Maybe it should have been obvious that the celebrity weeklies were going to politicize as soon as Hillary Clinton and her supporters showed strong resistance, during the primary season, to acquiescing to Barack Obama, thus highlighting the importance of women voters in 2008. But the heightened political importance of the magazines, whose readers are overwhelmingly female, wasn't in anyone's face until this week, when Us Weekly made waves with its controversial "Babies, Lies & Scandal" Sarah Palin cover. The issue, unflattering to Palin, has so far resulted in 5,000-10,000 cancelled subscriptions, MSNBC.com's gossip column is reporting. (Though MSNBC's Courtney Hazlett is close to Us Weekly's rivals; and-see below-the magazine's Janice Min says the losses are overstated.)

Is Us Weekly biased? That's what Fox News has been saying all morning in light of that "Sarah Palin, Governor of the Rhythm Method State" cover. But (in stark contrast to so many of the other things we hear on Fox News) we did not want to believe Us Weekly had a political agenda, mainly because, as with Fox News, we like to forget that whoever Us Weekly is targeting at is actually allowed to vote. But in the face of mounting evidence that the network might be on to something we gave the issue a thorough examination, and it pains me to report that Us Weekly is biased. So biased. You could be forgiven for wondering if the whole rag wasn't being bankrolled by a big gay homofag! (If not Hamas!!!) Here readers, the evidence:Its owner is Jann (pronounced Yann, like the first syllable of "Yanni") Wenner Jann Wenner not only gives money to Democrats, he has such a hard-on for some Democrats his other magazines have been known to run images of Democratic candidates with sporting actual hard-ons. (Fig. 1) Also, ever since he came out of the closet after in his mid forties, Jann Wenner has been a "known homosexual." Us has a known toxic love-hate relationship with probable neoconservative Angelina Jolie. Despite her estrangement from her Republican father*, Angelina Jolie has persistently refused to tow the typical Hollywood liberal line, telling interviewers she hasn't yet decided which candidate will get her vote in the November election and allowing that she is fond of John McCain. Savvy observers will note, however, that Angelina Jolie's conservative leanings, aired most publicly in her February Washington Post guest op-ed piece supporting the McCain-backed troop surge, actually predate the conception of Bristol Palin's unborn child. Surely Us has been "keeping tabs" on Jolie's political sympathies, and quite possibly applied pressure in the case she threatens to break from the socialist liberal Hollywood homodoxy. Do you think it's a coincidence that their harshest attack on Angelina's fitness for motherhood coincided with the theretofore deadliest form of exactly the sort of insurgent attack the troop surge was engineered to combat? ("Yes" is actually the right answer to that question, just to be clear!) (Fig. 2) Today's headlines speak for themselves. COVER STORY: Sarah Palin: Political Opponent Recalls Being Ridiculed EXCLUSIVE: Cindy McCain's Half Sister: I'm Voting For Barack Obama EXCLUSIVE: Tim Gunn: "No Contest" — Michelle has better style than Cindy Father Of Bristol Palin's Baby: I Don't Want Kids But in fact, Us has been tacitly endorsing Democrat Barack Obama ever since it branded the Illinois senator Just Like Us in February. (No such pronouncement was made of John McCain, whose appearances in the magazine have thus far been limited primarily to his surprise show of support from The Hills star Heidi Montag, which the magazine immediately undermined by quoting Heidi's fiancee Spencer Pratt saying he "didn't think America cared" who Heidi supported.) Meanwhile, when Obama nakedly dodged a question posed by the magazine earlier this year, the magazine managed to "package" it (so to speak) in a way that seemed to paint the Democratic senator in a favorable light. IN ALL SERIOUSNESS, though, the media crit mob is probably right that going all "Kos" on Palin — and seriously, how exactly does a Troopergate cover line sit next to "Halle Berry First Baby Photos!"?? — smacks of hubris and recklessness, if not another outright attempt to distance itself from the heartland and paint itself as the trashy supermarket tabloid of privileged thin Blue Staters who just like killing brain cells. Either way, it's kind of tacky. But um, then, we are the ones who just spent the last hour assessing the policy agenda of Us Weekly.

