Last month, the magazine's in-house prick Bill Kristol used Napoleon to describe Obama's health care victory. Now it's Gary Andres, who compares the Democratic Party to a tainted Tylenol of the 1980s. Who is tampering with the Democrats' package?

In your beautiful Thursday media column: Keith Olbermann takes back a joke, a hedge fund withdraws from the NYT, price wars from the WSJ, and Bill O'Reilly has a little advice for ya, kid.

According to Countdown with Keith Olbermann—and Gawker's Maureen O'Connor—Sarah Palin and an entourage of 20 cleaned up yesterday at an Oscar gifting suite. It's too bad this happened a week after we were asked to stop saying "jeggings."

Tonight, Jon Stewart finally—and brilliantly—jumped on the Chatroulette bandwagon. Stewart mocked the media's obsession with the Internet's newest fad, before trying it out himself—and running into Diane Sawyer, Keith Olbermann, Katie Couric, Brian Williams and others. Video inside.

Assailing PR man/humble website proprietor Dan Abrams, a known bald man with a hair-system of some kind, on last night's Countdown, thick-maned pirate Olbermann employed some very subtle wordplay. He used coded language and punnery to mock Abrams' shameful chromedomedness.

Keith Olbermann is a narcissistic outrage junkie. But when he's right, it's a show stopper. With his father currently on his deathbed, Olbermann gave health care's "death panel" controversy an impassioned send-up by telling his family's story.

• Condé Nast Publications exists no more. The company will now be known simply as "Condé Nast," since the powers that be there have finally realized that people like to read stuff on the Internet every once in a while. [NYP]
• Bill O'Reilly invited Jon Stewart on his show this week. (Bold!) Unfortunately, all of Stewart's good jabs were edited out. (Not surprising!) [Gawker, NYT]
• Keith Olbermann is feuding with journalists and bloggers. Once again. [HP]
• Fashion mags struggled during the second half of '09: Sales of Vogue and Marie Claire fell by 15%, while Elle and Harper's Bazaar were flat. [NYM]
• Exits: Lifetime CEO Andrea Wong has been ousted from the network amid lackluster ratings. And the president of TV Guide Network is stepping down.
• Rumor has it Howard Stern may replace Simon Cowell on Idol. [P6, LAT]
• The cover of the new issue of SI has some people hot and bothered. [LAT]
• Magazines that tried cutting prices to boost sales? It didn't work. [AdAge]
• A rundown of the ads you can expect to see on Super Bowl Sunday. [ABC]
• Last Sunday's Grammy Awards boosted music sales this past week. [LAT]
• The Oscars are officially a month away. Mark your calendar. [The Wrap]

• Sundance was a lower-key affair this year thanks to the economy. [WWD]
• Layoffs: Rumor has it The Weinstein Co. cut as many as 30 staffers today. And a big round of layoffs could come to CBS next week. [Gawker, LAT]
• The Vancouver Olympics could cost NBC as much as $250 million. [THR]
• Keith Olbermann's ratings are down. Guess there are only so many times you can call Bill O'Reilly the worst person in the world before it gets old. [DF]
• BusinessWeek continues to staff up. Eric Pooley (formerly of Fortune) and New York's Hugo Lindgren are joining the Bloomberg-owned mag. [TW, TBM]
• Could a Catcher in the Rye be coming soon? Don't hold your breath. [LAT]
• Does Rudy Giuliani make stuff up every time he appears on TV? Yes. [NYT]
• Mort Zuckerman says Rupert Murdoch's plan to launch a local edition of the Journal is a "brilliant move." Translation: Extra competition for the New York Times is a good thing, especially when someone else is paying for it. [Forbes]
• The Grammy Awards go down on CBS on Sunday night. [NYT]
• George Stephanopoulos and Hillary Clinton are related? Apparently so. [AP]

• The iPad may be cool and all. But don't expect it to revolutionize newspapers. Or magazines. Or even book publishing. [AdAge, NYT, Reuters, NYT]
• The WSJ is getting ready to take on the Times. Three dozen staffers (and $15 mil.) will go into creating its new NYC edition, which debuts in April. [NYO]
• NBC and Conan O'Brien are back in business (sort of): The network is picking up a pilot from Conaco, O'Brien's production company. In less surprising news, Jay Leno says he hasn't spoken to Conan since the late-night drama unfolded; and Comcast's chief says he's behind NBC CEO Jeff Zucker (officially-speaking).
• ABC has decided to bring Ugly Betty to an end after this season. [LAT]
• MSNBC wasn't planning to air last Friday's Haiti telethon. But then Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow got involved and things changed. [NYO]
• Harvey and Bob Weinstein are looking to buy back the Miramax name. [DH]
• Louis Auchincloss, chronicler of WASP culture, is dead at 92. [NYT]

Two on-air personalities at MSNBC are celebrating birthdays today: Keith Olbermann is turning 51; and Ed Schultz, the host of The Ed Show, is 56. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts turns 55 today. Fashion designer Narciso Rodriguez is celebrating his 49th birthday. Model Lily Donaldson is 22. Alan Cumming is turning 45. Hedge funder Dan Och is 49. Bridget Fonda is turning 46. Retired ballet great Mikhail Baryshnikov is 62. Oscar-nominated actor James Cromwell is turning 70. Comedian Patton Oswalt turns 41. And actress Mimi Rogers, who may be best known for being the first wife of Tom Cruise, is 54 today.

