What does it take to get American editorial pages honest-to-God riled up about something? In addition to the expected criticism from the left, Hank Paulson's $700 billion bank bailout has been savaged by no less a conservative than Newt Gingrich, who wrote, "we’re using the taxpayers’ money to hire people to save their friends with even more taxpayer money." Among the more strenuous Congressional opponents is the Republican senator from Alabama who chairs the Senate banking committee and said he worries the bailout "is neither workable nor comprehensive despite its enormous price tag." The Monday plunge in the dollar and U.S. stocks was widely seen as rendering judgement on the cost and effectiveness of the plan, unveiled over the weekend. And yet, save for some quibbling about oversight, the Times' Tuesday editorial on the matter treats the bailout as a given:

Even before the Wall Street meltdown, New York's traditional media and advertising companies faced serious sales declines as internet competitors, including West Coast companies like Google, ate into margins. With financial services in freefall, a second pillar of the city economy has seriously weakened. Cue the Gotham press' anxious soul-searching and visions of a return to the weary days of the 1970s. "It's going to be very severe for New York City," a Manhattan College finance professor said in Tuesday morning's Times. New York magazined mused in this week's issue about the global financial center shifting from Wall Street to London, Dubai and Hong Kong, "like the decline of New York’s manufacturing base in the seventies." And the New Yorker is already racing to find the upside of financial armageddon, which as you know turns out to be creative ferment:

"Maddow's averages [on MSNBC] are more than double the final two weeks of Verdict with Dan Abrams." [TVNewser]

Bill Clinton will appear on David Letterman's show later tonight, but he gave a sneak preview of what he might say earlier today on the View. Don't expect the former president to come out swinging against Sarah Palin the way he did against Barack Obama during the primary. Asked a question that tied sexist treatment of his wife during the Democratic primary to supposedly sexist treatment of the Republican vice presidential nominee now, Clinton didn't utter a peep to challenge the shaky premise that Palin has been seriously hurt by a sexist media. Instead he talked about what a powerful force sexism has become — more ignored than racism, even! (Click the video icon to watch the clip.) But this doesn't necessarily mean Clinton is still bitter toward Obama.

Hah. So. John McCain's campaign got pissed off at the New York Times for reporting a kinda tenuous connection between McCain campaign manager Rick Davis and Fannie Mae. So strategist Steve Schmidt (pictured), who is increasingly insane and unhinged and so un-Rove-like in his Rovian tactics, held a conference call to attack the Times. "Whatever the New York Times once was, it is today, not by any standard a journalistic organization. It is a pro-Obama advocacy organization that every day attacks the McCain Campaign, attacks Senator McCain, attacks Governor Palin, and excuses Senator Obama," Schmidt sputtered. So, hah, if Politico's Ben Smith's writeup of the call is any indication, this media-attacking will backfire! "But the call was so rife with simple, often inexplicable misstatements of fact," Smith writes, "that it may have had the opposite effect: to deepen the perception, dangerous to McCain, that he and his aides have little regard for factual accuracy" Oh no! They certainly wouldn't want anyone to think they play fast and loose with facts! The lies:

Che is a Belgian men's magazine. So it's not too concerned about pleasing women, or what women think, or not royally pissing off women in general. Here's the only thing Che wants from women: their ass! Amirite bro? Gimme some! The ad pictured at left shows gals strolling around with tags on their ass that say "Please Squeeze Here." Ha, yes ma'am! High five! Whatever the Belgian equivalent of the National Organization for Women is is really asleep at the wheel. Below, three more spots from Che's meat-themed ad campaign, proving once again that Belgian sex advertising is truly a world unto itself:

Robert Fisk is a legendary Middle East reporter for The Independent and has been called "the most famous foreign correspondent in Britain." But he has that unfortunate angry-old-man attitude about the internet. At a recent lecture, "He recalled being challenged about a quote of his that had been published on a website - although he had never said it. 'But I read it on the internet,' was the response, to which Mr Fisk simply hung up." Reasonable! But what would you expect from a guy who has an entire method of online rhetorical smacking-down named after him?

Patrick McMullan chats with The New Yorker about his latest project, PMc, "the world's first iPhone magazine." McMullan then goes on to admit that he doesn't even own an iPhone. He uses a BlackBerry instead. [NYer]

As the October 1 retirement party for quintessential rabid right-wing New York Post hack Steve Dunleavy approaches, everyone who knew him is scrambling to write their remembrances of his alcohol-inspired behavior. It's funny how the passage of time can turn a man's reputation from "inappropriate, mean, and downright dangerous alcoholic" to "beloved irascible colleague," but there you go. How about some more Dunleavy stories? Yes, he had a "reputation as a pants man extraordinaire"!

When, back in April, we wondered what exactly political newspaper/website Politico was up to (and do they make money?) we said this: "once the presidential thing is done, Politico will have to go back to what we thought it'd be in the first place-a wonkish, Roll Call-like little trade paper for Congress-watchers and DC insiders." Because pure politics does not make money, and Politico has a lot of big salaries to pay. But Politico didn't listen! Once the election is over, The Times reports (from their new media desk!), Politico will expand! And then the Washington Post will copy them!

