I Want Media today fawns over Michael Wolff, and in so doing it reminds us of why we've always had a soft spot for ol' baldie:

• Best-selling crime writer Mary Higgins Clarke may have lifted her schlock from an Israeli writer's much-distributed screenplay. So, to review: James Frey is fake, JT Leroy is fake, and now your mom's favorite writer is fake. [Lowdown]
• Tom Cruise considers suing Life & Style for reporting that he had split with fiancée Katie Holmes. Uh, considers? The Tom Cruise we know would've served them with papers 2 days before the damn thing hit the stands. What's become of you, Tom? You're a shell of your former self. [IMDb]
• Teri Hatcher doesn't have a publicist, which means she sends nasty emails to Jeanette Walls. [Scoop]
• Brit actor Daniel Craig is reportedly well-endowed, which is probably the only qualification one needs to play James Bond. [Page Six]
• Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff bites the hand that entertains his boss. [Page Six]
• Spike Lee wags a righteous finger at 50 Cent for dressing his kid in a bulletproof vest. We don't see what the problem is — shouldn't Baby Cent know the warmth of Kevlar? [R&M]

The new Vanity Fair — you know, the Hollywood issue, which was produced by Tom Ford, and which features cover model Tom Ford — hits New York and Los Angeles newsstands tomorrow, and it's starting to trickle onto the web today. Good ol' Jimmy Romenesko, for example, calls our attention to Michael Wolff's latest column, a 3,500-word treatise arguing that there is no good reason for Time Warner to exist. It's all pretty damning, especially when delivered in that classically, bitchily Wolffian way:

• Candace Bushnell and her Stanford Blatch-inspiring ex-manager are suing each other over money. Which seems far more like the real New York than Sex and the City ever did. [Radar]
• You know things are getting weird when far lefty Bob Scheer is echoing VF bobo Michael Wolff on the Plame case: Judy Miller is no hero, and the public should be more important than her sources. [LAT]
• E&P peacenik Greg Mitchell calls for newspapers to call for withdrawl from Iraq. Again. [E&P]
• The many personalities of Michiko Kakutani. [Media Mob/NYO]

There's only one thing we love more than bitchy journalists, and it's bitchy journalists bitching at one another. Take, for example, this dialogue between investigative reporter Murray Waas and Vanity Fair thinktank Michael Wolff, regarding Valerie Plame, Karl Rove, Judith Miller and all other brouhahas worthy of a "-gate" suffix:

We don't much like panel discussions. No one says anything new, no one changes anyone's mind, and the food is rarely any good. But Court TV promised breakfast at Michael's and a crew of media bigshots who don't much like each other, and so it seemed worth showering earlier than we have in months and getting on the E train to midtown.

Editor & Publisher grand poobah Greg Mitchell previews Michael Wolff's column on Plamegate in the forthcomingnew Vanity Fair — that's the Jennifer Aniston issue, and, no, by the time it hits newsstands there won't be anything in it you haven't already read about —, and he discovers Wolff in full-on conspiracy-theorist mode. [Update: OK, it's been out for a while, and we should leave the house more often.]

The Nation recently reported that right-wing radio show host Rush Limbaugh unleashed his listeners on New York mag's media critic Michael Wolff for complaining that CentCom briefings were not useful. Wolff got 3,000 hate emails from Limbaugh listeners. I, in return, provided Mr. Limbaugh's email address, for anyone who felt like defending Mr. Wolff. Predictably, I got hate mail as well, and despite my usual masochistic impulse to publish what little hate mail we do receive, I declined because most of it consisted of compelling arguments like, "I tape all of Limbaugh's shows every day, and he never said that! You're a moron, you stupid prick!" (You tape all of Limbaugh's shows every day, and I'm the moron? I'm sorry; your logic eludes me.)

MediaBistro interviews New York magazine's media critic (although he'd prefer not to be called that) Michael Wolff and gets media critiqued:
MB: And how did that come to be? Were you old friends with [New York editor-in-chief] Caroline Miller? I mean, how did that opportunity arise?
MW: No, I wasn t. I had never met her before. You don t know anything about me, do you?
MB: It's a Q&A. I'm trying to let you talk about this stuff.
MW: These are terrible questions. You can t just ask someone, give me your resume.
Meet the (meta) press: Michael Wolff [MediaBistro]

Rush Limbaugh recently played clips of New York magazine's media critic and embedded journalist Michael Wolff asking questions during CentCom briefings. Limbaugh accused Wolff of being unpatriotic and antimilitary and gave his listeners Wolff's email address, encouraging them to voice their displeasure. I thought I'd return the favor. Rush Limbaugh's email address is 70277.2502@compuserve.com
The Doha follies [The Nation via Romenesko]