Kent Brownridge, former deputy to magazine mogul Jann Wenner and recent overlord to Maxim and Blender, is now general manager of the U.S. edition of free-spending celebrity weekly OK!. It seems that between billionaire owner Richard Desmond supplying famous-baby-photo cash and editors Sarah Ivens and the creepy Rob Shuter keeping sources fluffed, OK! needed someone to, like, sell some ads or something. Brownridge apparently didn't compile a stellar track record doing that for Maxim and company, which earlier this month squeezed him from his job, but as Shuter knows, OK! is fast becoming a miraculous land of second media-industry chances. [Post]

• Arianna Huffington says her website is not for sale, but that's probably just because no one is interested in paying $200 million for it. [Gawker]

Finally, a silver lining to the declining economy! This month you won't need to put in extra time at the gym in order to be fit enough to carry the fall issues of Vogue and W home from the newsstand (nor will it take 20 minutes of flicking until you reach any actual content): ad pages in both mags (as well as other fashion and beauty titles) are way down, reports the WSJ today, as advertisers, especially mid-tier brands, scale back. (Anna Wintour won't be hanging up her Chanel couture just yet, however: The September Vogue still has 674 pages of ads.) Similar shrinkage will soon take place at Rolling Stone, news that actually may be welcome to the mag's core readership of aging rock fans, since they probably have difficulty raising their arms anyway. Founder and publisher Jann Wenner has decided to shave a few inches off the mag's size, although he's quick to point out that the mag is going to spend more on production, with glossier paper and a flat, glued spine instead of staples, in the hopes of attracting new advertisers and younger readers. What, slapping the Jonas Brothers on the cover to appeal to ten-year-old girls wasn't enough?

Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner just confirmed to the Times that he's shrinking the once-groundbreaking magazine to a distinctly ordinary format. And already, in that same story, the magazine mogul has allowed himself to sound insecure about the change. "I myself was kind of torn about it," Wenner said. He's right to be worried. Rolling Stone's large format stirred a certain nostalgia. And not just among readers, as the Times noted, but also among a more important group: The celebrities who still trip over themselves to appear on the magazine's iconic cover, despite the fairly humdrum content within. That magnetic draw will surely be diminished now that the publication looks so thoroughly contemporary, and 1967 so very far in the past. After the jump, Wenner pulls off a similarly-self-defeating trick in a year-old Charlie Rose interview by saying the key difference between rollingstone.com and Facebook is that the latter is "kind of a teen thing."

Just who are the city's biggest media titans supporting this November? Below, details on the campaign contributions of Jeff Bewkes, Dick Parsons, Barry Diller, Jann Wenner, Bob Wright, Mel Karmazin, Robert F.X. Sillerman, Ben Silverman, and a handful of others.

• Jann Wenner is no longer interested in selling Us Weekly. [NYP]

An associate of Jann Wenner says the Us Weekly owner-rumored to be ready to sell the title to a magazine group such as Condé Nast-isn't so attached to the celebrity weekly. It's vastly profitable but doesn't really understand the modern pop culture from which Us Weekly plucks its stars. The source tells today's WWD: "It's not really his world, not like Rolling Stone, a world he instinctually understands." But just how clueless is the 62-year-old former hippie, who founded Rolling Stone at the age of 21 after dropping out of Berkeley? His minions joke that Wenner's musical evolution ground to a halt some two decades ago. He's never quite figured out that Us Weekly staple Beyoncé has one of those accents at the end of her name. Wenner refers to her as be-yons, much to colleagues' amusement. One hopes he doesn't refer to his hoped-for buyer as "cond-nast".

Last week Charlie Rose wondered if Conde Nast was trying to buy Rolling Stone. Now Keith Kelly reports that they're actually trying to buy Us Weekly, Jann Wenner's other, more valuable but less cherished property. The "price tag could hit $750 million," according to the Post. Which would give Wenner enough cash to continue running Rolling Stone into the ground for decades to come. Us does seem like a more likely target for Conde Nast, but the high price and the overall print market these days are cause for skepticism. And though Charlie Rose may have gotten it wrong on that particular issue, that interview's main benefit stands: it is still accurate to call Graydon Carter a "self-described pussy." [NYP, Previously]

"Jann Wenner is said to be quietly exploring a sale of celebrity magazine Us Weekly to Condé Nast and the price tag could hit $750 million." [NYP]

1) The first New York benefit of the Young Patrons Circle of the Friends of the Louvre took place Tuesday night at Espace: Devoted socials like Olivia Chantecaille, Fabiola Beracasa, Alexandra Papanicalaou, Lisa Anastos, Annabel Vartanian, Melissa Berkelhammer, and Devorah Rose bid on photographer Candida Hofer's pictures of the Louvre's galleries. [Park Avenue Peerage/PMc]

