Keith Olbermann's Ego Trumps the Truth
Oh man, Keith Olbermann took to his nightly airwaves to try and shame CityFile, Wonkette and us for raising questions about his unexplained vacation last April. We're not sorry. The story that CityFile originally reported was that Olbermann was so upset about the decision by Ben Affleck — who had mercilessly mocked Olbermann on SNL — to appear on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show that Olbermann wouldn't go back to his Countdown set until the mandarins of NBC News sufficiently kissed his ass. Earlier today, Olbermann put out a statement that said his sudden vacation was instead due to his mother's death, a subject which, nearly two weeks prior, he very emotionally addressed on his show. So, here we are. We maintain that Olbermann threw a hissy fit because he felt upstaged by his hand-picked protege; he says we're heartless assholes because he's been in a state of mourning. That would be a fair enough argument, except ... except, it wasn't just CityFile that claimed Olbermann took his unexpected leave of absence. A Gawker source, with intimate involvement with the situation, maintains our version of the story. Olbermann — who, by the way, would be entirely within his rights to say he was taking some time off to attend to his mother's funeral — didn't bring up his mother's death until today. We made repeated calls to MSNBC today to get Olbermann's side, but never heard anything back until he went on his show to slam Gawker and the horrible, horrible blogosphere in his new WTF segment. So much for the journalistic cred of the MSM. P.S. We've been a fan of you, Keith O. Just please don't be such a touchy jerk. Our condolences for your loss. Olbermann's entire seven minute speech can be viewed on MSNBC's website. MORE >>
American Idol: Victory Over the Dan
Have you ever had an angel burp on you? Ever felt the soothing hand of God as He gives you a purple nurple? If not, then you didn't watch American Idol last night. The joy—the sheer manic ecstasy and catharsis—of watching this listless megaship was this: Danny Gokey went home. Do you know what that means, America? Danny Gokey was: — A plate of dinner rolls that the dog knocked on the floor — The vengeful, herkyjerk ghost of Alice B. Toklas — A Christian Faith Minister Carrier of the Word of the Spirit — The husband to a dead wife, ALWAYS REMEMBER THE DEAD WIFE — A singer of growly highs and withering everything elses The three that remained last night—Gokester, Lambo, Little Krissy Allen—were all paraded up on stage one by one and shown videos of their trips home. Gokey went back to Milwaukee (which is Algonquin for "the good land") where he was greeted by Jamar, his Hollywood Week buddy with the horrifying face piercings who didn't make it and everyone was shocked and ohhhh it was so awkward! "I've just been here... sitting in Milwaukee," Jamar's sad plaintive eyes seemed to say. There was a parade and a lots of cheering and the Gokester teared up and we all just sat there at home and wondered why all of Milwaukee didn't have anything better to do than chase his motorcade down the street in their big striped parachute pants (actual thing that happened). Kris Allen didn't go home to Arkansas or have a parade or anything. He just came over to my place and we opened a bottle of wine and snuggled on the couch and watched The Biggest Loser and we both fell asleep pretty early, but it was nice, and he woke me up before he left and said he'd see me soon. I think we're going to Block Island for the Fourth. Adam Lambert's family has been conspicuously absent totally supportive and present! they love their undead gay son! this whole time, all we've seen really has been his cadre of wistfop musical theater "friends". So his return home to San Diego was tinged with a faraway air. There were the crowds, not as big as the ones in Milwaukee or Little Rock (yes, Kris actually did go home and I just made a little ghost of a wish up there that will never come true, that is all, nothing more and nothing less). But there was no teary family, no impassioned hugs. It was just rooms full of strangers. And holy cow was he taller than everyone in the world. The man is the Paul Bunyan statue in Brainerd. If the Paul Bunyan statue in Brainerd was made of assorted corpse parts and draped in a poorly fashioned skin suit. So hoo-ha, hoo-ha, who really cares about any of this. Ryan did his little dances and Jordin Sparks came out and yelled at everyone and some kid from Africa did a nice little song while Alicia Keys nodded, self-satisfied. Meanwhile Gokey, Lambo, and my husband wept and shit themselves on the Forever Couch, while everyone playing along at home drove the needles deeper into their Gokey dolls. Why do my... MORE >>
If You're Angry About the Torture Photos, You're Being Played By Obama
