Feminism is all the rage on the Right these days! Well, sort of. Ham is reiterating critiques that were already expressed by feminist bloggers six months ago. But hey, welcome to the party.

And regardless of the source, the critique of HuffPo's cynical, pageview-grabbing tactics — trashy slideshows of starlet flesh alongside liberal politics — still holds water. As Andrew Golis (Yahoo blogging "czar" and a Mr. Feministing) put it on Twitter, "When someone at the Weekly Standard can do this clean a hit on you on feminist grounds, you've got a problem."

HuffPo's Misogyny: The NSFW Path To Liberal Journalism Success [The Weekly Standard]

Related: Huffington Post: Liberal Politics, Sexist Entertainment

Earlier: Does Huffington Post Use Sexism To Drive Liberal Page Views?

She lists off some recent stories from the site's "Entertainment" section to give you some flavor.

This one-sided liberal hate site has one fatal weakness-boobs. Let's check out some recent stories from the Huffington Post's entertainment section:

• Here are some photos of Natalie Portman's nipple.
• Here are some photos of Beyonce's nipple, complete with HuffPo-provided "NSFW zoom."
• Here are some photos of Pamela Anderson's nipple (hardly news, but a boob's a boob).
• Here is an entire page devoted to recently naked women (and Barack Obama).
• Here is a collection of zoomed-in photos of 23 celebrities' breasts, made into a fun game called "Guess the Celebrity Breast Implants?"

Pretty standard entertainment-section blog fare here-though HuffPo does go above and beyond with the "NSFW zoom." You don't see a Beyonce nipple that close just anywhere.

While Amanda's examples aren't all from the same day, it's a rare day that some coverage of a salacious story about an attractive woman doesn't make HuffPo's "Top Stories." An example, from today:
So, there's an auto-erotic asphyxiation story and Heather Graham opining about her love of Tantric sex. Gotcha. And on the day after Sarah Palin told Sean Hannity that she'd like to tell Obama voters, "I told you so," about America becoming a Socialist nation yet not being permitted to speak to a Republican audience, their front page story about her isn't atypical.
Not atypical, if one is running a gossip site.

Amanda acknowledges that the nip slip/hot chick page views are part of Huffington Post's business model, regardless of its politics. But she notes that the entertainment coverage often does have a liberal bent — it's just not often sensitive to women.

But look past the nipples, if you can, and you will find a clear liberal bent in HuffPo's non-boob Entertainment stories. Yesterday, the top three links on the Entertainment page could be considered GLBT interest stories: "Adam Lambert Confirms Rolling Stone To Address His Sexuality"; "WATCH: Neil Patrick Harris' FANTASTIC Tonys Closing Song"; "Gordon Ramsay Shocks Audience With ‘Lesbian' Rant About Journalist." Also on the page yesterday was blogger Jackson Katz's post directly addressing the objectification of women in entertainment, titled "Eminem, Misogyny and the Sounds of Silence."

Notably, most of HuffPo's bloggers aren't paid — and their coverage isn't highlighted with splash page retail space in the same way that the stories about sex and nipples are.

And while some people might call looking at nip slips a little mindless fun to drive in the viewers HuffPo desires to influence politically, Amanda isn't having it.

The problem is that people really do care about nipples. They care so much about nipples that the Huffington Post devotes pages and pages of photographs to them when women accidentally (or, you know, against their will) reveal them to the public. In that way, there's no difference between the religious conservative who is scandalized by a bare breast popping up in the middle of his football game and a liberal Web site which devotes its resources to naked chicks. A woman's body part is a priority. Real women's issues, not so much.

Somehow, "Come for the nipples, stay for the feminism" doesn't seem quite right to us either.

Huffington Post: Liberal Politics, Sexist Entertainment [Washington City Paper]

The Good:
Kate Hudson probably didn't realize she was totally flouting the dress code with this snappy Betty Catroux suit.


On the one hand, Diane Sawyer's look is totally early-'90s. On the other, it suits her.


