• NBC has greenlit Dick Wolf and Chris Levinson's Lost and Found, a drama about—what else?—a female detective. [Variety]

Julianne Moore playing with her kids, Caleb and Liv, on the sidewalk outside Bar Pitti ... Chris Brown walking with his bodyguard in midtown ... Maroon 5's Adam Levine hopping out of his tour bus in SoHo ... Ed Westwick showing off some shiny purple pants on the set of Gossip Girl ... Matt Lauer walking home from work ... Jennifer Esposito riding her bike through the meatpacking district ... Marc Ecko checking out an art exhibition in SoHo ... Chris Noth filming an episode of Law & Order ... and James Franco and Pamela Anderson arriving at The Late Show.

Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal dropped by the Today Show this morning to shill a movie, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Eckhart earnestly related to host Matt Lauer a story about their deceased costar Heath Ledger which he'd told Ledger's mother — namely, that friends were passing around Ledger's iPod as a form of remembrance:

1) Miguel Forbes took a cruise to Sag Harbor aboard the family-owned Highlander, along with Alejandro Santo Domingo, Dan Abrams, Dave Zinczenko and Melissa Milne, Elle Macpherson, Stella Keitel, Craig Spitzer, Fabian Basabe, Sessa Von Richthofen (pictured, right) and Richard Johnson. [NYSD/PMc]

Last week brought the appalling news that pill-popping professional idiot Rush Limbaugh signed an eight-year, $400 million contract with Premiere Radio Networks. He'll now collect $38 million a year, which he'll probably direct to some of the passions detailed in a NYT Magazine profile of Limbaugh this past weekend, like La Flor Dominicana Double Ligero Chisel cigars, private jets (he just purchased a Gulfstream G550) and life-size oil paintings of himself. (The deal also provided him with a $100 million signing bonus.) But what about the rest of the news media heavyweights—how much coin are they taking home annually? The salaries of America's most beloved anchors and blowhards of various political persuasions after the jump.

Now even Matt Lauer is doing it! In a report on a forthcoming report on how George W. Bush forgot to capture Osama bin Laden for a couple years and is now trying extra hard to finish that up before finals, Lauer called the terrorist mastermind—three guesses—"Obama." He quickly corrected himself, of course. Look what Fox has done to us! This is why everyone should just call him "Barry Hussein" like we do. Because this makes it official: everyone who is on television regularly has now made The Slip.

For any of you out there who still don’t “get” Kathy Griffin, we now present you with a single clip that will effectively prompt a lifelong love affair with the red-headed, fast-talking, Scientology-bashing spark plug of an entertainer that she is. On the Today Show this morning, giggly Al Roker had the pleasure of speaking with Kathy about her upcoming hosting job of Bravo’s inaugural A-List Awards and not-so-innocently asked her if there was really anything she wouldn’t do on camera, considering her reputation as a truthiness-telling comedienne who never holds back. What followed was a delicious and epic moment in television history, during which Roker was given a lap dance, off-screen staffers were overheard gasping, and images of a Roker/Matt Lauer/Halle Berry threesome in “the big bed” were thrust into our collective imagination.

• Susan Sarandon says she's moving to Italy or Canada if John McCain is elected President in November. And she's not voting for Hillary Clinton just because she's a woman, because that would be sexist. [Liz Smith]
  

This clip is a couple of days old, but it's quick and amusing: Barack Obama is being interviewed by Matt Lauer of NBC's Today Show, but keeps calling Lauer "Tim." He's probably thinking of Tim Russert, anchor of NBC's Meet the Press, because Lauer mentioned Russert early in the interview. Obama managed to get Lauer's name correct twice, but then kept screwing it up again, so Lauer eventually corrected him. Very, very gently, almost like one of those obsequious Obama interviewers on Saturday Night Live. Obama was probably just having a hard time keeping track of which media jackal was pelting him with nonstop questions about his former RACIST, traitor (etc.) pastor this hour. Points to the Democratic presidential candidate for working more middle-aged white ladies into his camera shot. Clip after the jump.

Have you ever felt that watching the Today Show was like sticking your hands in a bowl of poop? Did you ever wish that Matt Lauer and Co. would give life and articulation to that sentiment? If yes, then your prayers were answered this morning. Watch here as those chatty morning rangers stick their hands into said bowls of poop and then grumble about it. Matt Lauer says "crappy"! Is that allowed??

The co-host of NBC's Today Show, Lauer is the man who both men and women love to wake up to.

The fun just never ends on The Today Show, no matter how much you pray to your pathetic "gods." Here, Al Roker makes an inexplicable joke about Tiki Barber padding his crotch and makes Matt kinda uncomfortable. Thankfully, he spares Ann Curry the indignity of having her name mentioned in the same breath as genital sheaths, except he doesn't. Then we have "some serious news to get to."

Members of the press, we salute you, for your bravery in the face of extreme humiliation. Matt Lauer's Dateline interview Tuesday with Senator Larry Craig and his wife regarding Craig's restroom run-in with the law and/or male sexuality has journalists everywhere who viewed it bemoaning the experience—almost as though they'd been, say, recently exposed as hypocritical, closeted adulterers on national television. Poor things!

Today NBC's Matt Lauer participated in a conference call with journalists about the Dateline interview he did recently with Prince William and Prince Harry, and about the Concert for Diana that NBC is broadcasting on Sunday. But some journalists didn't want to play along—they kept asking him pesky questions about whether he'd gotten the interview with the princes because the network had ponied up $2.5 million for the rights to air the concert. Not surprisingly, Lauer denied it.

According to various reports—more on that later—one network or another has agreed to pay or to not pay a large or even more large amount of money to Paris Hilton for an interview. The network will not be ABC—although they figured the "credibility" and close connection Barbara Walters has with the Hilton family (oh, plus an offer of $100,000) would snag them the first post-jail interview with Paris Hilton. Some reports say Walters was out-credibilitied by Meredith Viera and at least $650,000. Others say NBC's offer is $1 million. NBC says they don't pay for interviews, and fast-talking Paris publicist Mike Sitrick says the same, which means the opposite is true.

Matt Lauer disobeyed orders not to ask Prince William about Kate Middleton during an interview to be broadcast as part of the Diana Deathiversary festivities, and now the royal spinmeisters are leaning on NBC to cut the footage. [The Royalist]

Not much more to say this one, although we do appreciate the Today Show host's stoic demeanor. Also, Al Roker could have been nicer about it. Anyway, enjoy!

It's a bigger dick move than Rush's, if only because he's being a total vagina about it.

PRESIDENT Bush showed off his sense of humor this morning on "Today" in an interview with Matt Lauer. The segment, taped Friday, showed Bush entering the Oval Office holding a copy of People magazine opened to the page with a bare-chested Matt Lauer. The president jokes, "Can I have an autograph?" Lauer responds: "Oh, do not start with this. That's just not nice [pointing to the picture]. The amazing thing is they put my head on your body." Bush: "I don't spend that much time at the gym."