Former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan has a new book about how George Bush's White House is full of liars and cads. Have you heard? Oh, also the President was totally a cokehead, maybe. He can't remember. But probably. People continue to weigh in! Matt Cooper (a reporter involved, you may remember, in the Plamegate thing) feels sorry for Scott McClellan, because when Karl Rove lied to Scotty and then Scotty repeated that patently obvious lie to the press (he's not very smart), all of his credibility disappeared. Cooper also thinks the book would be better if McClellan had QUIT IN DISGUST after the Plame affair instead of hanging around until they found a more well-liked replacement. MEANWHILE, Radar insinuates that McClellan stuck around to have man-sex with male hooker Jeff Gannon. (Attached, a now sad clip of Bush insisting that some day he and Scotty will be sitting on rocking chairs or something, when they're old, drinking space-lemonade, and Bush will still say "job well done.")

Anything up with Leigh Haber that we should know about? The Rodale editor and NY Post friend, who published Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, "will be 'working from home' till the end of her contract and is to have no contact with anyone at Rodale," a tipster informs us. Maybe things aren't going so well? Tell us what's going on! (Haber ran into our publisher at the Waverly Inn once, re: this post. It didn't go so well.) Update: "As we understand it, she was *not* happy about having Karen Rinaldi as her new boss (rather than her pal Steve Murphy) and refused to do much of anything when Karen signed on. She didn't go to [Book Expo], and cleared out her office this morning. No one is to speak to her about her projects, and her assistant and the editor under her now report to Karen."

A media company identifying itself as "Cond Nast Publications" is in need of a copy editor. Specifically, the ad says, "TheAssociate Copy Editorreviews copyedited text." Urgent, please apply now! Click through for a screengrab of thisjobopportunity.

Do you ever feel that your editor is making a mockery out of your work? Sometimes they just don't understand. The Raleigh News & Observer sends up an imagined editing of a recent NYT story. [Which NYT story? Specify!]

Jane Clark, the former Fox News employee who is now suing the company that managed the network's bedbug-infested headquarters, had a press conference today where she showed off the results of her vicious multiple bitings at the hands of the bloodthirsty insects. Take heed, potential Fox News guests: this may be the fate that awaits you! Two more graphic photos of Clark's welt-ridden neck, after the jump.

Are you a wee bit unfree with your public pee? Have trouble letting it flow when you need to go? Need to be in private to drain your privates—of urine? So-called "shy bladder syndrome" has a technical medical name, paruresis; an International Association; and, best of all, a landmark 1976 study that scientifically tested whether the condition actually exists, or is just an urban legend. The results were totally worth all the secret urinal spying that the scientists had to do to get them.

Remember that Wired article about the various pluses and minuses of drug use that got the Times' panties all in a bunch about whether it would actually "promote drugs?" It was a stupid controversy over a relatively innocuous drug story. The Wired piece didn't deserve criticism for its content, but it might have been served by some disclosure; the author of it, Mathew Honan, is a reformed cokehead. That fact didn't appear in Wired, but on Honan's own blog:

MSNBC pundit Chris Matthews apparently takes blog mogul Arianna Huffington's criticisms a little too seriously! "I will not be in the same fucking picture as Arianna Huffington!! Not a chance of that!" he allegedly screamed during a photoshoot for Portfolio at MSNBC's DC studio Tuesday. Then he stormed out. Oh, and Tucker Carlson was there. More odd and totally unsubstantiated stories from the shoot (Chris is angry because Arianna hired to PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR to spy on... someone!), below. [Updated! We found the target of her mysterious investigation!]

The WSJ wraps up its three-part series on the Bear Stearns Wall Street clusterfuck today, and it is a masterpiece of financial journalism that's a lock for a Pulitzer. Uh, not that we care. In the final installment, various cutthroat maneuvers lead to JP Morgan's bitter $2-per-share salvation of the troubled Bear. And it's clear that enemies of JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon (such as: formerly wealthy people who work at Bear Stearns!) were very forthcoming sources on this story, because two of the best anecdotes in the piece do nothing but make him look like a snippy asshole:

Lovable media mogul Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp, has been going around predicting a landslide victory for the Democrats this November and also big-upping Senator Barack Obama—he called Obama a "superstar" and a "complete phenomenon" at a conference yesterday. He apparently nudged his pet tabloid the New York Post toward an Obama endorsement in the New York primaries (despite his early attempts at making friendly with the Clintons). And as the Post goes, so goes, well, other News Corp holdings. So maybe Fox News will let up on Barry a bit? They've never been terribly friendly to McCain anyhow. But why would this noted conservative tyrant endorse Mr. Liberal Hope? He's done it before—with a friendly little weasel named Tony Blair.

