Dan Golden has announced he would rather work for Joanne Lipman at Portfolio (as a senior editor) than Rupert Murdoch at the Wall Street Journal. (Well, he was in the Boston bureau, and we'd work for Bonnie Fuller or Satan to get out of Boston, so.) Two related things: First, we heard a big editor at the WSJ quit right after the Murdoch and Col Allan visit last week. Second, wow, isn't Portfolio on a major lockdown right now? Not a PEEP out of that place in weeks! [Romenesko]

So the big rumor going around today about Rupert Murdoch's plans for the Wall Street Journal concerns a recent meeting with the paper's top brass, where Murdoch brought up the name of shiraz-swilling New York Post editor in chief Col Allan. Whether he was suggesting that Allan bring his particular blend of news judgment to the paper or merely using him as an example of proper practices (we're guessing the latter), it may be the best indication yet of the direction in which Murdoch plans to take the paper. Or maybe not, it's just a rumor! But try and tell us that you have a hard time actually believing it.

It's a pleasant surprise, but we actually love Lloyd Grove's profile of New York Post editor-in-chief Col Allan in this week's New York. Allan, a saucy Aussie if there ever was one, comes off as a pugnacious tyrant who is driven by a desire to win at all costs. Also, he likes a drink every now and again. Mostly now. Read the whole piece: There's a ton of detail, and Grove's knowledge of the tabloid industry may not have saved his job at the Daily News, but it is put to good use here. Our handy highlights follow.

The revelation this week that Kevin Rudd, the man who will unseat Australian Prime Minister John Howard later this year unless Howard can find a new group of immigrants to demonize, once spent a boozy evening at Scores with New York Post editor Col Allan has caused much mirth in the convict-intensive funhouse that is the land down under. But a night out with Allan is no joke: Former Postie Megan Lehmann pops up in Newsweek to share a few tales of Col's harrowing inebriated escapades.

Rupert Murdoch has done his part to ensure the ouster of Australian prime minister John Howard, who's been toiling as the sad prison-island's leader since time immemorial. In a canny feat, Murdoch sent New York Post editor Col Allan out to Scores with Kevin Rudd—he's the opposition leader down in Australia, and is now expected to win the 2007 election. "Mr Rudd admitted visiting Scores and said he had been too drunk to remember much of what had happened," says the Guardian. Then Rudd got reprimanded for manhandling strippers and got booted. For Australian men, this is like scoring the winning goal of a soccer match or shooting the biggest kangaroo or something. He will now receive nearly all of the heterosexual male vote. How can we tell it's a counterintuitive and sophisticated campaign to manage the election? The trip to Scores happened four years ago and is just being revealed now—in Murdoch's papers. Good work, Rupe!

How crazy is it that Lloyd Grove, our favorite former gossip columnist at the New York Daily News, is on assignment for New York magazine to write about nutty New York Post editor Col Allan? So crazy! We hear the piece is at least a few weeks away, though he's been working on it for a while. One might assume the rationale for assigning the piece, despite any actual or theoretical conflict of interest, is that Lloyd would bring some sort of inside knowledge to the story. But if that were true, wouldn't he still have his job at the Daily News? Hi-o! Oh, just asking, Lloyd!

Post honcho Col Allan knows what you are typing at your desks. He knows what you are emailing. In his mind, he is already screaming at you. And then there's this:

Nightline looked at the Page Six dust-up last night, and in addition to finally learning just how much weight New York Post chief Col Allan has put on lately, we also learned that Page Six honcho Richard Johnson and company basically just made shit up. We also learn that, somehow, T.V. feels sleazier than print! Oh, also, funny that talking head commenter (and the man most likely to always be wrong!) Michael Wolff's hot daughter is totally a reporter at the Post!

