Michael Kinsley, the dignified journalist and dinner companion to David Denby, starts his review of the new Newsweek reboot with this: “Having recently been dumped by Time, I naturally had great hopes for this week’s much-anticipated makeover of Newsweek.” And 2,000 annoying words later — including a long bit about masturbating to a large photograph of the homophobic idiot Miss California — he closes with this: “Don’t forget to cancel your subscription to Time while you’re at it.” MORE »

DOES OBAMA HATE OUR IMPORTANT NEWSPAPERS? “Last week, this president — a mere child in diapers when my generation was enjoying civil rights and the Beatles — hosted a press conference that was a vulgar deformation of the term. Instead of taking questions from the White House reporters from our most important newspapers, Obama led a rudderless free-for-all in which seemingly any miscreant who wandered in off the street could pose a question to the leader of the free world.” [AOL Political Machine]

Are the McCain-Palin people even aware that Tina Fey is making fun of them, all the time? Oh, wait … this is a magazine cover from 2004. Which still doesn’t make any sense. Why, in 2004, did the editors of this (obviously now defunct) magazine decide that the best illustration of the Kerry-Bush race was … a picture of a teevee comic who doesn’t portray either of them, and a guy who was soundly beaten for the GOP nomination four years earlier, in 2000? There is no answer, no “figuring it out.” Just enjoy the random strangeness of Tina Fey mocking McCain on a magazine newspaper-supplement cover four years ago. [Poynter Forums]