M.I.A. and Ben Brewer are obviously among the coolest couples in the world. And his chucks and suit remind me of my high school boyfriend.


This is clearly the conservative iteration of the lace suit Stella rocked last night, and this one I love. Not least because it alleviates the evening's monotony!


Sorry, gang, but Cindy McCain-esque 'do and 'up aside, this 30's-style ensemble is pretty and elegant.


The Bad - Okay, "Bad" is Too Harsh:
No one expects sartorial fireworks from Baba, but dowdy and busy? She can do so much better.


And Arianna Huffington! Why is she so committed to the D.C.-Jessica McClintock thing? I'd love to see her have a little fun, take a page from Michelle and try a little Thankoon or Toledo.


Black Magic:
Michelle Obama's 20's-inflected beads are an artsy, elegant touch - a far cry from the staid pearls one might expect. (Not shockingly, the First Lady didn't walk the red carpet.)


Georgina Chapman's layered, flirty iteration is predictably lovely; Marchesa's as feminine as it gets.


I'm beginning to believe Claire Danes can do no wrong. Again, it's somewhat dispiriting that a shoulder detail qualifies as a major fashion risk! Still, it's a conservative event.


Even in a sea of black, Leslie Mann's Miriam Hopkins-perfect velvet stands out.


Per usual, Suze Orman does LBD-as-suit. YSL would be proud.


Sherri Shepherd demonstrates the relaxed take.


Amy Poehler's curve-hugger shows what good lines can do on even the simplest frock.


Anjelica Huston worked basic black in the 70s, as an Addams, and has never lost the knack for utter chic.


Patricia Clarkson's 7 Year Itch is, somewhat tragically, one of the most daring shapes on the red carpet - and one of the prettiest.


Of course, the (long) BD is Coulter's uniform. No witch jokes, please!


What Say You?
Okay, I really feel for Andrea Mitchell these days; it can't be easy. But: what do we think of her textured chocolate, unexceptional or ugly?


When it comes to Liv Tyler's lace: fun or fungal?

[Images via Getty]

The "quiz" itself is a slightly-wordier version of what we expect from questionnaires that promise general answers for extremely personal and specific life situations. Here's one of the 10 questions:

Lust and love are as different as night and day. If your partner only wants to see you in the wee hours of night, it's lust. If this person wants to spend the more precious daylight hours on weekends with you, you're heading towards the real-deal love, baby! If not, suggest some afternoon activities to explore doing together, so you can get to know each other beyond Dinner 101 Conversations and their accompanying after-dinner-treats — so you can suss out for sure if it's love or lust.

Real-deal love, baby! The HuffPo has spoken, as all-knowing and calmly confident as Cosmo on its sagest day. Other pearlies: Does he make you your best you? Also: good looks fade. None of them wrong, per se - cliches do tended to be rooted in some essential truth - but all in all, a baffling little document. The love/lust divide may be the Greatest Mystery Of Our Age (albeit not a confusion anyone I know has really been prey to - falling in love with bad people is more of an issue) but a greater mystery is...Christmas-appropriate though it may be, why the hell is this on HuffPo?

Karen Salmansohn is a popular pop-psych writer, and it's not remarkable that she should contribute to the blog, but as a famous LOLCat once said - srsly? This is just the latest in a series of very odd posts on the liberal catchall. True, Arianna Huffington's baby has always been an eclectic assemblage of serious-minded opinion, celebrity bloviating, entertainment and the occasional outlier - it's this which renders it an idiosyncratic and often essential read. But in the last few months we've seen tabloidy critiques of middle-aged epidermi, catty makeup commentary and now, guides to one's (presumably left-leaning and gender-unspecific) Man. It's not that there's anything wrong with an answer-life's-questions quiz, but the assumption behind this kind of thing in a teen or fashion mag is that it's a young population eager for answers, not precisely the sort of intellectual curiosity we would have thought the HuffPo credited their readership with. Unless there's been a great outcry from the masses (and Oprah) for a way to distinguish between Lust and Love - in which case we stand corrected. And possibly basing a marriage on Lust. Quiz: Are You In Lust Or Love? [Huffington Post]

