Usually we think of blustery big man Michael Moore as the Republican party's best weapon, but there's something about him going off on "The Situation Room'"s Wolf Blitzer that puts a happy feeling in our hearts.

· After a summerlong run of sequel-clogged weekends where the eventual winner of the box office battle was all too obvious, the outcome of the upcoming Die Hard vs. Ratatouille fight seems up for grabs. We're not betting against Pixar, even though we'll probably wind up watching John McClane blow shit up. [Variety]
· Oh yeah Die Hard made $9.1 million on Wednesday, its first official day of release. Is that a lot? We're not good with midweek box office record data. [THR]
· Universal signs up erstwhile Biggest Comedy Star In the World Jim Carrey for Sober Buddies, one of those magical projects with a title so concise that we don't have to waste any time explaining it. (OK, OK, Carrey is a Sober Buddy who falls off the wagon while helping an alcoholic pal on a business trip in Vegas. Hilarity ensues, etc etc.) [Variety]
· 3.2 million viewers tuned in to CNN to for Larry King's post-jail interview with Paris Hilton. While this was King's highest rated show since 2005, consider that three times more people watched So You Think You Can Dance on Wednesday night if you'd like to feel a little better about the public's TV-watching taste levels. [THR]
· We would never ask you to start thinking about the Oscars in late June. That's just sick, really. [Variety]

Decide which CNN teaser you'd click on first; it'll probably tell you a more about yourself than you want to know. What's that? You're off for Penn Station? Umm, okay, bye!

In the end, CNN Grand Inquisitor Larry King did not, as we'd briefly dared to dream, douse himself in lantern oil and set his body aflame during his much-anticipated post-incarceration exclusive with Paris Hilton, as tantalizing as the prospect must have seemed after about thirty seconds of lobbing his softballs in the heiress's direction and watching them disappear into a dead-eyed abyss.

In HER FIRST TV INTERVIEW SINCE SHE GOT OUT OF JAIL, hotel heiress Paris Hilton sat down with CNN's Larry King for a very special Larry King Live last night. The articulate, multi-talented businesswoman appeared contrite, well-prepared, and — ah, who are we kidding, it's Paris Hilton. Larry King nailed her on a Bible question. Here are some highlights.

Rather than get bogged down in rehashing how Paris Hilton's alleged $100,000 dalliance with Barbara Walters and disputed $1 million flirtation with NBC's Meredith Vieira ulitmately resulted in an unpaid chat with basic cable's most popular, semi-mummified inquisitor, we turn you over to CNN.com's Story Highlights box to get you up to speed on the venue change for the Hilton's post-jail soul-baring. She's agreed to one of Larry King's legendary softballings (set those TiVos for 6 p.m. PST Wednesday night), in which we expect the noted underpreparer to lead off the proceedings with something along the lines of, "So, Paris, I hear you've been away on vacation for a month, and everyone's angry about it for some reason. Also, didn't you recently die of an overdose in Florida? Help me out here," before nodding off for a quick nap as the reformed socialite can details her compassionate plan to open a halfway house to ease the difficult transition of other unfairly incarcerated celebrities back into their regular clubgoing routines.

Paris Hilton's first interview after her release from jail goes to CNN and Larry King this Wednesday. Set your TIVO now! [CNN]

No sale, says Time Warner. Maybe CBS should just acquire Viacom instead. [Variety]

So remember that Times column yesterday that basically came out and said CNN populist and honorary Minuteman Lou Dobbs was basically full of misinformation and deliberate inaccuracies? Well, CNN wasn't exactly pleased.

Deep at the bottom of David Leonhardt's "Economix" column in the New York Times today comes some shocking news about Lou Dobbs, crusader against immigration and CNN's great white hope to capture a slice of the Bill O'Reilly yahoo demographic: He sometimes plays fast and loose with the facts. Let's boil it down—after all, there's little point in reading the actual column, as it's written upside-down and backwards.

• Harry McCracken, who resigned as EIC of PC World in a dispute with the mag's CEO, has been reinstated. The CEO has been reassigned. [Wired]
  

• Thomson Corp. has made an overture to take over Reuters. Will they? Is good for stock price so far! [Globe & Mail]
  

Guess CNN feels like they've milked the Virginia Tech killer video dry. The following memo just came down:

Hardworking professional journalists understand that all of the action these days is happening on the Internets. After this Virginia Tech student posted an account of a friend's wounding, the media—from NPR to the Boston Herald to MTV to In Touch—went right into action for the get, showing the sense and skill that makes the profession the highly-regarded industry that it is.

Breaking! CNN's "Special Investigations Unit" has issued a warning, claiming it will extrude Soledad O'Brien into an extra-sexy investigation of the Virginia Tech nightmare shooting horror-show—she'll be bringing her anchorly gravitas and her various investigative techniques, all conducted, incidentally, while wearing a skirt, to the scene of worst non-Iraq-related violent incident in years. No word yet on arrival of her crack team but we expect she'll begin fingerprinting and profiling STAT ASAP. According to the press release, "O'Brien will provide a minute-by-minute account of the campus rampage as she discusses how and why the events happened and whether they could have been prevented." So, sorta like a news-show version of United 93 but sooner, with more moralizing and without the hot Broadway actor. Super.

Ah, the long arm of the gay mafia. (As anyone who's ever written about Anderson Cooper knows, the experience comes complete with pink-tinged emails that begin "Be nice to Anderson, he is my friend.") Now they've gone and somehow gotten CNN anchor Anderson Cooper's contract upped to $50 million over five years, according to Page Six. "That's a Katie Couric sort of salary," noted TV Newser in its dry way. Well, we certainly hope he doesn't now feel compelled to go the whole colonoscopy route.

On Friday night, Jimmy Kimmel guest-hosted Larry King Live on CNN. It was a very special episode about how the paparazzi and the media make the lives of celebrities just so difficult. He had a bone to pick with Gawker editor Emily Gould—apparently, a sighting had appeared on our Gawker Stalker map last June which seemed to catch the former Man Show host (who, let's remember, rose to fame on a show that featured him drinking beer throughout) "visibly drunk and talking loud." How unethical of Gawker to defame Kimmel's character by publishing this sighting without editing or fact-checking it, or even asking Kimmel's publicist for the requisite heartfelt denial! At first Emily thought that Kimmel was kidding about being so upset. He informed her that it wasn't funny. It's weird how people who are professionally "funny" often have no sense of humor! Anyway, Kimmel was so weirdly peeved that he told Emily that she was going to hell, cut her off midsentence all O'Reilly-style a bunch of times, and discussed the likelihood that "Emily's web site" would soon be shut down by the lawyers of angry celebrities.

CNN's Roland Martin Hosts 'What Would Jesus Really Do?' Special

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that thing about the rich being different from you, me, etc. Much less quoted is Ernest Hemingway's cheeky rejoinder: "Yes, they have a high interest in viewing and reading about luxury items in addition to hard news." Or at least he would have had said such had he been employed by CNNMoney.com, which is launching a luxury channel aimed at high-end advertisers and the fat little Croesuses who think nothing of spending ten thousand dollars on a piece of wrist jewelry that may or may not tell the time. This country is turning into fucking Brazil. Let's learn more!