Brian Williams, famed misspeller of names, is in hot water with powerful Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel. It seems as though Ari was caught off guard by Williams's hard-hitting approach during a recent interview with the Brothers Emanuel, including Ari, Chicago mayor Rahm and bioethicist Ezekiel. What was supposed to be a fluff piece to promote Ezekiel's memoir about the brothers instead, according to a New York Post source, resembled something "from Meet the Press."

Last night Los Angeles was drained of star power because super-agencies WME and CAA had house parties with ridiculous security. Things we discovered: bribing people is harder than you think, security guards are scary and we belong among the dregs.

Ari Emanuel has fashioned himself as the most powerful agent in Hollywood since Mike Ovitz's terrible reign. And as Conan O'Brien's prime defender against NBC, he's found himself in the exact same position as the zen warrior of Beverly Hills.

Showing the sort of bright and sunny leadership that has makes his brother Rahm such an uplifting presence, William Morris-Endeavor chief Ari Emanuel bucked up his troops this week with a poignant reminder that things have sucked for showbiz before.

So you wanna be a hotshot agent like Ari on that horrible Entourage show? Well, you'll probably have to start out as an assistant, which means you'd better have a trust fund or an insatiable fondness for ramen noodles.

Superagent Ari Emanuel, brother of Rahm, has been getting lots of glowing press lately. Remember when the New York Times genuflected at his altar on their front page? Now The Independent is breathlessly touting his plans to single-handedly reinvent Hollywood.

Lots of casting news today, from Charlie Murphy to Clifton Collins Jr. Plus Charlize Theron employs the best person in the business to yell at people for her.

• It's only been a week since Conan took over the top-rated Tonight Show, but David Letterman has already passed over him in the ratings. [NYT]
• Also: Dave Letterman's new contract will keep him at CBS through '12. [LAT]
• Yesterday the Boston Globe's largest union rejected the New York Times Co.'s proposed package of cuts. The NYT responded by implementing a 23 percent pay cut anyway and now the union is taking the matter to court. [NYT]
• Ratings are down for CNN's Lou Dobbs. And thank God for that. [NYO]
• It's official: Ari Emanuel is the new Mike Ovitz! Both the New York Times and The Daily Beast invoke Ovitz's name in lengthy pieces on "the pre-eminent power player in Hollywood" and "Hollywood's new don." [NYT, TDB]
• Sound the alarms! Swine flu has returned to Condé Nast! [Daily Intel]

Superagent Ari Emanuel is the most powerful man in Hollywood, according to the New York Times.

• How is Twitter going to make money? With a reality TV series, naturally. The show will involve "putting ordinary people on the trail of celebrities in a revolutionary competitive format," in case you were wondering. [Variety]
• The primetime lineups for next year "are chockablock with shows meant to make recession-weary viewers laugh and feel better." How encouraging! [NYT]
• Ratings are down for CNN's Anderson Cooper as well as for Roland Martin, who has been subbing for Campbell Brown recently. [Page Six]
• Bravo's next Real Housewives installment: Washington, DC. [Daily Intel]
• Fox News nut Greta Van Susteren may not be around for long. Rumor has it her contract won't be be renewed and Megyn Kelly will replace her. [NYT]
• New York lost close to $5 million last year; with ad pages down 37 percent thus far in 2009, "losses are expected to be even higher this year." [NYP]
• A Russian investment firm has dropped $200 million into Facebook's bank account in return for a 1.96 percent stake in the company. [NYT]
• Ben Stiller's Night at the Museum sequel beat out the fourth installment of the Terminator franchise with a four-day pull of $70 million. [Reuters]

Bad news for Fox Atomic, good news for power-mad Ari Emmanuel. Bad news for people who are wise to Dan Brown's tomfoolery, and good news for those who aren't. Plus, the good/bad on pilot season.

Oh, Rod Blagojevich. God bless you for brightening up this bleak Friday. News from you is like the sun coming out from behind the clouds! What's up now? Oh, you tried to extort Rahm Emaneul?

You've seen the slideshows of celebrities on the Oscar red carpet. Here's how various media moguls dressed up for the big occasion. Lots of really boring black tuxedos after the jump.

Deadline Hollywood reports that Endeavor—A-list Hollywood dealmaking nexus and after-hours playground to adult-diapered scenester photographers—is negotiating a merger with WMA, a marriage that would produce the all-powerful Whamdeavor!™ agency. (They're not married to the name.)