That's a whole load of bull hockey for a number of reasons. First, let's look at the wording of the original HuffPo post, shall we? "Vogue editor Anna Wintour is the international arbiter of fashion, recognized in an instant by her haircut and large sunglasses. But what does she really look like? Thanks to the strength of today's digital cameras and the below AP photo from Thursday's Tommy Hilfiger show, cropped several ways to show every pixel, now you can know." But why do we desperately need to know what Anna Wintour looks like close up? Some could argue that she perpetuates an industry obsessed with looks, but it seems counterproductive to obsess over Wintour's looks as a way of revenge. In fact, it's just continuing the cycle.

And here's what Huffington says about aging in On Becoming Fearless, via Haber, "We need to be in touch with the natural cycle of life and let our preoccupation with appearances fade as we become more engaged in causes larger than ourselves." So, the way to be less preoccupied with our appearances is to zoom in on someone else's. Um. Ok!

Here's some more wisdom from Ms. Huffington of the anti-beauty agenda. "The first step to becoming fearless about our physical appearance is knowing that our fears of inadequacy are manufactured and mass-marketed. The fear-generating message of perfection we measure ourselves against comes not from Moses on the mountain-top but from the multibillion-dollar cosmetics and fashion industries whose profits are directly tied to our levels of insecurity." That's pretty rich coming from a woman whose 1986 wedding to Michael Huffington cost $110,000, according to a December 2005 profile of Arianna in Vanity Fair. Her dress alone cost $15,000, and that's 1986 money! But I guess all that was when she was a Republican, and now that she's a woman of the people, she's very strongly against embracing the "multibillion-dollar cosmetic and fashion industries." That's probably why last week the HuffPo had a user's guide to walking in five-inch heels.

Huffington Post Editor Explains Anna Wintour Post [NY Observer]
Anna Wintour Up Close [Huffington Post]

Earlier: Loose Lips

MEGAN: Hey, how is Austin?
SPENCER: It's filled with liberals, positive reinforcement, beef products, Johnny Dash-themed dive bars, extremely cheap beer, and bloggers with pulverizing hangovers.
MEGAN: HuffPo has been Twittering it.
SPENCER: I have met a lot of FDL commenters, who rule; Brandon Friedman of VetVoice gave Wesley Clark a terrorist fist jab at the keynote; I was told to pipe down because I was telling off-color stories during Howard Dean's keynote.
MEGAN: I get told that a lot, too, but really? Howard Dean is that important to listen to?
SPENCER: yeah, Nico asked me if I'd be on the HuffPo twitter feed, but that would require unlocking my Twitter and inviting people I don't know to see it, and there's a lot of stuff that I really don't want to make public on there.
MEGAN: I know, because you never accepted even me as one of your Twitter friends. I'm trying not to be mad about it.
SPENCER: I didn't? I'll put you on. Anyway we should probably talk about the news and shit.
MEGAN: Yeah, probably. So, at an ad conference, someone asked Arianna to play Karl Rove and run plays against Obama. Arianna's not that creative, but hearing her say aloud what we all know is going on at RNC HQ is sort of freaky.

Barack Obama may be Muslim, we're not sure, but he is definitely a Muslim sympathizer. He is the candidate of Hamas. He wants to negotiate with terrorists. He does, basically, not really care for America.

