The late '90s were a heady time for the late-night monologist, with all the easy jokes about stained blue dresses, cigars, crawling under the desk, and blow jobs in the Oval Office that the protracted Lewinsky/Clinton scandal delivered them on a silver platter with the White House seal emblazoned on it. Letterman made such a franchise out of it, he had a hard time letting the convention die. Now that everyone knows he's been giving it to members of his own staff, he's going to have to endure the sting of the same jibes from Leno, O'Brien, Fallon, and even poor, forgotten Kimmel.

Here's a compendium of some of his comedic gems that have turned themselves into barbs:

Monica Lewinsky's Top Ten Nicknames for Bill Clinton"

10. Puffy the Intern Slayer
9. Sheriff Bubba
8. The Chief Sexecutive
7. Unnamed High-Ranking Official
6. My Sweet Impeachable You
5. The Little Rock Rascal
4. El Presidente del Armor
3. Tubby Dearest
2. Commander-in-Briefs
1. Free Willie 2

[Source]

"Now we hear that Monica has sued the President for $1,000,002.50. That's one million for pain and suffering and $2.50 for dry cleaning."

"I really have to hand it to the White House. Around here we can't even get the interns to work the copy machine."

[Source]

"You may think you have a stressful job, but since she's been a Senator, Hillary Clinton, they say, put on 30 pounds. In fact, she has gotten so heavy that today Bill hit on her."

"Celebrity birthdays, today Monica Lewinsky is 28. It seemed like just yesterday she was crawling around on the floor in the Oval Office."

"No move ever goes smoothly. Today Clinton's brand new desk arrived. He had to send it back, apparently not enough head room."
— David Letterman

[Source]

"Monica Lewinsky has her own show on HBO. I have not seen it yet but I understand it's getting very good word of mouth." -David Letterman

"Monica Lewinsky was on Larry King Live tonight. Monica really liked Larry King. Actually, she likes any guy with a desk."

[Source]

"Over the weekend President Clinton's dog Buddy died. It is a heartbreaking thing because Buddy was a great dog. Buddy could rollover, Buddy would beg. Buddy could catch things in his mouth - wait a minute - I'm sorry. I am thinking of Monica."

"President Bush has authorized the drop of 15,000-pound bombs on Afghanistan. I believe that is the heaviest ordered drop by a president since ... well, Monica."

"It turns out now that Bill Clinton ... he had tape recorders working in the Oval Office. This could get pretty good. They apparently were voice activated, just like his fly. These tapes are available to everybody. There's 80 in the Clinton audiotape collection. And if you buy all 80, he'll throw his sex video, 'Too Hot for the Starr Report.' ... The tape recorder was equipped with forward, reverse and pause, just like his interns. ... The people that have listened to them say you can't really hear anything because of the sound of Monica's head thumping on the desk."

"The House has approved drilling for oil in the Alaska wilderness. Say what you will about Clinton, but he was only interested in drilling in the Oval Office."

"Bush went to Wisconsin, to a Harley Davidson factory and rode a motorcycle. It's the biggest thing a president has ridden since ... I just can't bring myself to throw that joke away."

"Well, President Clinton has gotten himself a new dog. You know, I think it's changing his life, kind of brightening him up. He's teaching the dog to sit up, to beg, to roll-over, you know, just like he did with the interns."

[Source]

Halperin, who inflicted The Note on the world before moving to Time, sold an option HBO Films to turn into a movie his forthcoming 2008 campaign book Game Change, even though that book is effectively an extended correction on his last book.

The studio, which does projects for both the eponymous premium cable channel and the big screen, has already hired a writer (Charles Leavitt) to do the screen adaptation.

Halperin will serve as a consultant to the movie, alongside John Heilemann, the New York magazine political writer he's been blessed to have as a co-author on the book. HBO will need all the help it can get: Like the book, the film Game Change will attempt to track three campaigns and five politicians

Usually a movie like this would take you behind the scenes of a campaign, but there's only so deep you can go when you're hopping between Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin and John McCain. (Sad Joe Biden will apparently be reduced to a bit part.) Maybe HBO is thinking miniseries.

In any case, it will be fun to watch the casting decisions unfold, and to relive the 2008 campaign through the eyes of a man who thought John McCain was on fire the week he said "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." Maybe we'll find out he was right after all.

To recap: Bill was working as a vaguely defined "adviser" for some investment funds owned by Yucaipa, Burkle's company. Then his wife goes and runs for president so Bill publicly "severed business ties" with Burkle, presumably to avoid being photographed with more attractive young women on Burkle's plane.