Earlier this week, Jon Stewart slammed Keith Olbermann in a Daily Show "Special Comment" for Olbermann's patently mediocre, ridiculous, immature, hyperbole-strewn commentary-cum-namecalling as of late. And last night, Olbermann responded in typical Olbermann fashion: like an asshole.

• NBC Universal's profits tumbled 30 percent in the fourth quarter and dropped 28 percent in 2009. And that was before The Tonight Show mess and the money-losing Olympics were factored in. Good work, Zucker. [THR, LAT]
• More on Conan's departure (and his big ratings this week); Jay Leno's attempt at damage control; his sure-to-be-awkward appearance at the White House Correspondents Dinner; and the "explosion of incivility" on late-night TV.
• More on Air America's meltdown and the aftermath. [NYT, AdAge, Politico]
• How the "Hope for Haiti Now" telethon came together (Clooney made a call) and who will be taking part (140 celebs around the world). [LAT, AP, People]
• The 2010 Sundance Film Festival is in full swing. [LAT, Wrap, MTV]
• Roman Polanski has to return to the U.S. for sentencing, per a judge. [AP]
• Jon Stewart slams Keith Olbermann; Olbermann snipes back. [HP]
• The SAG Awards go down in LA tomorrow night, in case you care. [AP, NYM]
• Jim Cameron is the most important man in the world! Allegedly! [BN]

Talking for an hour over pictures of unspeakable destruction has got to be a grueling task. Tonight, CNN's Campbell Brown was nearly overwhelmed by two hurt kids in Haiti.

Keith Olbermann and Sean Hannity snapped cutesy pictures of one another at a World Series game, even though Hannity's boss Rupert Murdoch just yesterday said there was a nasty "personal" feud going between the TV opinion hosts. He wishes.

Keith Olbermann's hour-long, uninterrupted, endless "Special Comment" last night was actually called "The Fight Against Death." You will lose that fight, Keith. We all will.

• Who hasn't looked at buying BusinessWeek by now? Daily News and US News owner Mort Zuckerman appears to be the latest mogul to join the party. [BW]
• The wave of job cuts at Condé Nast could begin in a few weeks or in a few months, depending on who you ask. But either way, it's going to be ugly. [NYO]
• Fox News continues to trounce the competition: Both CNN and MSNBC experienced big declines in ratings during the third quarter. The situation appears to be especially bleak at CNBC, however. [B&C, HuffPo, ZH]
• Simon & Schuster is shaking things up at a couple of its imprints. [Crain's]
• The New York Times is planning to introduce a Chicago-centric edition of the paper. That's in addition to the San Fran edition launching this fall. [NYT]
• Related: Is the New York Times going to start charging readers to access its website? That's still unclear, but the answer should be coming soon. [NYO]
• "Print is undead," reports the undead print newspaper the Village Voice. [VV]

Keith Olbermann has worked 13 days this month, leaving Countdown to be guest-hosted by Lawrence O'Donnell or David Shuster on eight nonconsecutive nights. This is after a two-and-a-half week vacation in July. He's back tonight, and MSNBC says he'll explain.

• Another media company falls: Reader's Digest Association, the publisher of Reader's Digest (duh) and a handful of other titles (like Every Day with Rachael Ray), says it will file for bankruptcy protection shortly. [Reuters]
• As you may have heard, things haven't been too well for Harvey Weinstein and his brother, Bob. So what will happen if they don't turn the mini-studio around? "I'll be... making cheap hamburgers, or selling trailers, or refrigerators, or something," says (a refreshingly honest) Harvey. [NYT]
• Fashion mags are looking a bit thin this fall, in case you haven't heard. [WSJ]
• Don't expect the feud between Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann to dissipate: Ratings for both have been up since the war of words began anew. [LAT]
• Comedian Steve Harvey is joining Good Morning America. In related news, comedian Mo Rocca is hosting a web-based show for CBS News. [ABC, NYT]
• District 9 was No. 1 at the box office this past weekend. [ABC News]

Since most Sarah Palin fetishists think she's Christ reincarnated with a folksy twang and fertile vagina, it stands to reason that someone would eventually make a Palin video tribute set to the music of R. Kelly. That time is now.