The Times' Julie Bosman thinks it's amusing that the same magazines and televisions that cover the ins and outs of celebrity breeding, fighting, sexing and weight-loss are also covering (some) of the ins and outs of the campaign — and not just where it intersects with celebrity, as was the case in 2004. What's even more interesting is that the editors are all doing it not as a public-service but because its what readers actually want!

It is also because having a woman and a young, photogenic man in the race hits the right notes, demographically speaking — the vast majority of readers of magazines like US Weekly are women. Many of those readers are, for the first time, paying close attention to the presidential primaries, and turning politics into dinner-party conversation.

Anyway, as a woman who writes for two women's sites and almost exclusively about politics, I have to say, I'm not really surprised that women are interested in politics and I don't think it's just because Barack is cute or Hillary's a woman. (Maybe it has something to do with old adage about Washington, D.C. and the town being like Hollywood for ugly people.) I might have approached Anna when I was let go from a certain political website and asked to keep doing Crappy Hour and other stuff, but, interestingly Glamour also approached me talk about writing for Glamocracy. Both of these places pay me to write about politics because both Jezebel readers and Glamour readers want to read about politics and talk about issues and rally for candidates and generally act like responsible citizens of this democracy while they also talk about Rock of Love or Heidi Montag's bad attitude. Many women, in fact, enjoy walking, chewing gum and thoughtfully debating the merits of health care policy and the problems with race in America today while cooing over cute shoes. I just hope it continues after the election because I'll still have bills to pay come December.

Sex? Yawn. Politics? That's Hot! [New York Times]

Interestingly, however, People doesn't close until Tuesday night, making them the only celebrity weekly to hit the stands this week with a story on the DNA results. And it's interesting to note that the doctors who performed the DNA results knew that Birkhead was the father back on March 26, but held out on disclosing that information until yesterday afternoon. Could it have been a strategic move to give People a leg up on their competition? A thank you for the $1 million Howard and Anna received for their fake-wedding photos? Or maybe a gesture of gratitude toward TMZ for making Debra Opri look like a money-hungry, bloodsucking lawyer when they published the ridiculous bill she sent to Birkhead? Seeing that People and TMZ are both owned (or partially-owned) by Time Warner, we fully expect the rival weeklies to come out next week with stories on what an irresponsible, uncaring child that homewrecker Dannielynn is. Hey, they did it to Angelina!

DNA Test: Birkhead Is Dannielynn's Father [People]
Related: Angelina Jolie Is A Hypocrite And A Bad Mom, Says 'US' [Gawker]

"These girls are lowering themselves to the level of backstreet floozies. They are cheapening their own image and obliterating all the glamour, which is the heart of the star system."

Find out who said it, after the jump. And prepare for your head to explode.

Yup. That's right. Camille Paglia. Camille fucking Paglia in In Touch magazine. Maybe the social theory of Dyonisian human sexuality ain't paying so well these days.

Expect Germain Greer in Life&Style and Naomi Wolfe in Star any day now.

We're contemplating naming December 6th Jennifer Aniston day, in tribute to her blinding brilliance in messing with the celeb weeklies.

As we mentioned before, not only did she engineer a scoop that leaves all but People dangling ignorantly in her wake, but she even roped old Vince into the scheme for an EXTRA little twist of the knife to those good folks over at In Touch.

Plonked on page 33 of the issue that hit newsstands today is a retraction AND an apology to Vince Vaughn for previously suggesting he swapped spit with some chick in London, and wondering 'whether, in light of this, Vince and Jennifer Aniston were still together.' And they go on to confirm 'And Vince and Jen have both publicly announced that they have not split.'

It's okay guys, you'll only be newstands for another week or so. And we really DO believe everything else you say. Really!

Who's fat, who's feuding and who caught what from Paris Hilton this week, after the jump with our celebrity weekly round-up.

Well, as we mentioned earlier, Jen Aniston caught just about everyone on the hop, so we'll have to do with an awful lot of crap about Britney and Paris instead.

