The New York Times has a Nobel-prize-winning economist on staff. But no such expert is in tomorrow's front-page story on the trillion-dollar financial bailout. Only the stock market's verdict is included.

• Marc Jacobs and Lorenzo Martone have been in Brazil since late last week, presiding over the opening of a new store and showing off their gold rings. Now they say they're thinking about adopting a baby girl, too. [Fashionologie]
• Speaking of Marc, the life-size hamster wheel in the window of his Bleecker Street kids store is back. [Racked]
• House of Style returned on Saturday. Just what you needed: a "recessionista rescue" by Jessica Stam. [Jezebel]
• A recession bonus: expensive models are no longer that expensive. [AdAge]
• Erin Wasson's garage sale in LA was a mob scene, as expected. [RackedLA]
• The Times chats with Dree Hemingway, model, actress, daughter of Mariel Hemingway, and new Twitter fan. [NYT]
• The "obscure private label watch brand" worn by Barack Obama is a little less obscure these days. Funny how that happens. [WWD]

• You can rest easier now: Now that he's no longer planning to run for Senate, Chris Matthews has signed a new four-year contract with MSNBC. [NYT]
• Howard Dean has signed on to be a CNBC contributor. [HP]
• Major media companies are now looking for a bailout. From Google. [AdAge]
• Jay Leno's chat with Obama was his fourth most-watched show ever. [LAT]
• Some perks may be curtailed at Condé Nast. Like the one that allowed Portfolio editor Joanne Lipman to fly to Davos first-class, possibly. [NYP]
• Advance Publications is instituting mandatory 10-day furloughs and a pension freeze at nearly all of its daily papers, says Steve Newhouse. [E&P]
• Time publisher Don Fries is headed out the door. [NYP]
• NBC is very good at spinning the Times, in case you haven't noticed. [CJR]
• Knowing starring Nic Cage was No. 1 at the box office this weekend. [NYDN]

Politico is in the business of writing stories that Matt Drudge "NEEDS and WANTS" and that their reporters' mothers would read. Today they turned a couple of chuckles on 60 Minutes into a "developing..." story.

• Tim Geithner has unveiled his latest plan to deal with the financial crisis. This one involves a partnership between the government and private investors, and could eventually involve buying up to $1 trillion in toxic assets from banks, although it isn't generating unanimous support. "It fills me with a sense of despair," says the Times's Paul Krugman. [WSJ, NYT, BN, NYT]
• New documents over the weekend indicate AIG paid out $218 million in bonuses, more than the previously disclosed $165 million. [Reuters]
• Here's another way to look at the AIG mess: If those bonuses hadn't been paid, the U.S. government may have had $1.7 trillion to worry about. [NYP]
• That trip to AIG on Saturday? Lots of reporters, many fewer protesters. [AP]
• Obama reiterated his support for Geithner on 60 Minutes. [Dealbreaker]

OK, stop Barack Obama if you've heard this one: What's the only thing worse than having a 60 Minutes correspondent ask if the laughing president is "punch drunk" in the middle of an interview?

• Michelle Obama started digging up part of the South Lawn of the White House today to plant a vegetable garden. In case you ever have to prepare a salad for the president, be advised that Barack is not down beets. [NYT]
• It's official: Per Se is introducing an à la carte menu on Wednesday. [NYT]
• Pichet Ong is closing P'ong and Batch in the West Village. [Eater, GS]
• Trends Frank Bruni has noticed: trotters, little fried birds, cheap wine. [NYT]
• One trend Grub Street has seen all over the place: bone marrow. [GS]
• A few tips on how to handle a really bad waiter. [Bon Appétit]
• The world's oldest bottle of champagne was opened this week. [TimesUK]
• The Journal has a peek inside JGV's weekend home in Westchester. [WSJ]
• Good news: Antonio Banderas is now producing wine. [Decanter]

Barack Obama won the presidency by refusing to play into the tit-for-tat frenzy of the campaign news cycle. Now he should really show he's a grownup and axe the daily White House press briefing.

Third arrest made in bribery scandal at the D.C. tech office run by Obama CIO.

You can't win, White House press corps. Your frantic and stupid attempts—motivated by a misplaced sense of fair play—to pin down Barack Obama as a gaffe-prone president won't work. Here's why.

