtz, media "critic" for the Washington Post, has weighed in on the financial crisis and is appointing blame in equal measure to everyone! That is the fair way to do things, you know. So hey let's join him in blaming the MSM. The fact of the matter is regular work-a-day journalists, even the high-falutin well-off name ones, don't get finance. Because no one really gets finance besides financiers, and journos are all soft-sciences arts majors. Math is hard! Even now they don't "get" it (though everyone's on the tail end of their "conversant at cocktail parties" crash course, and it shows). Honestly, we spent a couple years studying for BFA, of course we have no fucking clue what happened here. And as both media producers and media consumers, we're reasonably more conversant on many national public interest issues than Joe Sixpack Americans. And yes, in 2004 when the SEC decided to allow investment banks to self-regulate themselves we heard about it on Kos or something and were outraged and all that. But:

Admit it. You've been wondering what John McCain eats for breakfast. The answer? Coffee, cereal, and fruit. (No, not babies.) Barack Obama gobbles down four to six eggs, potatoes, and wheat toast, and occasionally adds fruit, bacon, and oatmeal to the menu. (How does he stay so thin?) We certainly didn't see this one coming, but Tom Brokaw says he's a granola and yogurt kind-of-guy. Maureen Dowd? "I don't eat breakfast. Just coffee." A few other breakfast choices of media and political types after the jump.

♦ Will Project Runway move to Lifetime from Bravo? NBC won the first legal battle against PR producer Harvey Weinstein on Friday, which means it's not entirely clear where the show will end up. [NYT]
♦ The Sun may publish an issue tomorrow after all. [Portfolio]
♦ Tina Fey to the rescue: Saturday Night Live has seen a major boost in ratings so far this season. [THR]
♦ Vanity Fair on the face-off between Maria Bartiromo and Erin Burnett. [VF]
♦ An Indian version of GQ debuts this month. [Guardian]
♦ Howard Kurtz says unseen clips of Katie Couric's interview with Sarah Palin are on the way; CBS says it has released everything it's got. [HuffPo]
♦ The Times looks back at the drunken career of the Post's Steve Dunleavy, who's retiring after 41 years in the business. [NYT]
♦ The Wall Street Journal has launched a mail-order wine club. Really. [NYT]