But! Bill's consolation prize was that Yucaipa would pay him $20 million when he left. For what? Nobody's really sure! But there were lots of things that could blow up in Bill's (and by extension, Hillary's) face, politically:

Mr. Clinton was one of the three owners of the foreign fund's general partner, along with Mr. Burkle and Dubai Investment Group (YGP) Ltd., an entity that was part of the business empire of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai.

The Yucaipa connection presented other potential difficulties for Mrs. Clinton, people familiar with the matter said. In late 2007, the foreign fund invested in a Chinese media company, Xinhua Finance Media Ltd., whose parent company had past ties to the Beijing government.

Oh you know who else was connected to Clinton via Burkle? Convicted scam artist Raffaello Follieri! So, my working theory here is that taking the money would have caused too much of a headache for Hillary in the press, and also, since Bill's payout was theoretically tied to how much he earned, maybe there wasn't all that much money there to be had anyhow. But if you know better, feel free to share. [WSJ]

Ron Burkle: Our tipster reports: "Ronny Burkle was lurking around the William Rast show last night with his pal Danny A. (Model wrangler extraordinaire who is BFF with Leo DiCaprio. Danny A. is the guy who is mostly responsible for filling Burkle's jet with attractive females.) A cloud of around 15 teenage girls swarmed Justin Timberlake (Rast is his label) as he left the show; I can't imagine Burkle was far behind." Yea, if he looked more dashing he might be able to get away with it. But that ratlike visage just sinks him. Give it up, Burkle.


Bill Clinton: You need to stop hanging out with Ron Burkle first of all, Bill! Even a serious Bill fan who considered the whole blowjob-in-the-Oval-Office thing to be really punk rock has got to admit that the time has come for Bill to retire from skirt chasing. (Not that there's any proof he still is!). Now you can enjoy sleeping with the Secretary of State, Bill. Can we call you Bill?


Steve Bing: Real estate heir, big time developer, Hollywood money man, Burkle and Clinton pal. He's 43 and he fathered a baby with Elizabeth Hurley out of wedlock. And he had another paternity battle with his other ex, who was Kirk Kerkorian's gal! All we're saying here is find a nice lady and settle down for fuck's sake. This Burkle-led triumvirate has spent more than enough time being the old dudes up in the club.


Mario Batali: The portly ginger-haired restaurateur enjoys whizzing around on his moped, wearing Crocs, manipulating salamis, traveling about Spain with Gwyneth Paltrow, and doing who knows what to young lasses in the back rooms of restaurants across Manhattan. We like your Olive Oil Ice Cream dude, but you're almost 50, and we just don't want to think about Mario Batali's sexuality. That's all there is to it really.


Ron Perelman: The bald-headed corporate raider is thrice-divorced, richer than god, and prone to playing the field, as many billionaires are. We don't like your looks, your gruff personality, or your shady PR firm, Perelman. When you next get married, consider very carefully whether you would like to stay married to said lucky woman.


But we do like:

Salman Rushdie: Yes, he could be accused of being a creepy old man, what with his hobbit physique and penchant for dating women absurdly out of his league (you would think, at least). But give the man his props. He writes some bitchin' books. Stares down death threats. Then goes out with Padma and, currently, with Pia Glenn, who we saw in Will Ferrell's Broadway show and, we must say, does one mean dance. So Salman Rushdie can't be put down. He's smarter than all the guys above and cavorts with badder women.

In YouTube form! Because, that's how we demand things of our leaders these days. Basically people are making mash-ups of the West Wing opening, but with Barack and his cabinet members being featured as cast members rather than Leo, CJ, and the gang. It's such a cute little dream of a wish!

Except, sigh, it won't be that way. Because nothing will ever be like The West Wing. Never was, never will be. Bush started a White House grease fire while trying to make a bowl of cereal one night, and it's not gonna be easy to put out. The West Wing was a product of boom-time America. There was no Iraq War on the show. There was never a Katrina. Or a Prop 8. But in Obama's world — that is our world — all those things happened. And more. Much, much more.

The West Wing was such a wonderful bit of screen magic. It premiered in post-Lewinsky 1999 as a shadow government alternative to the Clinton administration. Here's how it was supposed to have gone down, creator Aaron Sorkin and his colleagues seemed to say. Sure, President Bartlett lied about having MS and had his wife pull some chicanery during the cover up and stuff. But that was like the biggest scandal of them all. (Oh, and he smoked — just like Barry!) Mostly it was just young, adorably rumpled people like Josh walking-and-talking around the office, piling word upon left-of-center word. They talked us into a belief that the dirty business of executive politics really isn't that dirty after all. Or at least it doesn't have to be.