Barack Obama decided yesterday not to release some photos of U.S. service members abusing Iraqi and Afghan detainees, and everybody says its a brave fuck-you to the left. But it's really another shrewd Obama rope-a-dope. Obama should have wholeheartedly endorsed the release of the photos in question. But it is a practical certainty that they will be released anyway, no matter what he does. So he gets to look like a judicious, troop-protecting president, and left-wingers still get to have the photographs to hate America with. Everybody wins. First off, Obama did not actually decide not to release the photos, despite the way his reversal has been characterized. The decision isn't his to make. The Pentagon is currently compelled by a court order [pdf] to turn 22 photos over to the ACLU, which sued the government under the Freedom of Information Act for their release in 2003. The Pentagon lost in district court and lost again on appeal; earlier this year Pentagon lawyers decided not to appeal to the Supreme Court and struck a deal with the ACLU. The government has no say at this point in whether or not those photos get released—either the FOIA compels their release or it doesn't, and it's up to a court to decide that question. All Obama did yesterday was authorize the Pentagon to ask the Supreme Court to take the case. The Court might take the case or it might not. And if it does, it will almost certainly uphold the decisions of the district and appeals courts and order the photos to be released. The government's argument on appeal was that the photos could be properly withheld under a FOIA provision that exempts records "compiled for law enforcement purposes" if their release could "could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual." The photos were gathered by the Army's Criminal Investigation Division to prosecute abuse, so they were clearly compiled for law enforcement purposes. And the Pentagon's argument, which Obama endorsed yesterday, is that the release of the images would "further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger," which means that at least someone's life or safety would thereby be endangered. And the law, the government claimed, doesn't require them to actually identify such an individual. Three Second Circuit Court of Appeals judges—one of which was nominated by George W. Bush and another of which was nominated by his father—have already considered and rejected that argument: "The phrase 'any individual'...may be flexible, but is not vacuous. [W]e cannot read the phrase to include individuals identified solely as members of a group so large that risks which are clearly speculative for any particular individuals become reasonably foreseeable for the group." In other words, if you are going to say that someone could be threatened by a document's release under FOIA, you have to say who, and how. The exemption was designed to prevent mob informants... MORE >>
In Which We Ask James Frey About His Secret Oprah Tapes
Fiction author and former Gawker intern James Frey knows a scandalous secret about Oprah, allegedly. It's on tape, allegedly! We journalistically went to Frey's book reading last night to hear him tell the whole story: As you'll recall, the new paperback version of Frey's Bright Shiny Morning has a new section on "SCANDAL," which he read last night at the Union Square Barnes&Noble. So he read all the uninteresting parts about various thinly veiled celebrities and then he read the interesting part about thinly veiled himself. Which includes a part where he says after being reamed out so terribly on Oprah's show, he taped all his calls, including one from the host herself, when she called to check up on him and have a heart-to-heart and in the process revealed some scandalous secret about herself. Okay fine. When the Q&A section came, I asked him, do you think Oprah apologized to you recently because she fears the secret scandalous info you have on her, on tape? And he said, approximately, "Well, I never unequivocally said I have any tapes," which is patently false because I was sitting right there three minutes earlier when he had read the very detailed section from his book that is clearly about himself having tapes about Oprah. But hey maybe that was fictionalized, no names were named, WHATEVER. Then he said, no, she apologized because she felt bad, and before anyone even read the section of the book where I talk about all the tapes that I have. He wasn't about to say what, if anything, is on the tapes. So we'll chalk the whole thing up to a little PR push for his book (And a pretty good one!). Maybe he really has scandalous taped secrets. Maybe he has Oprah saying "Oops, I just farted." Maybe he has nothing. Maybe Nixon really had a secret plan to end the war. But show and prove, JF, or it didn't happen. MORE >>
Dane Cook Shares 'Romantic' Rape Role Play Fantasy With Oprah
Today Oprah, noted fast food terrorist, took a short break from destroying America with diabolical chicken riots to welcome Dane Cook on her show, who promptly horrified the world with details of his sex life. Cook, who we presume must have been tipped by one of his "people" to the fact that Ben Silverman was out there on the internet just douching it up all over the place, stepped up his game and rose to the challenge like a true star. With his appearance on Oprah's show today, Cook effectively looked Silverman squarely in the eye and proclaimed, "I'll see you your topless locker room freestyle horseshit and raise you a rape role play fantasy"! And Oprah just sat there nodding approvingly, looking out over her audience of serfs glued anxiously to their seats in the fleeting hope that she might bestow a shitty car or a morsel of chicken upon them, and laughed, in typical thuggish overlord fashion. Then, she and Dane went backstage and engorged themselves on KFC while millions of Americans sleep hungry AGAIN tonight. The end. And thanks to Gawker video intern Krutika Mallikarjuna for putting this clip together. MORE >>
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