• The other end of the notepad: Alicia C. Shepard, author of Woodward and Bernstein: Life in the Shadow of Watergate, dug deep into the formerly swashbuckling Washington Post reporters' archives to find the dirt on the deep throat duo. Among the revelations (reported by Rush & Molloy), Robert Redford thought Woodward, "cuts you off. Makes you feel that what you are saying is unimportant or that he doesn't have time" and their WaPo editor, Barry Sussman is still pissed he wasn't invited to co-write All The President's Men.
• Post calls the kettle black: Page Six has some fun today reporting that Joe Mahoney, Albany reporter for rival Daily News, was busted for alleged drunk driving and marijuana possession. Mahoney was found to have a blood-alcohol level of .10. Not mentioned was the fact that Page Six editor Richard Johnson has had his own DUI busts, one gleefully reported by (natch) The Daily News, the other dredged up from 1997 by The New York Observer.
• Sacrifice: NBC's cutting more than employees these days. The network's also chopping Madonna's controversy-baiting disco crucifixion staging of "Live to Tell" from its broadcast of her Confessions concert. The stunt has already done its job, drumming up controversy with conservative pundits and religious figures. Madonna, of course, says she did it for the children: "My performance is neither anti-Christian, sacrilegious or blasphemous. Rather, it is my plea to the audience to encourage mankind to help one another... My specific intent is to bring attention to the millions of children in Africa who are dying every day, and are living without care, without medicine and without hope. I am asking people to open their hearts and minds to get involved in whatever way they can." You know, like adopting a kid or something.
• Killing joke: Plans for a faux Muslim-themed trashy tabloid called the Daily Fatwa have been scrapped by the Daily Star, a real trashy tabloid in the U.K. With its "Page 3 Burkha Babes Special" (a not entirely original conceit) and headlines such as "Jordan Silences Her Knockers," it was going to give those Danish cartoons a run for their money. The National Union of Journalists universally condemned the planned spoof saying, "Having the right to be offensive does not mean that it is right to be offensive." Someone tell that to the New York Post.