And then Bush came along and then September 11th happened. And the whole fantasy was shattered. NBC aired a stand-alone episode in which the characters had a deep and thoughtful discussion about the nature of terrorism, and then they moved on. Back to President Bartlett and his sage wisdom, his gruff belief in the purity of some misty-eyed American ideal. Meanwhile in the real world, Bush and his Decepticons waged war with civility and diplomacy, basically ruining America forever. Eventually people stopped caring about The West Wing—the real world drama was just too horrifying and urgent to ever comfortably reenter that Washington idyll's atmosphere. Plus the show kinda started to suck.

A Sorkin-less crew of writers revitalized the show, creatively at least, in their final season with an eerily-similar-to-Obama story about Jimmy Smits running for president against old, rattly Alan Alda. The critics loved it. No one watched it. The show aired its final episode on May 14th, 2006.

And then Hope and Change happened and now everyone wants to press and hold that rewind button for even longer. Forget the terror of the last eight years, forget the way Clinton fucked up his legacy. Let's go alllll the way back to 1992. This is how it should have been. This is how it will be. With the young people! And the smarts! And the talking!

Still, we like the YouTube mash-up. Apparently someone sent a similar one to CJ herself, Allison Janney!

Boomp3.com

The New York University chapter of the Alpha Phi Zeta held their annual fall kick off scavenger hunt over the weekend in the Big Apple. This particular team consisted of a few pledges and their future sorority sister who, according to them, will be victorious in the "Best Photo With A Celebrity" after stumbling upon Pineapple Express star James Franco in the street. Meghan Jefferson, who’s been with the sorority for three years now, believes that this strongest and biggest celebrity photograph so far. Jefferson said, “Last year, Jamie and Sarah got their picture taken with Bill Clinton, which in theory is awesome, but he’s nowhere as hot as James Franco. I mean, look at those eyes and that perky smirk of his. We’re totally going to get control of the DVR for the next two months.”

[Photo Credit: Splash Pics]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

It's all these Clinton-friending liberal rich people who keep getting into messes these days, isn't it? When's the last time you heard anything about rich Republican financiers and executives flying about the nation with models, fucking teenagers, and carrying on sex orgies with movie stars? Is it the liberal connection to godless Hollywood? Former United Artists CEO and Bush Super Ranger Jerry Weintraub stays out of the headlines. Ken Lay was busted for fraud, not massages.

Hell, maybe liberals just have more fun? That's the point of liberality, isn't it? Those European values, that subjective morality, the godless thing? Clinton was impeached for having too much fun in office. Nixon never had fun ever except when he got zonked on painkillers and insulted the Jews, which is not really anyone's idea of a truly good time. Epstein never saw anything wrong with what he did. He just likes massages!

But why the need to congregate around Burkle? To hang out with him? Why did Epstein and Chris Tucker need to fly around on Jeff's private jet? Why does Clinton need to fly around the world on everyone's private jet? Liberal types do like to improve the world, and the rich ones are narcissistic enough to believe that they can do it personally. So they network and party and fuck models while flying to Africa to cure AIDS! Conservative zillionaires just rack up huge profits, contribute money to candidates who can ensure that they'll continue to rack up huge profits, and mind their own fucking (criminal) business. The liberals need to have cake with Arianna Huffington and Bono, for some reason.

So it may just be that Burkle embodies these characteristics the most. The most narcissistic, the most convinced of his own rightness, the most desperate to network with powerful people in the hopes of reshaping the world.

And then they all get tied up in sex scandals and your house is foreclosed, the end.

You probably feel like a fool. Ohhh, poor you! How do you think fucking Ron Burkle feels about that $55 million?? Ron Burkle, a man whose name is not exactly synonymous with "integrity"! Ron Burkle, a man who spent a few hundred grand trying to sabotage the career of a fucking gossip columnist who pissed him off.

That's why I entreat you to read the indictment, Anne. Sure, some painful memories will come flooding back: the custom-made suits from Milan. The "flowers, cosmetics, clothes, wine, expensive dinners, dog walking services and orthodontist expenses." The $30,000 housecall. The Caribbean vacation in 2006. The two-story apartment in Rockefeller Center that Raffaello rented for visiting members of the clergy. The notable absence in said apartment of any visiting members of the clergy!

