Presidential candidate Mitt "Willard" Romney ceded tremendous ground to his main rival, pretend candidate and bloated carnival act Donald Trump, on CNBC yesterday, telling Larry Kudlow that he is not a Birther.

Wow! This must be seen to be believed. CNBC's Larry Kudlow talked about Japan's earthquake yesterday: "The human toll here looks to be much worse than the economic toll, and we can be grateful for that." It's hard to say if this was a blooper or just a horrible thing he actually believes? Watch the video and judge for yourself. [Vanity Fair]

CNBC guy Larry Kudlow simply did not care for the bear-hug Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel exchanged on Friday. It showed weakness, Kudlow writes, in a stupid column. "Our friends and enemies were all watching." Are the terrorists unstoppable now?

Larry Kudlow has a bunch of friends-of-Roger Stone running a quasi-campaign for Senate on his behalf, but he's not going to enter officially unless he think he has a shot. It doesn't look like he thinks he has a shot.

This is the depressing state of affairs in New York, in 2010. The various monsters and morons currently running-without-running for statewide office include Andrew Cuomo, Harold Ford, Mort Zuckerman, and, yes, Larry Kudlow.

Yesterday, we introduced you to the farcical "Draft Larry Kudlow" campaign, a pretend movement to convince TV economist Larry Kudlow to run for Senate against Chuck Schumer. Today, for fun, we'll introduce you to Larry Kudlow the addict.

Now why would you need to "draft" a guy who already wants to run for office? That is the question we're faced with as we examine the "Draft Larry Kudlow" movement.

• A new poll finds that one-third of Americans under 40 think The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are replacing "traditional" news outlets. [HP]
• Nickelodeon is asking kids to unplug their TVs and gadgets for a minute on Earth Day to signal "a commitment to helping the environment." Just a minute, though! Then they can go back to filling their heads with mindless junk. [AP]
• CNBC's Larry Kudlow will not be running for the Senate. Crushing! [NYT]
• Ratings for President Obama's telecast last night "showed some audience slippage compared with his two most recent live events." [THR]
• The Chicago Tribune and LA Times are combining their foreign reporters into one unit. Meanwhile, the AJC is cutting 30% of its staff. [E&P, AP]
• How is Twitter going to make money? Good question! [WSJ]
• William Morris is likely to seal a deal with Endeavor this week. [TDB]
• Verizon says it plans to launch its own local TV channel in NYC this summer. It will be just like NY1, minus the incomparable Pat Kiernan, of course. [WSJ]

• Former president George W. Bush has signed a deal with Crown to publish a memoir. Rumor has it he landed a $7 million advance for the book. [AP, NYP]
• For his part, Barack Obama has two books in the works with Crown. He plans to release an abridged, youth-oriented version of Dreams From My Father as well as write a nonfiction book once he leaves office. [CBS News]
• CNBC's keeping it classy. Larry Kudlow set a dollar bill on fire today. [CJR]
• Jim Cramer is still rattling on about Jon Stewart. [Gawker]
• NBC is planning to launch a "singing competition series" that sounds a lot like—yes, you guessed it—Fox's American Idol. [THR]
• CBS is keeping Two and a Half Men on the air through 2012. [NYT]
• The finalists for the Man Booker International Prize include E. L. Doctorow, V. S. Naipaul, Joyce Carol Oates, Mario Vargas Llosa and Alice Munro. [NYT]
• The noms for the National Magazine Awards are out. [AdAge]
• The cable channel Starz would like to remind you that it exists. [NYT]
• How screwed is the newspaper biz? Here's a pic that sums it up nicely. [BI]

Barack Obama had a lovely dinner with a bunch of creeps at head creep George F. Will's creepy house, and now they all love him. Larry Kudlow is in lurrrrve!