• Further evidence CNN's Jon Klein should start polishing his resume: The network continues to trail Fox News, MSNBC, and Headline News. [Portfolio]
• Obama's performance on The Tonight Show will keep people talking for awhile (and not in a good way, clearly), but the ratings were huge. [Time, THR]
• The April issue of Portfolio is the slimmest in Condé Nast's history. [NYP]
• Charla Lawhon is stepping down as managing editor of In Style. [WWD]
• Your prayers have been answered: VH1 is reviving Behind the Music. [NYP]
• Bob Pittman says the ad industry should get a bailout, too. [Fortune]
• Fox News's Greta Van Susteren is denying her husband is a paid adviser to Sarah Palin, but she admits that he gives her advice and "helps" her. [HP]
• SpiralFrog, the glitzy music site that launched in 2006, has gone bust. [PC]
• Broadway dimmed the lights last night in honor of Natasha Richardson. [THR]

In an otherwise agreeable appearance on the Tonight Show, the president compared his bowling to "like Special Olympics, or something." This is why presidents avoid late-night TV.

Alice Waters wins: The First Family agreed to to grow its own vegetables for the first time since World War II, citing the very educational benefits the Berkeley restaurateur has long touted.

President Obama's motorcade arrives at the NBC's Burbank studios for the taping of tonight's Jay Leno. (Photo by jodante)

• Former president George W. Bush has signed a deal with Crown to publish a memoir. Rumor has it he landed a $7 million advance for the book. [AP, NYP]
• For his part, Barack Obama has two books in the works with Crown. He plans to release an abridged, youth-oriented version of Dreams From My Father as well as write a nonfiction book once he leaves office. [CBS News]
• CNBC's keeping it classy. Larry Kudlow set a dollar bill on fire today. [CJR]
• Jim Cramer is still rattling on about Jon Stewart. [Gawker]
• NBC is planning to launch a "singing competition series" that sounds a lot like—yes, you guessed it—Fox's American Idol. [THR]
• CBS is keeping Two and a Half Men on the air through 2012. [NYT]
• The finalists for the Man Booker International Prize include E. L. Doctorow, V. S. Naipaul, Joyce Carol Oates, Mario Vargas Llosa and Alice Munro. [NYT]
• The noms for the National Magazine Awards are out. [AdAge]
• The cable channel Starz would like to remind you that it exists. [NYT]
• How screwed is the newspaper biz? Here's a pic that sums it up nicely. [BI]

After calling John McCain's daughter "plus-sized,", giving the vapid Daily Beast columnist an excuse to keep talking, Laura Ingraham is now claiming the whole feud was manufactured by "Obama attack dogs."

Could the White House at least vet candidates for fashion sense, if not their arrest records? Vivek Kundra, the scandal-drenched federal CIO, was arrested in 1996 for shoplifting four dress shirts. From J.C. Penney.

You know who this global economic implosion is really hurting? Broadcast networks. How can they mint money if Overlord Obama is constantly doing TV addresses, like a Soviet Secretary General?

• The AIG mess rolls on. Lawmakers are up in arms. Voters are pissed. Tim Geithner is on the defensive. President Obama's agenda has been disrupted. And AIG chief Ed Liddy will get to see some of the emotion first hand when he turns up on Capitol Hill later today to face the music. [NYT, WSJ, BN]
• Billions used to bail out AIG may end up benefiting the hedge funds that made big bets that the housing market was going to crumble. [WSJ]
• As the pressure mounts on Tim Geithner, here's a roundup of all the things he's gotten wrong, just in case you need a little refresher. [BI]
• The State of New Jersey has filed suit against Lehman for fraud. [CNN]
• Citigroup's chief economist is leaving the bank to take a senior position at the Treasury Department. Somehow this is entirely fitting. [DBK]
• The fact that Citi has four new board members may not bode well for Vikram Pandit and his chances of remaining in charge of the bank. [NYP]
• Warren Buffett owns 20% of Moody's, so when he talks about the broken financial system, you won't hear him talk much about rating agencies. [NYT]
• In the FT, Hank Paulson says it's time to reform the financial system. Thanks for sharing. And thanks for coming to that conclusion just now. [FT]

Joanne Lipman, the diva editor of Portfolio, is becoming known for her disastrous cover decisions. The worst, perhaps, involved the president and Annie Leibovitz.