Air America Radio, the liberal talk radio network that has come to dominate the radio dial and our country's political media at large (you can't go anywhere these days without hearing about the latest Rachel Maddow show) is back in the news. This time, for fraud! The network's fugitive former director, Evan Montvel-Cohen, was arrested in Guam yesterday on money-laundering charges unrelated to Air America. But boy, they should really consider rehiring him for his fundraising skills alone:

Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz is married to a publicist, and one would expect the press scold to studiously avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest with regard to her clients, who pay in hopes of getting their story into newspapers like the Post and onto TV shows like Kurtz's Reliable Sources at CNN. In fact, both Kurtz and wife Sheri Annis have been rather brazen about advancing one another's interests. As the Times notes this morning, Kurtz on Sunday interviewed for his TV show a CBS journalist who had written a memoir about her time in Iraq, and who just happens to have hired Kurtz's wife to do publicity. Kurtz went so far as to read aloud from her book before noting his conflict briefly at the end of his segment. His wife, it seems, has been even less ethically careful:

First letter of each paragraph: "GOODBYE READERS." He's taking a buyout. [Post]

Lushy journalists turned out in force for Jack Bryan's documentary on the storied, now-shuttered hole of a watering hole Siberia when the flick premiered last night at Soho House. Gawker founding editor Elizabeth Spiers, former Page Sixer Chris Wilson, The New York Observer's George Gurley, publicist / bigtime author Sloane Crosley and a host of other party-loving media types showed up to watch themselves and their colleagues ramble nostalgically about the place that ruined so many young livers. Sadly, one member of that crowd was home with a mystery illness. "Former 'Page Six' reporter Ian Spiegelman opens the film: 'I don't even know how you could make a documentary about Siberia,' he says. 'I don't know how people have any memories of what happened there.'"

How much did President Bush drink? When did he quit? Did he quit? And what else did he do? There are absolutely no definitive answers to any of those questions, and most of the witnesses and parties involved are suspect or worse. Still, with the publication of former press secretary Scott McClellan's book, complete with re-airing of those old cocaine rumors, it might be fun to investigate the out-going president's drug history, as found both in the public record and the fever dreams of conspiracy artists.

It's come to our attention that the Times' story today about the "miracle fruit" that makes everything taste sweet is—to use a technical journalism term—a big ripoff of a Wall Street Journal story from a year ago. A Page One WSJ story, at that. And it's not just that the Times wrote a piece on the same topic, which is common enough; they used a bunch of the same sources, and made the many of the same points in the same way. With not even a nod to the original! This is a semi-gotcha—it could have been solved by simply giving a little credit. It's not plagiarism, but it is enough to mightily piss off a fellow reporter. Check out the similarities:

So. Chris Tennant sorta faded away from Radar a couple months ago. Tyler Gray just left. As did Leigh Ann Boutwell. Now an anonymous source tells us Radar president Fred Poust quit this week, along with Finance Director Dwight Holovach. They're both still on the masthead, but we've heard the Poust story twice now. Can anyone confirm? Is this the summer Radar folds again? What the hell are we supposed to do when we quit here? Not all of us are pretty enough for the Times Magazine. Update: Site manager Mike Small is leaving too!

The victims of the Fox News bedbug infestation are fighting back! Former Fox employee Joan Clark has filed a lawsuit claiming that she has post-traumatic stress disorder from being attacked by bedbugs multiple times at the Fox News headquarters. She says she was bitten by the voracious creatures last October, last November, and just last month. She even claims that her entire department was relocated in a futile attempt to escape the bloodsucking insects! The building owner and maintenance company are named in the lawsuit, and Clark has filed a Worker's Comp claim against News Corp. itself. The full press release detailing her suit is below. We've contacted Fox (which may already be planning its revenge) and Clark's lawyer's for further info. THIS STORY IS FAR FROM OVER.

Everyone continues to be terribly impressed by John McCain's awesome ability to bullshit. The man is beloved by the press corps (or, at least, he used to be) because he will say any damn thing that comes to his mind, and what usually comes to his mind is whatever you want to hear. So Slate's Jacob Weisberg sat down with McCain in August of '07, when McCain's campaign was a mess and he was losing. Weisberg asked him how things were going, and McCain answered frankly that everything sucked. How Maverick-y of him not to lie! Then he said Weisberg didn't even have to read McCain's book if he didn't want to. Then McCain criticized the President and his handling of Iraq!