* There must be much gnashing of teeth over at Star Magazine today, as they came agonisingly close to getting a great cover, which would have smashed in the teeth of all their rivals. Close, but sadly no cigar. Plumping for the world's most blurry ugly picture of Angelina Jolie, clutching a baby, the mag screams 'WHY ANGELINA HAS THIS BABY!'. Now we celeb mag readers may be thick, but we're not that thick. Seeing as how Angelina is in full make-up/costume for her role as Marianne Perle, who had a baby after her husband Daniel was horribly murdered, we can actually guess that she has the baby because she's making a flim about someone who has a baby. Not too much of a strech, that one.
Meanwhile, nestling forlornly in a corner of the cover is 'MY SEXY NIGHT WITH VINCE!', which is actually a juicy little story about some girl who indulged in extended foreplay, possibly oral, we're not sure, with Vince Vaughn while he was filming on location and still OFFICALLY dating poor Jen. It's a bitch when Missed Opportunity ups and smacks you round the head, eh guys? Elsewhere Star attempts to have Britney and Justin back together, which as we recall they've done about fifty times before and still no-one believes them. It's like Demi Moore's eternal pregnancy. Sandra Bullock (yawn) is also allegedly pregnant, and in a world exclusive, Johnny Depp used to look like a nerd. All in all, Star's the best out there this week, but that's not saying much.

* In Touch has the holy trifecta of Britney, Lindsay and Nicole and asks the question 'DRUGS! ARE THE ALLEGATIONS TRUE?'. We'll save you the trouble of wading through the waffle and reveal the conclusions: Nicole - pills - NO! Britney - antidepressants - PROBABLY! Lindsay - every fucking drug you can think of and then some - PROBABLY! MIssing the Jen Aniston split just like everyone else, In Touch tries to lure you within its pages by telling you how Aniston and Jen Garner lost lots of weight. We can reveal the exclusive details: DIET AND EXCERCISE. We are dazzled by their scoop. Also 'inside Eva and Tony's wedding'. Not.

* Us Weekly leads with 'SAVING BRITNEY' which promises interventions, custody battles and scandalous photos. It's the same stuff you'll find in all the other celeb weeklies this week, except there's more of it. In other news Adrianne Curry got a boob job and that girl from the OC who wasn't Mischa Barton split from that other guy who was on the OC. Whatever.

* OK! continues it's dazzling run of non-stories containing no detail, with 'BRITNEY EXCLUSIVE MY CRY FOR HELP!', in which 'friends' say she's heading for a breakdown. Well, if by friends you mean the third cousin of the guy who used to carpool with the sisister of the man who briefly dated Britney's back-up dancer three years ago, then hey, this is a scoop. In their frenzied desperation, they spin a 57-word paragraph about Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban having lunch into a cover line 'NICOLE'S SEXY DATE WITH KEITH', which is about the saddest thing we've ever seen in our media career. And guess what? Pam Anderson was seen with her ex Tommy Lee. And Angelina is planning her marriage to Brad Pitt, in Africa. Yeah. Sure. Someone put this magazine out of its misery.

* Life&Style canned their editor-in-chief last week, and we're not terribly sure we can tell the difference this week. It promises all the juicy Brangelina wedding details and embarks on a round of speculation worthy of OK! only longer. It tries to get a bitchfight going by alleging Angelina wants to get married on the beach in Malibu - maybe, like outside Jen's house would be nice - but we're not falling for that. Elsewhere Britney is in crisis (really? Who knew!), Nick is still putting his naughty bits in Vanessa (and a couple of porn stars on the side, probably) and Eva and Tony are engaged and still no-one gives a fuck.

* The National Enquirer says that Britney fucked Mario Lopez, Brad and Jen are 'back in love', and Lindsay pops Oxycontin. All entirely believable. Yup.

We salute you Jennifer Aniston - you truly know how to fuck with the celebrity weeklies!

Lest we forget, this is the woman who carefully engineered a bunch of beachside 'loving' photos with then hubby Brad Pitt AFTER the pair had decided to divorce, waited for all the celebrity weeklies to come out with cover stories on their romantic reunion and then announced the split the day most of them hit newstands across the country. Remember "It's Baby Time!" from that paragon of truth, Star Magazine? Delicious.