Also, she said "Hawai'i barely counts" as growing up in America and Michelle is "angry and bitter."
SPENCER: The first piece of Obama literature I saw when I got here was a doorknob flyer that read COMMITTED CHRISTIAN.
MEGAN: Which is part of the current messaging that this committed agnostic (no, it's not an oxymoron) doesn't really love, but whatevs.
SPENCER: Arianna's probably right that the sotto voce campaign will move away from the statement "Obama is a Muslim" to "We can't be sure that Obama isn't a Muslim". At this point, it's a safer play to make that sort of epistemic claim — there's absolutely no way Obama could disprove it, it's not the sort of statement that admits of the facts, as they taught me in epistemology class.
MEGAN: Hasn't it already?
SPENCER: It has? My prediction has come true already? See, that's why I'm an A-list blogger.
MEGAN: Indeed! I mean, it's (not to bring up old wounds here) but totally where Clinton went, "I have no reason to doubt it" and "not that I know" and such.
SPENCER: Let's. Not. Talk. About. That.
SPENCER: There is sooooooo much relief-slash-jubilation that the primary is over here — at our FDL caucus yesterday, a review of the last year on the blog tread delicately on the subject of the Great Interfamilial Unpleasantness.
MEGAN: I'm glad at least some bitches are hugging it out after the whole Ricki Lieberman thing that left a bad taste in my mouth. So, moving on to something everyone can be pissed about, there's a new anti-Michelle ad.
SPENCER: YES LET'S. It actually ends with these women pledging allegiance, and what's up with that Reagan quote at the end? "Freedom is never more than a generation away from extinction?" is that like, a threat?
MEGAN: Yes, the Pledge of Allegiance, the vaguely martial music and the use of all women in the add is rather pointed. All in all, still shit but far better done than the North Carolina ad.
SPENCER: Did you see the NYT/CBS poll about Michelle Obama? Her negatives are stunning, or, rather, the racial discrepancy in views of Michelle is stunning

There was even racial dissension over Mr. Obama’s wife, Michelle: She was viewed favorably by 58 percent of black voters, compared with 24 percent of white voters.

MEGAN: Yeah, that would be what freaks me out a little more, that and the whole "where are the feminists that are so opposed to sexism in the media" doing right now?
SPENCER: What accounts for this, Megan?
MEGAN: Oh, God, where to start? I mean, mean girls, the legitimacy of female anger, fear of strong women, envy... Did I ever tell you I have actually met people that have never met a black person until they were an adult. And I'm not talking until they were 18 and went off to college, I'm talking as a legitimate adult. They still exist. They aren't few in number. I mean, I think we've seen this reflected in Crappy Hour comments before:

Nearly 60 percent of black respondents said race relations were generally bad, compared with 34 percent of whites. Four in 10 blacks say that there has been no progress in recent years in eliminating racial discrimination; fewer than 2 in 10 whites say the same thing. And about one-quarter of white respondents said they thought that too much had been made of racial barriers facing black people, while one-half of black respondents said not enough had been made of racial impediments faced by blacks.

I think this is also horrifying and telling:

Nearly 70 percent of blacks said they had encountered a specific instance of discrimination based on their race, compared with 62 percent in 2000; 26 percent of whites said they had been the victim of racial discrimination. (Over 50 percent of Hispanics said they had been the victim of racial discrimination.)

Seventy percent of blacks have encountered at least one incident of racial discrimination. And I'm one of the 26 percent, as once when I broke up a party as an RA in college, I was called a "racist Jewish bitch." And I still know that's nothing by comparison.
SPENCER: Can I tell a story here? I once had this girlfriend who grew up in a mostly-white area, and I took her to my mom's house in Flatbush for the first time. Flatbush is majority-black but rather internally diverse — lots of immigrants from West Africa, the Caribbean (Haiti esp) as well as African-American; and it also contains Russians and Jews. As we were driving down Foster Ave, my GF took a look at the people on the street and said, "So, does your mom's house have a blackyard?". True story
MEGAN: Whoa. Um, how long until you broke up with her?
SPENCER: You were called a Jew?
MEGAN: Yes. A racist Jew because as an RA, I was breaking up a loud frat party 4 doors down from my apartment during finals week and it happened to be the one African-American fraternity on campus. And, obviously, I was just doing it because I hated them and not because I had a 17 page paper to finish and a 25 page paper to finish by the next day and it was finals week and because they were heard by the head of housing. But, yes, Jewish.
SPENCER: So, seriously, where's the organized defense of Michelle Obama? She's an extremely accomplished woman and while she may not have been the professional powerhouse that HRC was by 1992, I don't understand why organized feminism doesn't evidently identify with her. that was badly expressed — I'm hungover — but you get what i'm saying i hope.
MEGAN: No, I think it was said pretty well, it's close to how I've said it. Where's Geraldine Ferraro decrying the attacks by the media on her working status? Where's Gloria Steinem's impassioned defense of righteous anger and women? Did we all just admit that sexism triumphed and go home? Is it only sexism if it's Hillary?
SPENCER: A couple months ago, my friend Ann Friedman of TAP and Feministing wrote a really prescient piece called "Solidarity Politics" about this sort of thing

