megalomaniacs

Anna Wintour Said Replaced By French Counterpart

Ryan Tate · 12/02/08 12:13AM

The Waverly Inn was crawling with Condé Nast insiders earlier tonight, some of whom had been waiting as long as 20 years for the appetizer: The hot, delicious rumor that Si Newhouse was meeting in Paris with Carine Roitfeld to work out the final details of the French Vogue editor's move to New York, where she is expected to take over flagship Vogue from Anna Wintour immediately after New Year's. It did not go unnoticed when Condé Nast overlord Newhouse departed early for his annual three-week December vacation in Vienna; it turns out he needed time for his meeting with uptight Wintour's chic Parisian counterpart.

Is Anna Wintour Ready to Retire?

Ryan Tate · 11/18/08 07:33AM

Before Devil Wears Prada was filmed, before Project Runway made its reality television debut, before fashion grew beyond even the prominent role she had envisioned for it, Anna Wintour was compared in the Times to George W. Bush. It was one of Maureen Dowd's absurdly tortured analogies, but one of the rare ones that today sounds less ridiculous: If Page Six's source is to be believed, the Vogue editor is, like Bush, about to step away from the monster she's created, leaving to a more glamorous successor the job of revival. There is plenty to be done:

Tim Robbins Disenfranchised Himself

Ryan Tate · 11/11/08 05:21AM

You may recall that Tim Robbins "flipped out" at poll workers on election day, accusing them of abridging his "freedom to vote" by offering him a provisional ballot and then politely asking him to please leave the voting area since his name was not on their list. The actor had been voting at the polling place for 15 years, you see, and was used to being totally VIPed. The incident was clearly part of a conspiracy by New York City bureaucrats against rich white Hollywood liberals, so staff at the Times and at City Hall were immediately assigned to parallel investigations. The conclusion: Tim Robbins is confused and possibly senile. Reports the Times:

FedEx CEO Says Most People Lazy Wealth Stealers

Ryan Tate · 10/27/08 04:52AM

Though they may lavish Wall Street Journal reporters with leaks and other scoops, American corporate executives tend to keep their names out of the newspaper's editorial pages. Overt support for the opinion section's relentlessly right-wing politics carries too much risk of customer blowback. But FedEx founder and CEO Fred Smith will tolerate no such sissiness. A former George W. Bush fraternity brother, Smith was named as a possible Bush defense secretary and has become involved with John McCain's presidential run. Fair enough. But Smith has to figure many customers might take it personally when tells the Journal opinion section "a majority of the population" is unproductive and greedy:

Softer Murdoch Eyes Times

Ryan Tate · 09/02/08 06:00AM

It should really come as no surprise that News Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch wants to be respected by the limo liberals who (officially) disdain his politics and tactics. That's why he paid so dearly for the Wall Street Journal, and was proud for having done so, right? But no one really thought age and young wife Wendi Deng would gentrify Murdoch's barbarian soul to such an extent that he now spins fantasies about buying the Times from one side of his mouth while betraying his conservative shock troops at Fox News Channel out of the other. Murdoch's brash past is becoming an embarrassment to him as his portfolio becomes more respectable, at least according to Michael Wolff, who excerpted his sanctioned Murdoch biography in the October Vanity Fair. And yet the Aussie can't help but revert to his old ways, like when he told Wolff that Muslims are, as a group, inbred:

Fox News Flacks: O Hai, Sorry 'Bout Da Smears!

Ryan Tate · 07/14/08 10:12PM

How does Fox News' vicious PR department respond to charges it smeared a Times reporter as a drug addict, blamed a pregnant Wall Street Journal reporter's hormones for unfavorable coverage, and that chief Irena Briganti blackballed, bullied and threatened virtually all the reporters she came into contact with? By distributing to TV critics a button with pictures of kittens and hearts, reading "Hugs & Kittens from Fox News Media Relations." Ha ha, get it? It's funny because reporters who can't take Fox's hardball PR tactics are babies who expect to be coddled. Instead, they will be devoured by Fox News chief Roger Ailes, with kittens and human hearts as the appetizer. [TVNewser] (Image via TVNewser)

Shirtless Actors Wrestle Over Underwear

Ryan Tate · 06/13/08 05:08AM

Mario Lopez, right, was a big star on TV's Saved By The Bell and doesn't like sharing the stage with his younger Chorus Line co-star Nick Adams, left. And what Lopez especially doesn't like is when Adams' biceps take the attention away from his bicepts. So Lopez refused to wear a long-sleeved sweater, as called for in the script, preferring instead a tight t-shirt to show off his "guns." And he had Adams outfitted with a baggy hoodie and relegated to the back in the opening dance routine. But now Lopez is finally getting his comeuppance, just as any decent dramatic plotline would dictate. It seems a men's underwear company, once smitten with Lopez, has switched its attention to Nick. Writes Page Six:

The Clintons' Media Enemies List

Ryan Tate · 06/11/08 03:20AM

Hillary and Bill Clinton keep — oh, sorry, their "aide" keeps — a big ole list of everyone who has done them wrong, including allies who are perceived to have defected to the Obama camp. Many of their supporters and associates also have lists of the "ingrates," "traitors" and "enemies" who wronged the former president and his wife. Are there any media people on this list? Are you kidding? They are "charter members," because if there is anyone Hillary and Bill hate, it is the press. (Chelsea too, probably.) Some names:

Insane Clinton Dead-Enders Celebrate Glorious Puerto Rico Victory

Ryan Tate · 06/01/08 08:37PM

Hillary Clinton's suicide cult followers trailed her all the way to Puerto Rico, where they celebrated the Democratic presidential candidate's two-to-one victory over Barack Obama by, once again, wearing stickers on their foreheads, this time at a rally/brainwashing session in San Juan. Only 10 percent of eligible Puerto Ricans bothered to show up at the polls, because they know pandering, disingenuous gringos when they see them . Clinton is, as predicted, using the victory as proof that she won the popular vote in the Democratic primary, an assertion that requires the counting of Clinton's dubious victories in Florida and Michigan. After the jump, a video in which two crazed Clinton cultists scream about the Democratic National Committee's decision to seat only half of the improperly elected delegates from those states.

Suicide Cult Phase Reached By Clinton Campaign

Ryan Tate · 05/07/08 01:01AM

Hillary Clinton squeaked by with 23,000 votes in Indiana. The Democratic presidential candidate ran out of money. Supposedly she has canceled public appearances the next few days. Matt Drudge and Tim Russert say it's over. Who is still standing behind Clinton, chanting "Yes she can?" Crazy dead-ender cult people like the ones in the picture above, with goddamned stickers on their foreheads. After the jump, Gawker videographer Richard Blakeley (who spotted the stickers) imagines the conversation that led to this awful visual: