Bill Whalen has a good piece on Arnold’s State of the State address, but the juiciest bit is this:

If you have bad news to “dump,” then Arnoldmania is the cover you want. Midway through the governor’s address, the Associated Press reported that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and his wife, Kimberly, a Court TV commentator and now a fixture on the New York social circuit, are divorcing.

That marriage had “sham” written all over it in the so-devastating-he-didn’t-even-notice-it profile of Newsome in the New Yorker a few months ago.

I have no doubt that the Newsom quest for world domination will one day be successful, but still. It’s always nice to see social climbers suffer a setback, even if it’s only temporary.

Eighteen months from now, young Gavin will be back, angling for a Senate seat or some such. He’ll have a new Beautiful Girl on his arm.(Think Nora O’Donnell will be available by then?) And he’ll turn to the castle, raise his sword over his head, and bellow, “By the Power of Getty!”

I once ranted about INXS allowing a song of theirs to be used in a McDonald’s ad. That, as it turns out, was the least of it. Come July, CBS and Mark Burnett will air their latest reality television series, tentatively titled Rockstar, in which contestants from more than twenty cities around the world will compete to become the new lead singer of INXS.

For those who might not be aware, the Australian rock band’s former lead singer, Michael Hutchence, died under mysterious (read perverse) circumstances back in 1997. His death has been ruled a suicide (he was found hanging in his hotel room in Sydney) but others still speculate foul play or a sex act gone bad.

Hutchence had dated singer Kylie Minogue and was later entangled in an affair with Bob Geldof’s wife. (You’ve got to feel for Geldof–first, most of his money and efforts to end the famine in Ethiopia are blown to bits by guerrillas, then he discovers his wife is getting what she needs from another man. What was her excuse? The devil inside? Or that she was looking for a new sensation?) In a freak accident, Hutchence ended up losing his ability to taste and smell, leading him into a depression. But on stage, he maintained a powerful persona (I saw the band at Madison Square Garden in 1987).

In short, who would get to replace the talented but tortured soul that was Hutchence? Clay Aiken? Kelly Clarkson? William Hung? I shudder to think.

Of all of the Jon-Klein abuse (rightly) popping up today, Mickey Kaus has the hands-down best rant.

I have to wonder, though: Klein is choosing loyalty to Jon Stewart (someone who doesn’t work for him) over Tucker Carlson (someone who has been working for him). Klein may be a jerk, but I don’t think he’s stupid. Could it be that he’s trying to woo Stewart to CNN?

It would make perfect sense, from both Stewart and CNN’s perspectives, no?

PS: In addition to being a ungracious runt, Klein also proves to be a terrible judge of talent. He tells Howie Kurtz that Tucker is “best suited to host a head-butting talkfest.” Which is completely the opposite of truth. Sure, Tucker’s good on Crossfire, but as anyone who has seen his PBS show, Unfiltered, knows, his real strength is off-speed people interviews. I’ve long maintained that, given the right format, Tucker is a funnier, more surprising Dick Cavett.

Now let’s watch CNN and MSNBC in the coming months and see which direction the two networks are heading. My money’s on Tucker and MSNBC.

How’s this for excellent?

There must have been some serious novenas said to St. Ignatius last night as both Jesuit schools Georgetown and Boston College upset No. 16 Pittsburgh and No. 10 Connecticut, respectively, in the Big East opener. It was the first time I saw the Hoyas in action under the guidance of John Thompson III. The team is no longer running blindly down the court and wildly tossing up the ball. They stop, set-up, pass, and shoot. On occasion, they even displayed some of that Princeton-style backdoor offense. They’ve got poise. Their shooting percentage in the first half was 60 percent (and they even hit 9 of 12 from beyond the arc!). The Washington Times quoted junior guard Brandon Bowman as saying, “If everything else fails, follow directions. That’s what the coaches always tell us, and that’s what we did.” You wouldn’t have heard that from him last year under coach Craig Esherick. My on-campus sources tell me Bowman and other players just didn’t respect the man.

Meanwhile, in another religiously affiliated conflict in the Big East, Notre Dame (Holy Cross Brothers) defeated Seton Hall (diocesan) in a squeaker, 66-65. (Maybe Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton doesn’t follow basketball.) In any event, congratulations to all the winners last night.

Tonight the Georgetown men’s basketball season begins in earnest as they travel to No. 16 Pittsburgh. It’s not going to be pretty. The Panthers (10-1) are hoping to exact some revenge after having inexplicably dropped the ball against Bucknell at home. This season Pitt has limited opponents to under 40 percent shooting. (Then again, the Hoyas, who are 8-3, normally shoot around this range, even when they’re winning, so they should feel quite comfortable.) And one of the more lethal Big East guards happens to play for Pittsburgh–the terrifically named Carl Krauser averages about 16 points per game.

The Washington Post‘s Camille Powell, however, gives props to the Hoyas and new coach John Thompson III for “mixing in tougher nonconference opponents” such as No. 1 Illinois, Clemson (not a powerhouse but at least from the powerhouse ACC), and even Oral Roberts, who Powell says is “considered to be the best team in the Mid-Continent Conference.” Sportswriter John Feinstein recently told me that he thinks the new coach “will do fine at G-town, but he needs some players and he’ll be in a brutal league beginning next year. I still think they need an on-campus facility.”

As they say, you first need to learn how to walk before you can run. Or crawl before you walk. Or run before you dribble. Or something like that. So it is we rid ourselves of a bad coach last year, and now on to a new arena. And then the Final Four.

I’d say it’s a generational struggle.

The Law Jedi has a great post on how European anti-Americanism is alive and well, even during the tsunami relief effort.

Writing in response to both my and John Hinderaker’s criticisms of his own account of the CBS News-forged documents scandal, the Columbia Journalism Review‘s Corey Pein has sent an open letter to Romenesko.

Pein begins by saying “Many critics of my article on the CBS memos, the blogs, and the press have obviously not read it.” Well, now wait a minute–isn’t this just the sort of wild-eyed conclusion-jumping that Pein himself finds so objectionable in others? I mean, how could he prove whether or not someone has read his piece?

For my own part, I did read Pein in his entirety. Sadly, I can’t say that he returned the favor. Pein writes: “Last complains that I hold up David Hailey’s typographic study to show that the memos might be real. To prove that Hailey’s study was ‘debunked,’ Last cites the very bloggers who hounded Hailey–without compelling evidence of fraud.”

I’m afraid I neither use the word “debunked,” nor mention David Hailey in my piece–at all. Perhaps Pein is thinking of someone else.