Let's make this election about the issues, everyone says — and rightfully so. Our presidential nominee should be chosen primarily on the issues. But most of us don't separate issues from identity as cleanly as we'd like to believe. When it comes down to it, everyone is an "identity politics" voter. The problem is that phrase, as commonly used by right-wingers and some on the left who are tone-deaf on issues of race and gender, has the effect of cutting down the political choices and involvement of women, people of color, and gays and lesbians.

MEGAN: I have to say, please introduce me to Ann sometime and I promise not to fan girl out. I almost always really love her stuff — thoughtful, well-written, etc.
SPENCER: and Ann is right about this, but the character assassination of Michelle Obama demonstrates that the argument needs to be taken a step further — recognizing that cross-cutting identities within the context of identity politics is fucking up people's expectations too
MEGAN: I took the best class ever in college in Microsociology (mind-blowing topic) and one of the things that stuck with me was the professor's assertion that we are a collection of equally accurate but not equally relevant identities and roles.
SPENCER: You were saying in the car yesterday that there's a cohort within the feminist movement that's increasingly indistinguishable from an HRC machine and how bad that is for the movement as a whole — it was a really good point that you should tease out for the benefit of CH readers.
MEGAN: Like, because you're white, you'd never call me your white friend, or because we know a zillion bloggers, you'd never call me your blogger friend. I'd never introduce myself to your friends as Pam's sister or Butch's daughter or Greg's ex-girlfriend.
SPENCER: Or George Costanza's father's lawyer.
MEGAN: Yes, exactly. And so I feel like, for many people and sadly probably too many women, the identity that more people associate with Michelle Obama right now is that she's black. Not that she's a woman, or a lawyer, a wife, a mother or anything else. And that's why the Obama campaign is trying to play up the prominence of those roles.
SPENCER: It's depressing that a core mission of the Obama campaign is to teach white America that black people are, like, people.
MEGAN: Or like people, commas deliberately excluded.

The Good:
Amy Poehler: Actress, comedienne, Christian Siriano copycat.
I can only hope that Angelica Huston was invited for her amazing turn in The Darjeeling Limited as a mother/Buddhist nun who doesn't know what to talk about when we talk about love.
Ann Moore, left, is the CEO of Time, Inc. Indra Nooyi, right, is the CEO of Pepsi Co. Donatella Versace would be happy, surely, to see women in power wearing dresses.
Arianna Huffington: She writes books, she runs blogs, she wears ballgowns.
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, which was apparently a little smug, highly readable and very "influential." (I hate that word.)
Georgina Chapman designs for Marchesa and married Harvey Weinstein. I'm not sure if these things, independently or together, make her a person of merit. But what do I know?
Kristen Wiig of SNL: Further proof that women are funny.
Madeeha Hasan Odhaib is the "Mother Theresa of Baghdad." I wonder if George Bush, or even fellow attendee John McCain, even care.
I love Martha Stewart: She runs an empire and still manages to can her own preserves. Also, she does it in heels.
Mary Lou Jepsen founded Pixel Qi and was also the founding Chief Technology Officer of One Laptop Per Child, which strives to deliver mesh-networked laptops to children in developing countries.
Nancy Brinker, who founded Susan G. Komen for the Cure, is a breast cancer survivor and mother, and was also appointed to the position of Chief of Protocol by President Bush.
Rupert Murdoch and Wendi Deng: The dark overlord and his whipsmart wife.
Suzanne Vega: She sings.
Sure Baby Mama is supposed to be the anti-Knocked Up or whatever, but more importantly, Tina Fey has brought Liz Lemon and Tracey Jordan into our lives.
Did you participate in Teach for America? Or have eighty gajilliion friends who did? Thank Wendy Kopp, who founded the program, for the experience.
Ziyi Zhang: She acts. Also I am in awe of her bone structure.