Well she's done it again. Okay, it's lower key this time, so don't expect Janice Min to describe the breakup as 'our tsunami', but by letting the news slip late on a Tuesday night, she wrongfoots ALL the weekly celeb mags, who close their pages on Monday. Except People Magazine, who can be expected to have the break-up on their cover with all the sycophantic greasiness you'd expect from them. Expect major catch-up next week.

Bravo! Current score: Jen Aniston: 2 Celebrity weeklies: 0

Strangley, methamphetamines, coke and laxatives don't make the list. But there's still some nice collar-bone porn:

You're supposed to like the boots, by the way. And if you don't have the legs of a 12-year-old starving sub-Saharan orphan, they might actually look quite nice on you.

In the flesh, Janet's an eye catcher for entirely different reasons, as she proved when she dropped into US Weekly's offices and posed with a staffer:

Is that five o'clock stubble? Did her chin turn into a man? Did someone beat her with an ugly stick?

Or did some idiot at US Weekly lose the office airbrush?

Who's fat? Who's lonely? Who's feuding? Celebrity weekly round-up after the jump.

This could have been the shortest round-up ever: they're all shit, read the phone book instead.

But no. Let's plow on, if only to find out who's lame, who's lamer and who should be taken outside and shot.

Life & Style continues in its cheerfully ridiculous fantasy land, getting Jennifer Aniston engaged, Brad and Angie planning a wedding and Kevin and Britney back together. Still, it's the kind of magazine aimed at morons who think a $2 lipstick from Wal-mart will actually make them look like Jessica Alba, just because L&S told them so, so credibility is the least of their problems.

In Touch has the world's least convincing headline: Jen Looks Pregnant! She looks pregnant. Not that she is or anything. Unless she is. But In Touch doesn't actually know. So, you know, whatever. Talk amongst yourselves. As you nod off gently, you may notice that Kirstie Alley lost weight, Jessica and Nick split up, and Angelina had a baby. Gripping stuff.

Star looks unlikely to halt its circulation plunge with the horrendous looking, and totally irrelevant cover proclaiming that Reese Witherspoon (who?) and Julia Roberts are both knocked up. Even if it were true, why on earth do they think anyone gives a flying toss? They have pics of pregnant Anna Nicole Smith, topless and covered in grease. Don't eat at least an hour before looking at them. Star also has EXCLUSIVE blurry pics of Nick Lachey and whatever blow-up doll he's spilling his seed into this week. And for about the 20th time, they have a stab at Carmen Electra and Dave Navarro splitting up. Expect a glowing piece about how happy they are together next week, after Carmen's publicist's head spins round and vomits green slime over Bonnie Fuller.

With typical lack of savvy, OK! has exlusive first pics of the baby that no-one particularly cares about or wants to see - Gwen and Gavin's son Kingston. And Nick Lachey disembowelled a small child and smeared its blood all over his chest, in a Satanic ritual at Koi. Not really. He's dating a portable vagina, but there's no pics because Star beat them to it. Oh, and Jennifer and Vince are going out with each other and you just wasted a tiny little bit of your life reading that non-story. Next time just poke out your eyeballs and be done with it.

People Magazine is its usual deluded self. Britney's happy and everything's fine, Jennifer's happy and everything's fine, and Jessica is happy and everything is fine and the earth is flat and the moon is made of cheese. They crown their hottest bachelor of 2006 - Taylor Hicks, which shows such a lapse of taste there's no point in going any further down the list. Who's number 10? David Fucking Gest? The only page of any interest whatsoever is p140, where they chronicle the 20 - yes - 20 men who have crawled up Lindsay Lohan's firecrotch in the one year she's been legal. A few even made it back out again.

This week's prime candidate for euthanasia is US Weekly, with an edition so bland, its lifeless pages almost disintegrate in your hand - or is that just wishful thinking? The cover promises the inside details of Brangelina's first days home, and goes on to deliver exactly the same bland, catch-all, 'a source says' crap all the others vomit up this week in about half the space. And Britney isn't happy and Jen and Vince are dating and there does not appear to be one original thought that went into this magazine and frankly it should crawl into a corner and die.

It's never easy losing a job. On top of the humiliation of being frog-marched out of the building in tears by the steroid-abusing former army corporal turned security guard, you worry how will you pay the rent, the bills, your dealer - it's a very stressful time. But at least you have love. Oops. No you don't, because he just dumped you, even though he's a hairy loser with all the charm of a moist turd, and half the intelligence.

