"Someone should tell Taibbi that it's the predictable disgust of people like him that make the culture-war posturing of people like Sarah Palin so resonant with the many, many folks who like pick-up trucks and plasma TVs and aren't ashamed of it." [Portfolio]

HuffPo gets to the bottom of Erica Jong nemesis Matt Taibbi's philosophy of journalism: Q: "You spend a lot of time describing the physical features of the people you attack — is there a particular logic, or reasoning behind this?" A: "Um... it's funny?" [HuffPo]

Rolling Stone, America's most frustrating magazine (yay, Matt Taibbi; boo, excruciating music coverage) has been having some trouble selling ads lately. So to help revitalize its "iconic and revolutionary brand," the magazine has slapped some of its classic covers on t-shirts. They're for sale at Macy's for $36 each. Eh, not really worth it. Oh, wait: each shirt comes with a free subscription to Rolling Stone. Eh, still. Better idea: make the magazine better so it sells. "The new collection of Rolling Stone tees appeals to today's cross-channel lifestyle, bringing together the influences of fashion, music, celebrity and entertainment," says a Macy's exec. "Macy's is honored to be exclusively bringing back these covers in a new, wearable way." OH NOW I GET IT. [via Ad Age]

Erica Jong says Matt Taibbi wants to fuck his mom! But he can't, so instead he channeled that desire into print by calling Hillary Clinton's arms "flabby." It's all part of the feminist author Jong's theory of "Misogyny, Momism, and Militarism," which she chronicled on the Huffington Post. "Momism is a kind of Oedipal obsession with the bad mother — to counter a boy's attraction to his good mother...You cannot fuck your mother so you must revile her," she explains. Taibbi, the angry Rolling Stone writer who is the most entertaining political journo in America, surprisingly took offense to Jong's logical inference that his use of an accurate adjective in a magazine story pointed to his own desire for incest. So he replied: you're an old, ignorant hack, Erica Jong!

After teabagging Barack Obama for the past nine months, Rolling Stone political writer Matt Taibbi still considers the magazine's political coverage Gonzo-esque: "We have the license to talk about things that other people won't because we're a music magazine and we don't have to worry about access for anything." While it is true that Rolling Stone's access is shit, Obama's only fear in talking to them would be not getting a halo drawn over his head. Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail was about the 1972 election. But maybe Rolling Stone has license to talk about things that they think other people won't because it's irrelevant. [MediaBistro]

While we don't have a copy of Old Man Wenner's Guide to Popular Music, a reader informs us that in the latest Rolling Stone, psychedelic journo Matt Taibbi writes:

• Does Jann want to sell off Wenner Media? [WWD]
• And does Time Warner no longer want to sell off part of AOL? [NYT]
• Former Regan Media flack Paul Crichton could be considering suing his old boss Judith over her characterization of his departure. Oh, the fun never stops over there. [Radar]
• Washington Post Magazine Reader Peter Carlson discovers the charms of erstwhile New York Presser and onetime Spicoli gondolier Matt Taibbi. [WP]
• ABC went with Vargas and Woodruff only after the network couldn't reach a deal with Charlie Gibson. [NYT]
• And apparently there's this cool blog revolutionizing Hollywood coverage. [LA Mag]

• Gawker Media pooped out yet another baby: Introducing Deadspin, our heterosexual attempt at sports blogging!
• Seventeen forced us to learn about the vagina.
• Fox's The O.C. returned to our lonely lives, but not without the Daily News ruining it for us first.
• We wondered if the New York Press' Matt Taibbi had set sail with Sean Penn. You said yes, and the man himself confirmed.
• Martha Stewart kicked off her press tour with a thoughtful stop by the Today show.
• Gay blog Queerty made its debut, sponsored by the equally gay Navy.
• Radar finally found its home.
• We confirmed that, as we suspected, Anna Wintour wears the pants around Men's Vogue — that is, when she's able to stay on her feet.
• We lost our innocence regarding taxicops.
• We asked for your help in selling out.

We've already conclusively determined that erstwhile New York Presser Matt Taibbi went boating with Sean Penn in New Orleans last week. But sometimes — believe it or not — plebiscite isn't the best methodology for determining an individual's whereabouts. Thanks to the reader, then, who located this comment on a Blogcritics.org item:

Yesterday we asked if you thought that was quit/fired New York Press columnist Matt Taibbi going for a New Orleans boat ride with Sean Penn. Oh, do you think so. Indeed, this is about as close to unanimous as these things get:

In all the excitement over the sinking of Sean Penn's New Orleans rescue boat, we totally overlooked the real New York media angle on that story.

Just as we were hoping. Publishing part of quit/fired former New York Press columnist Matt Taibbi's broadsides at the paper's founder, Russ Smith, yesterday elicited impassioned responses. It's clear now that Smith is, as Taibbi charged, responsible for the evisceration of the paper. Or else it's clear that he's not.

Finally, an explanation for why the New York Press sucks. In an interview published in The Toilet Paper, freshly resigned/fired Press columnist Matt Taibbi — who looks like the "computer-generated love child of Ashton Kutcher and Peter Beinart," as a mildly deranged reader recently pointed out — points the finger squarely at Press founder and former owner Russ Smith (who, in fairness, has pointed many a finger at Taibbi over the years).

Well, we kept waiting for someone else to cover it, but apparently we're the only ones who care (and, frankly, we don't): With the new editors at The New York Press getting all settled in, that means some old warhorses are leaving. And by "warhorse," we mean "smug I'm-in-a-better-place-now-anyway asshead," and by that we mean "Matt Taibbi." The famous Pope death chronicler decided to announce his resignation once the new editors came in, in typically classy, honorable fashion.

A NY Press reader subtlely voices his displeasure with Matt Taibbi's April 16th article, "Unfair Hike":