FOLIO magazine spotted a juicy bit at the very end of a Charlie Rose interview earlier this week with Vanity Fair chief Graydon Carter and Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner. Rose casually asks, "What's this story that Conde Nast wants to buy Rolling Stone?" That triggers a look of sheer terror on Graydon Carter's face, and a great deal of forced laughter and jabbering between the guests. We think we can hear Graydon saying, "We'll see." What it does not trigger is a denial. RS would certainly be a decent pickup for Conde Nast, but what the hell would Jann Wenner do with himself if he sold out? (Then again, Jeff Bercovici thinks Wenner's company is in a permanent decline, and he should cash out). Click to watch the clip, and parse the reactions carefully. [If you have any further info, email us.]

So the gays are officially marrying each other in California. And there are a few celebrities sprinkled in among the hordes of couples now rushing to the altar: George "Mr. Sulu" Takei of Star Trek married his partner Brat Altman today, and Ellen DeGeneres says she plans to marry her longtime girlfriend, Portia De Rossi, later this month. But what about here in New York? Which locals are going to take advantage of David Paterson's recent decision to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere and fly out West to pick up a marriage license of their own?

We're hearing something fairly horrifying — that Rolling Stone senior editor Austin Scaggs is starting a "Perez Hilton-esque" music blog for the magazine next month. It's not clear how, exactly, this new creation would ape Hilton's crude celebrity gossip site, but the initiative is said to be an outgrowth of Scaggs' own infrequent Smoking Section music news blog. Jann Wenner has approved the project, but the magazine mogul hasn't provided any budget, so "Scaggs is hiring six unpaid interns to staff the whole thing—and they have to work 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday" said our tipster. NB to desperate young intern candidates: Just launch your own music news site. You won't get to say you write for Rolling Stone, but you'll have no trouble reaching Perez Hilton quality levels, and at least you'll retain ownership in exchange for all your free labor.

Oh god, Choire actually read the Vanity Fair "oral history of the internet." Why? Why did Vanity Fair take it upon themselves to do this? Mostly so that they could interview self-aggrandizing fools, apparently. DID YOU KNOW that Jann Wenner saw the world's very first "hyper-link"? Seriously, this is what he claims!

"Sources inside Wenner Media, which publishes Us Weekly, said owner Jann Wenner 'is going nuts on the budgets' - prompting some longtime staffers to look for jobs elsewhere." [Post]

Arianna Huffington's new book - Right Is Wrong - is as partisan a piece of political writing as any during this political season. The subtitle says it all: "How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe." At Friday night's book party at the Chambers hotel in Midtown however, the divide between the guests was anything but political. The Greek-born polemicist has herself made a mockery of political convictions by switching so effortlessly from conservative wife-of-convenience to liberal power woman. To be sure, the tycoons she had assembled — Mort Zuckerman of Boston Properties and the New York Daily News; Les Moonves of CBS; former Viacom boss Tom Freston; and Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone and US Weekly — were quintessential rich liberals. But any Marxist observer at the party would note that the guests true loyalty was less to a political ideology than to their class.

Gay magazine editor Neal Boulton keeps pissing off certain gays who think he's just not gay enough, and now they've worked themselves up into a lather over Boulton's latest and possibly worst-ever attack on the gay community, which is that he's moved back in with his wife and the mother of his child. Also, he's taking his wife on dates, and might be hooking up with other women to boot, allegedly including the one at left. Boulton insisted he was "quite gay" in November after he was spotted spending the weekend at his wife's place and emphasized that she was "the mother of my children." But of course Boulton is shamefully not gay at all, as proven conclusively by an anonymous email to the website Queerty, excerpted after the jump.

Aw, Jann Wenner's all growed up and seemingly responsible and stuff! The Rolling Stone publisher magnate wrapped up a deal in December to purchase a Hudson river estate in Tivoli, NY. At the moment, Wenner's on paternity leave while he and his partner adjust to the arrival of their baby twins via surrogate. We're picturing Baby Boom-inspired scenes of Wenner skittering across the frozen tundra to make his burping shift, and the image pleases us immensely. But with this new upstate-refuge-plus-suckling-infants makeover Wenner's got going on, wherever will we go for our dose of raging grandiose megalomaniacal assholery? Oh, erm. For a second we forgot where we lived. Never mind, Jann, nest away. You know, until you think people have forgotten about you, when we're sure you'll execute a perfectly graceful re-entry into Manhattan's orbit.