As you sit in tears outside the apartment you've just been evicted from, the detritus of your pathetic unsuccessful sorry-arsed life piled high around you, spare a thought for Mischa Barton.

Not only does she forever bear the shame of having regularly enveloped the greasy penis of Brandon Davis in her front bottom, but now she's been dumped by 'rocker' Cisco Adler. And Paris HIlton thinks she's fat. And she got killed off from her TV show, so now she's facing an uncertain future, says In Touch. You know, like we all do when we're in between jobs.

"Now that her days on the O.C. are over, Mischa Barton has had to curb her spending. According to pals, the 20-year-old star was earning a six-figure weekly paycheck for starring on the show, and even though she's making millions from movies and endorsements, she's secretly cutting back on expenses."

So that's just ONE gram of coke a day from now on, then. Righty-ho. What's that you hear? Why, it's the sound of my heart bleeding for Mischa.

Editor-in-Chief of In Touch, Richard Spencer sent a team of ninjas off to the MTV Movie Awards on June 4. Pausing only to peruse the plastically pumped automaton formerly known as "The Ugly Simpson Sister", the daring band of hired killers stepped silently over the corpse of Nick Lachey's career and darted backstage where they wrestled Paris Hilton for an official gift bag. She already had five, so they felt they were quite justified in slitting her throat and stuffing the body under a table where they discovered Nicole Ritchie with her fingers down her throat, a stream of vomit on her chin and a surprised smile of triumph on her face.

And all so that In Touch can bring you, dear reader, the chance to win that bloodstained booty for yourself.

"The [bag], worth nearly $5,000, includes a gift certificate for Vans sneakers, a Netfilx subscription and DVD player, XM2go satellite radio and MP3 player, Fendi-Marchon suglasses, a Givenchy watch, a Bozart necklace, a free reading with celebrity psychic Cheri Mancuso, and much more."

Phew! It also, from what I can see, contains a grubby grey bullet-proof bra, for some reason. Was Britney invited? Hey, for $5k, who's quibbling. If you know which actress zany rubber-faced manic etc etc star Jim Carey was married to (clue, it was Lauren Holly, poor dear), text WIN.CMT and the answer to 73268. And then you can sell Britney's grubby emergency bra on ebay.

Or just mail it back to Britney. Breast feeding takes its toll on a girl's funbags and she needs all the support she can get right now.

Over at their trendy new "blog", Us Magazine are running a count of the time elapsed since Britney was last photographed with aspiring rapper and sperm donor Kevin Federline (75 days, 12 hours, 58 minutes and 45 seconds at the time of writing).

While most of the commenters are predictably of the COME ON BRITNEY :-) WE IN DENMARK LOVE U AND U SHOULD DUMP KEVIN BECAUSE I LOVE YOU :-))))) AND I HAVE BEEN MASTURBATING IN MY BEDROOM WHILE I THINK OF U AND ONCE I GAVE U SOME FLOWERS AFTER A CONCERT IN OSLO ON FEBRUARY 19TH 2004 WHEN U WERE WEARING A RED TOP AND BLACK TROUSERS AND BLACK SHOES AND MY HOT SPERM WAS ON THE FLOWERS AS MY PRECIOUS BETROTHAL GIFT TO YOU AND I AM NOT GAY LOLZ.....variety, a gal called Lauren Robbins (or perhaps a fat midwestern trucker called Wayne Warmbelly Jr III - I mean, who really knows what lies beneath this dark mask we call the internets.com?) makes the real point:

"You should start a countdown since the last time Britney Spears was photographed not looking like trash...

3 years, one month, five days... "

Lauren has been counting. She knows.

They're dancing in the streets in Namibia! Special prayers are being said in Church! Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt's tears cure cancer! I for one, welcome our new infant overlord!

Might want to rethink the name thing though. James McPherson on Shiloh in Battle cry of Freedom:

"Coming at the end of a year of war, Shiloh was the first battle on a scale that became commonplace during the next three years. The 20,000 killed and wounded at Shiloh (about equally distributed between the two sides) were nearly double the 12,000 battle casualties at Manassas, Wilson's Creek, Fort Donelson, and Pea Ridge combined....... Sherman described 'piles of dead soldiers' mangled bodies..... without heads and legs.....The scenes on this field would have cured anybody of war'."