A wise woman once said: "A woman especially if she has the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can." Wait, does that ring a bell?? Yeah, genius it was the tagline for Becoming Jane. The thing is, it doesn't apply to women who have no actual knowledge to conceal. And I'm not trying to get you to pull an Ophelia here but did the Feds even bother trying to question you? Did you ever get deposed? Let me tell you Anne, I would love love looooove to live in a world that allowed me to believe you waited until last week to dump him because you were recording his phone conversations, "backing up" his hard drives, strategically digging through his wastebaskets and mastering his rhetorical tics in preparation for your directorial debut, an epic black comedy on the striking guilelessness of powerful, influential, successful, and thoroughly rotten people when they believe themselves to be possibly in the presence of Christ Himself. At turns subtle and madcap, stark and decadent, it could serve as a scathing cinematic indictment of …well shit, you name it: organized religion, the human condition, Money, Power, the Vatican, vanity, "Love," your idiot self, even your ex-boyfriend.

But I somehow doubt it! Which is why right now, I hate to break it to you, he may be the one going to prison, but he is also kind of "winning."

Rafaello Follieri: The Indictment [WSJ]
Earlier: Vaticonned! How Anne Hathaway's Boyfriend Got Clinton To Underwrite Their Fabulous Romance

Through the innuendo-laden assertion that Ms. Gershon has been "visiting" with President Clinton in California, the Article outrageously insinuates that Ms. Gershon has had an inappropriate sexual relationship with President Clinton. This is absolutely false, My client has the utmost admiration and respect for both President and Senator Clinton, and she is extremely offended by the false and defamatory inference that she engaged in an adulterous relationship with the President. ... We demand publication of a retraction and correction.

After the jump, learn the three times Gershon did hang out with Bill Clinton — not surprisingly, none of them include private jets dubbed "Air Fuck One."

But that infamous plane's owner, Ron Burkle, does make a cameo, as do the Shrivers and even Bono! Who even knew Gershon was this famous?

Ms. Gershon has only been in the same room as President Clinton on three occasions, during which she was always in the presence of anywhere from approximately a dozen people to several hundred or more. Specifically, Ms. Gershon was once one of several hundred or perhaps a thousand guests at a charity event at the White House while President Clinton was in office, which she attended as a guest of the Shrivers. On another occasion, Ms. Gershon attended a dinner in New York honoring Bono, where President Clinton was among the several hundred or more in attendance. On a third occasion, Ms. Gershon was a last-minute addition by one of the other guests who attended a dinner at the California home of Ron Burkle, with 10-15 people in attendance, including President Clinton.

Well, then — that settles it! Their demand for a retraction includes striking the offending passage from Vanity Fair's Web site, to which Gershon's lawyers conveniently link in their correspondence. Read up while you still can!

• Gershon: I Did Not Have Sexual Relations... [TMZ]

Recent high-end Hollywood dinner-party gossip [suggests] Clinton has been seen visiting with the actress Gina Gershon in California. ... None of these wisps of smoke have produced a public fire. But four former Clinton aides told me that, about 18 months ago, one of the president's former assistants, who still advises him on political matters, had heard so many complaints about such reports from Clinton supporters around the country that he felt compelled to try to conduct what one of these aides called an "intervention," because, the aide believed, "Clinton was apparently seeing a lot of women on the road."

Not to mention in the skies, where a certain "Air Fuck One" voyage yielded an especially persistent rumor about a donor meeting, so to speak, between Clinton and Gershon — and we hear she gave him a lot more than a check. It hardly seems newsworthy in some ways, but on the other hand, we kind of like the idea of a whirlwind, testosterrific Lewinskygate 10th anniversary tour featuring Burkle, Bing, Jeffrey Epstein and the rest. No wonder Bill's doing all he can to keep Hillary on the trail; we'd vote for her right now if it kept us in sex scandals for another four years.

• The Comeback Id [VF]

Ron Burkle, seen in the company of models like Gisele Bundchen since he separated from his wife, is a key member of Clinton's billionaire boy's club. (Former member: teen-massage-loving Jeffrey Epstein.) We don't really believe Hollywood's autumn rumor that the former president, notorious for receiving oral sex in the Oval Office, had entertained an actress on Ron Burkle's plane. (That was probably just an amalgam of Clinton's supposed affair with raunchy actress, Gina Gershon, and earlier pictures of the ex-president with girls on the Burklejet.)

Nobody really cares about Burkle's ties to foreign governments, apart from a few right-wing obsessives. It's Burkle's ties to pretty women that represent the real embarrassment, and threat to Bill Clinton's image as a reformed husband, or at least a more discreet reprobate. With Hillary Clinton in a battle for the Democratic nomination, her husband does not need a billionaire modelizer as a friend.