[Images via Getty.]

MEGAN: So, you want to talk Lebanon for a second? Also, are my eyes deceiving me or is the guy in that picture carrying his big machine gun with an arm that is no longer attached to a hand? And is that a statement on how intractable this conflict is that even people who have lost limbs in it and can't afford prosthetics just learn how to fire big ass guns with their stumps?
SPENCER: hezbollah has the most extensive social-service network in lebanon
it would hardly surprise me that an amputee, grateful for hezb's help after, say, an israeli artillery barrage decimated his home in tyre in summer 06, would grip up and help hezbollah seize beirut
those shiite militia groups are really good at hearts and minds
MEGAN: And, yet, reportedly, not great husbands. Probably also shit boyfriends. Anyway, so, moving on, how exciting it that, for the first time since the Cold War, Russia has decided to put its armory on display for a big political event! Political rallies: not just for goosestepping anymore!
SPENCER: wait wait why move on?
i don't do russia
my friends chris and rania are reporters in beirut
i turn to them for my lebanon news
but those assholes had to be in dubai when the shit went down
so, sigh
MEGAN: Except for the whole "it's safer in Dubai" thing.
SPENCER: ok now we can move on. what do you think of this russia stuff?
MEGAN: I think the new guy is cute except for the way that Putin's constantly elbow-deep in his ass to make him talk. That's a little off-putting.
SPENCER: did Putin work something out where he'll be prime minister or something after Medevedevedev becomes president? Or am I confused?
MEGAN: You're not confused, and he is PM right now, Meddie was inaugurated earlier this week as Pres and Pooty-Poot as PM (and, yes, I did watch Lil Bush last night, the second season is hilariously good).
Also, I'm sort of out of things to say on Russia unless the time I recount trying to negotiate with their guy on what should've been to them a relatively minor point in their WTO accession package when I was a lobbyist. It was minor to them, it was major to my industry and we were going to oppose the finalization of any agreement without them giving us something and the dude was super happy to talk to me about it because he wanted to stare at my tits. When he realized that I knew what I was talking about, he decided he didn't speak English and walked away, and the guy from the embassy just smiled at me with embarrassment.
SPENCER: the only point i can add about russia
yesterday at the bar a journo friend told me that the FBI got in touch with him
because they're "concerned" about a russian he MIGHT have come in contact with
MEGAN: I know something that will excite you to talk about though... the Pakistanis and Jay Hood.
SPENCER: he was commander of JTF-GTMO when i was there on a visit in 2005
MEGAN: Well, and the Pakistanis for some crazy reason don't want him in their country...
SPENCER: i mean
who was the genius that decided it would be a good idea to send the ex-commander of an island prison for muslims to the most volatile and restive muslim country on the planet
hood is not the problem
if you want a real military villain for gtmo, look no further than Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller
miller is more Legacy of Brutality than the fucking Misfits
MEGAN: I mean, is anyone involved in Gitmo, like, good?
SPENCER: he's the guy who told ricardo sanchez the most fateful mixed-message in the war on terror: "Gitmo-ize" Abu Ghraib, and here's how we do it over there, but oh by the way, we don't have to follow the Geneva Conventions and you do
kthxbai wink wink
the Navy guards who walk the blocks, they're good
those guys are like 18 yrs old and have to deal with detainees throwing shit-blood-puke cocktails at them
this one guard in 2005, she told me, you wouldn't believe what i go through to wash that out of my hair
MEGAN: Yeah, that sucks, it doesn't seem like it's their fault.
SPENCER: no more than it's the fault of the bank teller for your house going into forclosure
MEGAN: Not my house! I'm still solvent! Knocking wood furiously right now.
SPENCER: one quick gtmo story:
this one soldier who was my minder at the base was given liberty to get drunk with us at the officers club — and omfg is gtmo a weird but awesome place to get shitfaced — started to get rowdy when he learned that i had been to his favorite montreal strip club
"fuck yeah! you're my BOY!"
yelling at the top of his lungs at 3 am
then he quit the army and ran for congress in pennsylvania. true story.
MEGAN: Why have you been to a strip club in Montreal? Also, who has a favorite strip club in Montreal?
SPENCER: club supersex
it rules, that's why
me and my friends went there for the millenium & liked it so much we went the next year
the next new year's that is
btw
great job not talking about the primary!
after yesterday's comment-thread disaster
MEGAN: Like, how big of a strip-club afficianado do you have to be to have picked out a favorite?
SPENCER: i think when you go to supersex there really is no close second
unless you count the lusty lady in SF which i hear is kickass and feminist but i've never been
my friend's exgf used to dance there
christ she was hot
MEGAN: You and I are pretty much going to disagree on the greatness of strip clubs.
I'm not deliberately ignoring, but, like what's happened in the last 24 hours? Clinton's still not getting out, Obama's ignoring that, McCain's still walking around being McCain. And Clinton doesn't have that much money right now.
SPENCER: did you see mccain's ad with his mom?
it's eerie how he looks older than his mother
MEGAN: I think that's just makeup. I saw his mother at the White House Correspondents Dinner. She looked old.
Oh, and Arianna Huffington says that McCain didn't vote for Bush in 2000, or he told a bunch of Hollywood types he didn't but he says she's full of shit.
SPENCER: i happen to know but only in an off the record way that arianna is right
MEGAN: I'm sure she's right, I just think it's funny that she's the only one out campaigning against McCain right now, and is less likely to be believed by the people she's trying to convince than even the other candidates.
SPENCER: you would have to be a saint to vote for the man who called racists in south carolina to say you fathered a black baby with a prostitute
or have no self-respect
MEGAN: Yeah, and McCain's no saint and he definitely has plenty of ego to go around.

