Wonkette

Here is a picture of a Washington media person. Her name is Bridget Garwood and she works for something called York Zimmerman, Inc., which is apparently a media company in DC. Ms. Garwood is one of the contestants in the “Hottest Media Types, Female, Off Air” contest at Fishbowl DC. We are featuring her photo to give you a totally off-base impression of all the rest of the photos, which do not have nearly so much breasts/scowling. (But Kelly Torrance of the Washington Times does appear to be naked.) There are many lovely ladies from which to choose, including our own star photographer, the lovely Liz Gorman, and we encourage you to vote early and often, for her. The prize is one million (Second Life) dollars. MORE »

Karen Feld: out at the Examiner.
FishbowlDC: looking for a new co-editor. MORE »

* The Washington Wire’s sense of humor isn’t dead after all; it’s just very badly burned. [WSJ] MORE »

* We hope Neil Young will remember some words that rhyme with “war” besides “door.” [Brooklyn Vegan] MORE »

You came through again, everyone. This week’s sightings are all over both the map and the stratified Washington hierarchy. Helen Thomas apparently likes to eat with the kewl kids, even if she’s just gumming it. Kevin Nealon, Newt Gingrich, and Marion Barry pull some nice trim. Ted Koppelhas a death wish. Morgan Spurlock keeps trying to supersize his career and Tom Friedman’s mustache of wisdom has nothing to do with Napoleon.

A whole rack more, as standard, after the jump.

Please don’t forget that Wonk’d is entirely tipster driven. So when you spot someone famous out there, make a note in your PDA, ’cause you’ll have other hazy memories to sort through in the morning. Once you feel that reminder buzzing you, email us here, with “Wonk’d” or “Sighting” in the subject line (along with the name of the celeb that you saw). Thanks!

And speaking of sights to see: YES, we are aware of the frightening photos of Katherine Harris “getting her cougar on” with a cute young college journalist. We will be blogging about them shortly.

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We like the crew over at FishBowlDC and admire their work, which we link to frequently. But given our weakness for irony, as well as our obsession with all things media, we’d be falling down on the job if we didn’t pass along this reader email.

This may take a little concentration — so put down that plastic salad fork and focus. First, read this FishBowl DC item:

Washingtonian’s Kim Eisler is not at all happy with Howard Kurtz. Personally, we’re just amused that at the end of a column spent documenting some other reporter’s conflicts-of-interest, Kurtz profiles a correspondent on the network where Kurtz himself moonlights. Irony alert!

Second, read this “meta-irony alert!” from a Wonkette reader:

Stay with me here as I go all David Foster Wallace on your ass — Um…. the writer of said FishBowl item, Garrett Graff, is the editor at large of the Washingtonian. So — let’s say that Graff highlights how a colleague is not at all happy with Howie Kurtz (whom Graff blowjobish-ly profiled for, uh, the Washingtonian, and what a PLEASELIKEME hummer it was!).

And we are personally amused that Garrett Graff — at the end of his item on how a colleague is upset at a subject of a previous Graff profile AND how said subject has a conflict of interest by dint of his moonlighting job… neglects to so much as intimate that, in the very act of blogging about a guy who’s mad at another guy, who also has a conflict of interest… Garrett soi meme is moonlighting and creating an even more bizarre conflict of interest by reporting about a colleague and refusing to mention it.

Whoa! Didja get all that? If so, then here’s one more thing to note for the record. At the very end of his column, Kurtz at least discloses his potential conflict: “Howard Kurtz hosts CNN’s weekly media program, Reliable Sources.” As noted by our source, Graff does not.

Our musings on this tempest in a teapot — or bubbling in a fishbowl — continue after the jump.

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First, the good news: Pandacam has returned. Right now, Butterstick is sleeping. Oooh! He just rolled over…. Now his legs are twitching! Aww… He’s a little ball of fur. Awwwwwww…. MORE »

Thanks to FishbowlDC, we in the Gawker Aquarium emitted little gasp bubbles this morning to learn that Backfence.com, a service operating “community-focused Web sites,” has just received a $3 million cash infusion from tech backers SAS Investors and Omidyar Network. The site, which launched this spring, has already given gossip-mongers, horny housewives, and perverts in Reston, McLean and Bethesda even more reasons to go on living. Craigslist gets a snugglier block radius: MORE »

We received this letter yesterday regarding the allegation that WT’s gossipmonger John McCaslin lifted his item about liberal bleating at a screening of “The Killers” from a right-wing blog:

As sent to Fishbowl…..
Garrett, thanks (I think) for the pair of plugs. I liked the first item better. My source for the item in question, who was a member of the film audience, is obviously the contributor to the blog. What appeared in my column is what he sent to me — in his own language — after he had telephoned me while I was in California that same week. He obviously rewrote what he had written for the Libertas blog. I had never seen the blog item until you posted portions of its text next to my text. I would appreciate you making this clear in your next fishbowl.
Thank you, John McCaslin  

There you go. McCaslin is not a plagiarist. And we don’t know where you got the idea he was lazy. MORE »