Hey, that's one heavy burden to lay on a child. The ending of all war. Kind of like dying for our sins. This all sounds so familiar, somehow.

People Magazine commemorates the anniversary of the disappearance of pretty blonde white so she matters Natalee Holloway in Aruba last year, with a handy cut out and keep ten most vital questions on the matter.

Number five: "Do investigators think Natalee might still be alive?"

Number eight: "Is Aruba tourism down since Holloway's disappearance?"

Straight to the burning issues.

People Magazine's cover predictably goes with the St Paul of Beatlemania divorce, and guess what? Heather Mills is a cow! Who knew?

But a few pages later we get to the extraordinary story of Richelle Nice, a juror on the Scott Peterson trial who's decided to get in touch with her inner self by getting in touch with the convicted murderer she helped sentence to death. Fair enough, this is America, after all. But why go public with the sorry little tale?

"Asked why she decided to release these seemingly private letters to PEOPLE, Nice says she was "scared they'd be leaked out somehow."

And then she wouldn't get any money for them! And God knows, she needs the cash:

"Nice admits that her letters to Peterson are also partly an attempt to find answers to questions about herself. She has never been married. Her four sons were fathered by two different men with whom she had long-term relationships. Over the years she has worked jobs ranging from a nursing assistant to a bank clerk. Last August Nice enrolled in cosmetology school, hoping to eventually start a career as a hair and make-up artist. But in December, after years of mental health issues, she suffered a major breakdown and was admitted into San Mateo Medical Center's psychiatric ward. She's currently on a battery of medications for her pychiatric problems."

The meds ain't cheap, people.

Well done Angelina.

By finally giving birth to the new messiah on May 27, you will have ensured that a multitude of flacks on In Touch, Star, OK!, Life & Style and Us Weekly all had a miserable Memorial Day weekend, running round chasing celebrity name experts, horoscope creators, child psychologists and numerologists before dragging themselves miserably into the office on Monday to ditch ten pages of Celebrity Flaws for coverage of the Most Important Child Ever Born.

Class.

Amazingly, now that OK! has learned to look and sound just like all the other kids in the playground, it appears to be gaining popularity, hitting the 500,000 mark at last.

And all it had to do was drastically cut its page size, drastically cut its price - from £3.29 to $1.99 - and drastically tell the same tall stories as all the other celeb weeklies - JEN TO BE A MOM!

But with Star's circulation figures allegedly dipping into the low 590,000s, who knows? Maybe it was worth it.

Predictably, all the celebrity weeklies pile onto Britney this week for yet again proving that she is a SLUT who married a PIG and turned out to be a BAD MOTHER who is KILLING HER SON. They won't be satisfied until she's hauled up in court for slitting his throat with a butcher's knife in a Federline-inspired satanic sex ritual.

But luckily, Al Gore's baby is here to help. Over at saveseanpreston.org they're organizing a petition. And what do they want?

"Therefore, this petition seeks to require Britney Jean Spears, and child guardians of all ages and levels of experience, to use proper safety measures to protect children from physical harm, when transporting them.

We would like to petition that child guardians be required to carry children in protective carriers, such as babyseats, strollers or baby carriers worn upon the body.

Please add your signature below to show your support of our request, in honor of Sean Preston Federline, that Britney Jean Spears, and guardians of children everywhere, ensure their physical safety and well-being."

And I'm sure that the Gods of the interent will be sure to require Britney Jean Spears to do precisely that.

Is Conde Nast secretly pining for beleagured Star editor Bonnie Fuller?

This month's Glamour magazine runs a curious little poll all about former Glamour ed Bonnie's book, 'The Joys of Much Too Much and Making Your Employees Cry'. They ask readers whether, like Bonnie, they'd rather be 'over-commited and frazzled', or like the rest of us losers, 'under-commited and not'.

The result?

54% of Glamour readers prefer the Tao of Bonnie. Seeing as how Star's circulation is plunging, maybe Bonnie should ditch the burger-munching tabloid fattie audience, and head back to the aspirational anorexics she knows so well.