· Hugh Grant on acting: "I kind of hate it. In fact, I hate it quite a lotall acting, but especially movie acting." He says he's quitting acting and wants to find a nice girl and settle down. [Page Six]
· The New Yorker has been fielding irate phone calls from people who mistakenly think New York magazine's embedded reporter, Michael Wolff, is working for them. The callers are angry that Wolff ("that racist reporter") asked Brigadier General Vincent Brooks, who is black, why he was fielding questions instead of his boss, Gen. Tommy Franks. [Page Six]
· Filmmaker Joel Soler, who just finished a documentary on Saddam Hussein, reports that the evil dictator of the moment, perhaps taking his cue from J-Lo: "likes everything pure and white. Before he goes to sleep, a doctor checks the temperature of the room." [NY Daily News]

NY Mag media reporter Michael Wolff is an official "embed" and is reporting from CentCom. Jeff Jarvis reports: "Today, Gen. Renuart called on him as 'the gentleman with my kind of haircut.' Wolff asked the general whether the media was misrepresenting the progress of the war... or not. 'The media is reality,' the general replied. 'The media is a snapshot of what it sees at that point in time.... The challenge has been the immediacy.... I don't think the media has had an adverse effect... I think most of the commanders are comfortable.' [Ed. note"the media is reality"? There's a frightening thought.]
Embedded in the press corps [Buzzmachine]

AIIIIIIEEEE!!! The war! The war! NY Mag's Michael Wolff argues that the American media has been whipped into a sat-phone-and-kevlar-crazed frenzy over the war and that everyone's so excited that they're all on their uncharacteristically "best-boy" behavior ("except that old bag, Helen Thomas.") The countdown to the inevitable Bush backlash has begun.
Behind the lines [NY Mag]

Michael Wolff examines two other culprits behind the reality TV craze: NBC entertainment head Jeff Zucker and ABC entertainment exec Susan Lyne. Wolff, explaining the reality TV craze, writes "It was almost as though network television were being maintained on a sophisticated combination of mood-stabilizing drugs, but suddenly, everybody went on some scary street shit." He also asks what we've all been thinking: how far can the reality TV go? "At what point, after what humiliations, do reasonable and thoughtful men and women just walk off the set?"
Oh! Get Real! [NY Mag]

Michael Wolff says the sky is fallingvery very slowly. The economy sucks, war is coming, and there's always the constant threat of terrorism. As a result, New Yorkers find themselves in a perpetual state of anxiety; we're always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Wolff predicts that things will stay this way until it finally does. I keep hearing about the collective anxiety to which he's referring, but somehow I don't think it has quite penetrating my group of friends (or myself) who are presently plotting duct tape parties, cracking "code orange" jokes, and watching or participating in anti-war protests, martinis-in-hand. Then again, maybe the panic is just very subtle.
What, us worry? Yes, us worry. [NY Mag]

Michael Wolff says book publishing is as dead as the trees upon which its bestsellers are printed. Wolff speculates that the industry has a tendency to hire people that need to be around books and that this results in publishing companies full of bibliophiles who failed at other pursuits.
Book review [NY Mag]

Michael Wolff speculates that Walter Isaacson's departure from CNN is perhaps indicative of AOL/TW's accelerating nosedive into irrelevancy. (Minor sideline: Wolff also mentions that his book, Burn Rate, is being turned into a musical. Dear god.)
The altar of Walter [NY Magazine]

Michael Wolff asks, "what happens when all the big media moguls die?" Wolff speculates that the big consolidation moves that have been accelerating over the last few years will die off with their advocates. "No more complicated deals," vows AOL/TW CEO, Richard Parsons. It's a nice thought, but CEOs of public companies vowing "no more complicated deals" is like Wall Street vowing "no more greed." As long as the possibility existshowever remotethat one's company could potentially be stronger, grab significant market share, or simply make more money by doing an acquisition, the M&A temptation will remain. And let's be realistic. At the Fortune 500 level, every deal is complicated.
Playing mogul murder [NY Magazine]

Michael Wolff whines that he's not getting enough attention from Mayor Mike. And neither is the rest of The Media. He cites Harvey Weinstein and Trent Lott as examples of failure to properly manage the press (or in Weinstein's case, too agressively managing the press) and warns that Bloomberg may be next if he doesn't demonstrate the proper deference to the Fourth Estate. "He's not afraid of us," Wolff writes, incredulously. Well, no.
The Unspun [NY Magazine]

Michael Wolff goes trolling AOL chat roomsyou know, for research purposes and reveals what has long been the Internet's biggest open secret: AOL is essentially an "adult entertainment" business. Wolff correctly surmises that Time Warner "doesn't get it." Online dating is now socially acceptable, and the dirty side of AOL gets more respectable as the taboos about meeting people online erode. (John Podhoretz is doing it for chrissakes!)
You've got sex [NY Magazine]