With little of note happening in what Times business columnist Joe Nocera referred to on Saturday as the "Mr. Murdoch Lusts After Dow Jones" story, the papers are forced to manufacture another angle from which to analyze the bid: Specifically, how will Friday's Page Six Payola revelations affect Murdoch's chances of wooing the Bancrofts? On the heels of a 1,300 word front-pager in Saturday's Times recounting the scandal—for which the paper was forced to reel back in former gossip-boy and current theater reporter Campbell Robertson—comes today's David Carr follow-exegesis. Carr believes that the decision to run the allegations in the Post itself can be traced to Post editor (and alleged stripper-sex receiver) Col Allan's unwillingness to get scooped by the News. Uberflack Howard Rubenstein also says that the Post wanted to get their spin on the story before anyone else did. Carr's column ends with a thought exercise!

"Lies & Smears Aimed At Post," blares the headline in today's Page Six. The item lists a whole bunch of allegations against Page Six by a former employee, Ian Spiegelman, that he'd made in an affidavit to fellow former Postie Jared Paul Stern's lawyer. Things like Post honcho Col Allan was "said to have received sexual favors" from strippers at Scores, and that Nello Balan (the restaurant and club owner) had given Page Six's Richard Johnson a $3,000 bribe in 1997.

• Holy crap, Ian Urbina did a lot of work in this piece on kids who just want to sell magazines but wind up hanging out with meth-addicted prostitutes. Only 11 months and one week until the next Pulitzer deadline! [NYT]
  

The rumble between the Post and the News to see who can give away more sponsor copies to boost their circulation shows no sign of abating: In today's Observer, News EIC Martin Dunn calls shenanigans: "If you'd lost $300 million over the past five years, spent $200 million on new presses, carpet-bombed neighborhoods with free copies and lost fortunes to sell a few thousand papers in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, you'd be desperate to celebrate creeping a few copies ahead of us." Post EIC Col Allan counters that "the Post is half the price, and twice the value." There's some particularly nice bitchery in the Times, where Dunn's party line about the News still outselling the Post in "the New York metro area," elicits the following response:

You may actually want to run out and buy a printed copy of today's Post: There are two full spreads dedicated to mocking the suicide attempt of Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Terrell Owens. Apart from a column suggesting that the Giants need to take full advantage of the troubled star's effort to end his own life, perhaps the central gem is the graphic reproduced above, which is a "comical" list of reasons that Owens might have wanted to die. We're of the opinion that no subject is off-limits when it comes to humor, but if you're going to cross the line you'd damn well better be funny. We're not sure who thought "He's upset Jeremy Shockey has an exclusive column in The Post and he doesn't," might induce a giggle as a rationale for a man's attempt at self-destruction ("Tried reading Jeremy Shockey's Post column" might have worked better), but even by Post standards this is lame. If we were Col Allan we'd be so full of shame right now that, well, we'd want to kill ourselves.

Women's Wear Daily's resident goliath Jeff Bercovici reports that with Grove's contract up in September, many are speculating that Grove may jump to the Post's Page Six. Considering Martin Dunn called Grove a "fucking idiot" in a letter to People managing editor Larry Hackett back in October, one could see how Grove might want to cross over to enemy lines.

• Post EIC Col Allan throws down to defend his deputy editor Colin Myler in a Soho House brawl with some unnamed Aussie journo. Holy shit, does this mean Soho House is cool again? [R&M]
• A moment of silence, please, for the relationship between hip-hop mogul Jay-Z and his business partner Damon Dash. Dash is selling his share of the rapper's Rocawear for nearly $30 million, which is almost enough to numb the wounds of a friendship lost. [Page Six]
• Sopranos star Jamie-Lynn Siegler has split from her husband, AJ DiScala — and just in time for San Gennaro. [Gatecrasher]
• If we were the club promoter mentioned in this incredibly not-blind blind item, we'd probably ban Page Sixers from Bungalow 8. [Page Six]
• Is George Clooney banging a young stylist? Oh, the horror of mingling with the working class. [Lowdown (2nd item)]