• Amy Winehouse has left The Causeway rehab facility. Apparently, she and her husband Blake Civil-Fielder got into a fight, then headed back to London. Blake "upset people in The Causeway with his behavior," says a source. She needs to dump this douchebag, and pronto. [The Sun]
  
• Between the MTV Awards in Las Vegas and the Emmy Awards in L.A., not a lot of stars are RSVPing for shows during Fashion Week. Hmm, whatever shall we focus on — the clothes??? [Page Six]
  
• Faye Dunaway: Went to Koo Koo Roo, ordered chicken, pulled out a tiny scale and weighed it. Not sure about the Roo but definitely a wee bit Koo Koo! [Page Six]

• Is Jeremy Piven literally Entourage's Ari Gold? Witnesses at Nobu Malibu heard him having a very loud argument... with his Mom. Oy. [Page Six]
• Cameron Diaz and John Mayer: Second date! That we know of! [Page Six]
• Lauren Conrad has a new man named Sean Zastoupil, in case you care. [Page Six]
• "She's far too voluptuously beautiful for the job, like a Tiffany necklace in a brown paper bag" - Variety's assessment of Scarlett Johansson in The Nanny Diaries. Ugh. [Page Six]
• OK, we get it, Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. is a total player — married and making out with chicks all over town — and almost surely the subject of yesterday's so-called blind item. [Rush & Molloy]
• Blind item! "Which TV bigwig's daughter recently commandeered the family beach house for a weekend-long orgy of psychedelic drugs?" [Rush & Molloy, 4th item]
• Kevin Federline got a job! He'll be a guest star on the CW's One Tree Hill. This should look great in court. [TMZ]
• Pete Doherty is free again! The suspicion of drug possession charges were dropped because of a technicality. How long do you think he can go without getting arrested again? [Guardian]