When the New York Sun launched, some wags at the New York Post hung up an office pool in the middle of the newsroom predicting the date the upstart new daily would fold. No one gave the Sun more than two years. Joke's on you, New York Post! The Sun remained unprofitable and unread for six years until the investors had enough and threatened to pull the plug! Now the niche Zionist-conservative daily will fold at the end of the month unless it finds new backers, and Rupert Murdoch—who saved the populist-conservative Post 15 years ago—will probably not step in. Did you know the paper was doomed from the start by wealthy Canadian criminal idiot Conrad Black? The paper's founder, Seth Lipsky, wanted the paper to be a six-page, small-circulation broadsheet. But original backer Conrad had other plans!

PMc is here! (Pause for applause). That, of course, is the name of the new iPhone-only magazine founded by nightlife photographer and long-aspiring celebrity Patrick McMullan. For only 99 cents on iTunes, you can now have a piece of this revolutionary bit of media progress. And McMullan himself is absolutely sweating to bring the latest in celebrity ruffle-wearing to his (dozens of?) readers:

The Post is so unimpressed with the new season of Heroes, the show that "was once so thrilling and fun, has become full of itself, its characters spouting crazy nonsense." Like this:

Online marketing companies: do we give them enough information about our lives? Emily Steel, a 24-year-old reporter for the WSJ, bravely uses herself as a guinea pig to determine that, no, these shadowy firms don't know quite enough about us to be able to target us with ads effectively. If the threat of missing out on perfectly customized ads doesn't convince Americans to throw open our private data to unaccountable corporations, I don't know what will: A couple of ad targeting firms let Steel look at what they had on her, and guess what: it was not totally accurate! They guessed that she liked luxury boats and was a newlywed, when actually she just had friends getting married, and has no boat. That's because tracking can't follow you across different computers, and guessing about demographics based on internet cookies is an inexact science. You might think that keeping these people in the dark would be a good thing, but Emily gives props to the firm that correctly pegs her as "someone who spends time exercising and socializing at bars and nightclubs." Psht, well that's not exactly ESP territory. She ends with this:

"Carter notes in his Vanity Fair editor's letter that... [Monkey Bar investors] 'include four people who are a part of this year's New Establishment: Ronald Perelman, Jerry Weintraub, Jean Pigozzi and Bryan Lourd.'" [Post]

In July, when Richard Fuld was blaming rumormongers and short-sellers for troubles as Lehman Brothers, the Times ran a column by finance writer Andrew Ross Sorkin echoing his complaints and calling one of the rumors, that Barclays would acquire Lehman, "absurd." Today, with Barclays buying Lehman's U.S. operations, the Times is still siding with investment banks over investors, depositors and others who benefit from the free flow of information. Here's some data the paper won't be providing about the mess on Wall Street, according to an article it published today:

The Sun is scheduled to close down by the end of the week if it doesn't raise additional capital. So how is Seth Lipsky, the paper's president and editor, doing in his efforts to bring in additional backers? "I haven't raised all that I need, but I've raised a lot," he tells the Times today. [NYT]

Are there any outlets left NOT trying to be ironic and meta? Because even Martha Stewart, the icy queen of sincere homemaking, is launching a parody of herself. The show, "Whatever, Martha!", will be run by Stewart's daughter Alexis who, judging from a fresh New York profile, is still acting as self-consciously over the top as she was three years ago, when she first got her satellite radio show. She hates on a paraplegic! She has casual sex, sometimes even with women! She bought a handgun in preparation for a U.S. invasion! And now she's going to run a show where she'll make fun of her mom's old shows on a show co-produced by that same company. In the process we'll all get an uncomfortable look behind the scenes in the Stewart family, which involves learning the following:

Natalie McLennan is the self-proclaimed high-end hooker whose statements in a 2005 New York magazine cover story helped get her convicted on prostitution-related charges last year. Now that she's done her time, McLennan is free to tell all in a new book. And, what do you know, just like her onetime pimp Jason Itzler, McLennan just happens to have unearthed from her memory some sexy new stories to tell about Ashley Dupre, famed hooker to former Gov. Eliot Spitzer and a former working girl alongside McLennan. The tales were excerpted in the Post Sunday, alongside a racy picture (left). They involve cocaine and the rapper Nas:

Emma Gilbey Keller's new book "The Comeback" is, in part, about emerging from under the shadow of her husband, Times editor Bill Keller. Good luck with that. In the insular world of publishing, the Times Book Review still reigns supreme, and the positive Sunday notice on Emma Keller's title has already arched some eyebrows. Sure, the Keller family connection is disclosed. But people are already wondering about self-dealing at the Times after recent gushing praise for a book by a New York Times Co. executive and four separate plugs for a book by the husband of a company director — whose book-writing son also got notice in the paper. Then there's the efficient praise the Times had for Emma's last book. Newspaper gossips will remember it from the author.