Pictured on a Disney premiere red carpet is fraternal showbiz sensation the Emanuel Brothers—Ari (the sexy brooding one, and the brains of the operation), Rahm (the cute, vocal one), and Zeke (the goofier-looking older one who you'd still totally be thrilled to settle for)—sending their throngs of young admirers into screaming fits and fainting spells.Unlike so many other Hollywood stars, parents approve of these upstanding young men, who wear their good intentions right on their heads in the form of Purity Yarmulkes. Catch them next in The Emanuel Brothers: The 3-D Experience, the poster of which features the boys clutching Fendi bags on the steps of Air Force One as they jet off to play a command performance at President Elect Barack Obama's Inauguration. [Thanks to NOTFAIL blog for a Photoshop we really wish we'd thought of ourselves.]

Behold the splendor that is Mark "The Cobrasnake" Hunter, splayed in nothing but skivvies and white loafers across the fabled Endeavor conference table. (40-foot long Corian, white laminated glass, stainless steel, hand-carved by an ancient order of Unicorn Panda craftsmen—you know the one.)And how did the ubiquitous hipster documentarian penetrate the inner sanctum of Hollywood's Wormhole to the White House™? We're not entirely sure, but we know partner Tom Strickler signed off on it, and even answered some interview questions left for him on a whiteboard. (Cobrasnake: "What is the best advice you can offer someone starting in the mail room at Endeavor?" Strickler: "Work work work work work work.") There's also some great shots of life behind the scenes at the Hollywood power-brokerage—everything from 189-line telephones to bedraggled assistants to Strickler and his team of hardworking baby-devourers themselves. Ari Emanuel, however, is nowhere to be found. Nice work, Cobrasnake! Now put some pants on. More photos:

♦ Things are going from bad to worse for Damon Dash and Rachel Roy: Three months after a bank foreclosed on their two Tribeca condos, Dash's Chevy Tahoe was seized this week after he failed to make the monthly lease payments. Does this mean he's already lost his Maybach? [NYDN]
♦ Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson were supposedly getting engaged yesterday. Today the relationship is supposedly "heading for choppy waters," because Lindsay wants to "explore her heterosexuality." [The Sun]
♦ How is Lindsay's publicist explaining her client's description of Barack Obama earlier this week as the country's first "colored President"? She says no one knows what LiLo really said, since it was "unintelligible." [MSNBC]
♦ Katie Holmes is supposedly refusing to move back to LA after she's finished on Broadway. Why? Because she doesn't get dragged to as many Scientology events when she's in NYC. [NYDN]

Charlie Rose is just showing off. Back in June, he had all the Emanuels on! No one has done that, before, and no one will probably do it again for some time, so Charlie replayed the episode to rub it in, that he had new Obama Chief of Staff Rahm "Rahmbo" Emanuel, Hollywood super-agent Ari Emanuel, and the mysterious other one, Dr. Ezekiel "Zeke" Emanuel, the medical ethicist, all in his weird featureless void of a studio, all at once. Watch this clip and join us in the alarming conclusion that Rahm, the intense political hatchet-man, is actually the calmest Emanuel. How did Charlie Rose manage to book all the Emanuels on one show? So many have tried, but this is the only time we've ever seen it. The secret, we're told, is start with the doctor. Once Zeke, the eldest, is on board, Ari and Rahm are obligated to follow suit. And, man, family dinners with the Emanuels are clearly terrible. You never get a word in edgewise and they'll all be brawling by the end of it. Still, you ladies seem to like this Rahm, so here he is, enjoy.

Amy Rice and Alicia Sams' documentary on Barack Obama has been filming since summer 2006, before the president-elect was even seeking the Democratic nomination. But the directors were inspired by the Illinois senator's speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and thought he'd be worth following. Actor Ed Norton's Class 5 Films put up some money, the Obama camp provided inside access and now the bet is paying off, and not just because the candidate went all the way: HBO, it was just announced, is paying in the low seven-figures for the film, and theatrical rights are still available. Chalk it up as yet another Obama win against the Clintons!

President-elect Obama asked Illinois Congressman and hard-charging political attack dog Rahm Emanuel to be his Chief of Staff. Emanuel's brother is Ari Emanuel, the Hollywood agent who famously broke away from ICM to start his own agency. On the HBO series Entourage, Jeremy Piven plays an incredibly thinly veiled fictional version of Ari Emanuel, named Ari Gold. Ari Gold, in the new season of Entourage, was weighing an offer to leave his agency to head a studio. Meanwhile, Rahm Emanuel still hasn't decided if he wants to stay on as a powerful Congressional Democrat or move to a position of great power but less autonomy in the Obama White House. Above, watch fictional Ari struggle with the choice, and below, real-life Rahm hems and haws on television. Real life imitates fiction imitating the brother of real life.