So: journalist, writer, and Sarah Palin critic Joe McGinniss was outfoxed in his attempt to bid on a dinner with Sarah Palin by $3,200, bringing the final bid to $63,500. The winner, please?

Gay cruising website Manhunt has crunched the numbers and discovered that men in Washington D.C. have the biggest dicks. Well, at least based on how big their members say their members are.

The PR push for Johnston's article in Vanity Fair started yesterday and people are already hating America's babydaddy and rooting for Sarah Palin. But her reality-television-turned-politics spectacle was getting stale and nothing reinvigorates an aging soap like a good rivalry.

• Charlie Gibson is retiring as anchor of ABC's World News Tonight at the end of the year; he'll be replaced by Diane Sawyer, who is stepping down as anchor of Good Morning America to take the job. And now Brian Williams will soon be the only man anchoring a nightly network newscast. [NYP]
• The 66th installment of the Venice Film Festival kicked off today. [THR]
• Thanks to the success of Royal Pains and Burn Notice, USA has scored the highest summer ratings in the history of cable television. [B&C]
• Current TV's Laura Ling and Euna Lee have broken their silence and are now describing some of what happened when they were captured in North Korea. Not all it, though. You'll have to buy their book to read the rest. [LAT]
• Is Jared Kushner looking to unload the Observer? That's the rumor. [Gawker]

You know how in Vanity Fair's behind-the-scenes video burgeoning gay icon Levi Johnston jokes with his manager about posing for Playgirl? Well, Gawker's learned it's not a joke. We've confirmed it's actually going to happen. But don't get too excited.

Ugh. What a terrible cover. "JACKIE: HER LONELIEST BATTLE," really? Was she furious that Audrina sided with Heidi? Did Brad stop calling her? Oh, but wait! Levi Johnston wrote a piece for the issue? Double really?

The Bravo honcho played god with our emotions last night on his masturbatory talk show when he told the Republican babydaddy not to do porn. Wasn't it just last week that you told him to get nude to begin with?

After saying he'd pose naked for the right price, Unzipped magazine (the gay answer to Playboy) has offered to pay America's babydady Levi Johnston to show off what's in his Levis. And he just might do it.

Last night Levi Johnston appeared on masturbatory Bravo exec and host Andy Cohen's Watch What Happens Live. Yeah, he's down with the gays. He better be, because in 10 years, he'll be a washed-up former pretty boy on VH1.

Unless you've been squatting in a partially-developed Williamsburg condo building, surely you've heard the news of the torrid Levi Johnston/Kathy Griffin affair currently taking the nation by storm. Tonight, Kathy and Levi dished on their hot Teen Choice Awards date.

• The case of the mercury-tainted sushi lives on: Chris Kattan ran into Jeremy Piven backstage during a taping of Alexa Chung's MTV show last week and made a crack about Piven's short stint on Broadway; a very offended Piven responded by calling Kattan's entire career into question. [NYDN]
• Madonna's Brazilian-born boy toy, Jesus Luz, is more than just a model: He's now a DJ, too. [P6]
• Bethenny Frankel is no fan of Gwyneth Paltrow: "I'd rather staple my eyelids shut than watch Gwyneth cook." We're going to assume the feeling is mutual. [NYDN]
• In what amounted to a two-way publicity stunt, Kathy Griffin and Levi Johnston (better known as Bristol Palin's baby daddy) turned up to the Teen Choice Awards last night holding hands. [Us]

Well look who showed up holding hands on the red carpet at the Teen Choice Awards tonight! America's most ubiquitous fag-hag and the Alaskan cock-gangsta himself. It's love!

Monkey Bar is Graydon Carter's Exclusive Lair of the Famous and Awesome. It's so exclusive, even NY Times dining critic Frank Bruni had a tough time getting in. You know who didn't? Levi Johnston. And two of his bodyguards.

Last week, we continued trying to figure out why Sarah Palin quit her job. We could think of a couple reasons! And today, the New York Times seems to throw its weight behind one of those reasons.

Sarah Palin, America's most notorious goldbricking defeatist, obviously has no idea what to do with herself now that she's returned home from the most painfully staged fishin' excursion ever, because she's just dropping dumb quotes all over her Twitter.

Levi Johnston, noted Palin daughter-nailer, has hired Tank Jones, "a size-58 suit-wearing black man," to manage his career and be his bodyguard. He's also developed an alter ego to help him destroy his Wasilla-ness and fully embrace douchedom—"Ricky Hollywood."

Hello, salacious political gossip cross-section: in an interview with AC SlaterExtra's Mario Lopez, Levi Johnston revealed that he was "half-Mexican." Really?

Todd offered Bristol a new ride to get her to dump Levi, Spencer Pratt is the "King of Weed," Paris Hilton thinks that The Hills is "so lame and fake," Kate Hudson is traveling with the Yankees to bone A-Rod, and Susan Boyle may be institutionalized very shortly.

Has her being stuck between her insane mother and the vindictive family of her ex made you feel sympathetic toward Bristol Palin? Well, this morning she went on the TV to help with that.

"I would like to nominate Miss California as the new face of the marriage movement," NOM head Maggie Gallagher recently said. A wonderful idea, she'll fit right in with the rest of the GOP leadership!