. . . one giant leap for the blogosphere. Buried in Kaus’s dispute with Warren Mitofsky is this nugget: “Paragraphs three and four essentially claim that Mitofsky’s ‘members’ are happy with his performance. That’s not what I hear, though they are unlikely to tell me so directly. (The two I called clammed up.)”

Get that? A blogger made a phone call! That’s, like, almost reporting. Excellent news.

The blogophere will really begin to change things when more bloggers do elementary reporting like this. It doesn’t need to be Deep Throat dead-drops and source cultivation, but if bloggers were to routinely do minimal reporting–just making a couple phone calls, for instance–it could really hurt the old media.

You see, the dirty secret of the blogosphere is that while the New York Times does not need the blogosphere, the blogosphere needs the New York Times. Without real reporters out there finding real news, bloggers would have nothing to pontificate on, no asses to gleefully fact-check.

Yet if they began reporting, then the blogosphere would cease to be a parasite simply clinging to its Old Media host. Instead, it would begin to be a self-sustaining news organism.

Fascinated by Michael Goldfarb’s report on Chely Wright, I then stumbled upon Stephanie Hoffpauir’s blog. Hoffpauir is the women who exposed the Wright scandal to the Tennessean in the first place.

Hoffpauir has kept up with the Wright story, and has some interesting observations as to how Team Wright has gone into damage control mode. For one thing, as soon as the scandal broke in the papers, Wright’s fan club closed down registration for the comments board on their site. This prohibited critical voices from chiming in, but preserved a forum for Wright defenders. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose. But it is interesting.

There are fewer jobs I covet less than David Denby’s. Sure, Denby gets to pen movie reviews for the New Yorker, but however much fun that may be, it’s not worth having to hit behind Anthony Lane every week. Because no matter how good you are, sharing a space with Lane can only turn out badly for you. He’s just too sublime.

So my sympathies for Denby were relieved reading his review of Spanglish this week. His lede is fantastic:

There are terrible seasonal movies thrown together in a state of laziness and disgust–for instance, that poisoned plum pudding Ocean’s Twelve, in which the director, Steven Soderbergh, and a dirty-dozen pack of stars amuse one another with how little they care about what they’re doing. Hanging out in such difficult-to-like locations as Rome and Lake Como (in George Clooney’s villa), the stars put each other on and then smile knowingly, as if in possession of some delicious secret. My, what fun. The movie treats us like servants thrilled by the wonderful time our masters are having on vacation. Even servants have pride however . . .

For this week, at least, I ask: Anthony who?

My piece on the Columbia Journalism Review‘s analysis of Rathergate is up now. John Hinderaker has a much more substantive assault on CJR (which is more deserving of your time than my piece).

In all of this, one passage keeps sticking with me. CJR’s Corey Pein defends Bill Burkett with this paragraph:

. . . many suppositions about Burkett are based on standards that were not applied evenly across the board. In November and December the first entry for “Bill Burkett” in Google, the most popular reference tool of the twenty-first century, was on a blog called Fried Man. It classifies Burkett as a member of the “loony left,” based on his Web posts. In these, Burkett says corporations will strip Iraq, obliquely compares Bush to Napoleon and “Adolf,” and calls for the defense of constitutional principles. These supposedly damning rants, alluded to in USA Today, The Washington Post, and elsewhere, are not really any loonier than an essay in Harper’s or a conversation at a Democratic party gathering during the campaign. While Burkett doesn’t like the president, many people in America share that opinion, and the sentiment doesn’t make him a forger.

Now I don’t mean to make too much of my own anecdotal evidence, but I would guess that among my circle of friends and relatives, about half of them are moderately liberal to very, very liberal. Many of these liberal friends and relatives dislike George W. Bush is a serious way; a few of them are bona fide Bush-haters. None of them has ever compared Bush to “Adolf.” And I’m pretty sure that they would all look cock-eyed at someone who did.

That Corey Pein thinks Burkett’s views aren’t “any loonier than . . . a conversation at a Democratic party gathering during the campaign” tells us quite a bit about Pein.

The Galley House is not big on college football, but we tuned into the Orange Bowl just in time for Kelly Clarkson, Trace Adkins, and Ashleeeeee Simpson’s half-time extravaganza.

Simpson’s continued success is one of the mysteries of the world, but I was heartened by her performance. It sounded to me like she was out of sync with her backing track for the first half of the number and then, like the backing track was shut off for the second half, leaving her naked, alone, and horribly flat as she caterwauled something that sounded like “lemonade . . . you make me wanna scream.”

I sat there, wondering how in the world Ashleeeeee makes money for whatever large corporation bankrolls her art, wondering what audience responds to “lemonade.” But then Ashleeeeee finished, and the stadium, which had been politely silent following Clarkson and Adkins, erupted into loud, angry boos. And this is in Miami–not Philadelphia. The look on Simpson’s face was priceless and said, approximately, “Daddy . . . Daddy! Please kill these motherfuckers?” Even her crepe paper tail-feathers sagged.

We shall be eagerly monitoring the message boards on AshleeSimpson.com.

Update: There are no more message boards on AshleeSimpson.com! It seems that after her Saturday Night Live meltdown her site underwent a dramatic redesign–which quite coincidentally eliminated the messageboards that had become a forum for cruel, cruel Ashleeeeee-baiting.

Thanks to the vigorous responses to my recent posting on Burger King’s Zesty Onion Ring Sauce. One reader made the astute observation that it is quite similar to the tangy “Bloom Sauce” used in Outback Steakhouse’s Bloomin’ Onion. What is it they say about imitation?

I also do not want to give readers the false impression that I am anti-condiment. In fact, herewith, my top 3 favorite fast-food sauces:

1. Filet-O-Fish tartar sauce at McDonald’s: In Catholic school, we used to call these sandwiches “Rubber on a Raft.” If only they used the tartar sauce from McD’s, we would say. And to this day, no sauce even comes close.

2. Big Mac secret sauce: No, it’s not just a Thousand Islands. Some theorists speculate it has a bit more pickle relish and even French dressing roots.

3. Chicken McNuggets barbecue sauce: You want zesty? You want tangy? Go no further.

And finally, with regard to Galley Slave reader “Jimmie” who made mention of Shaquille O’Neal’s dubious product endorsements, are you saying Kazaam was a bad movie?

Wizblog has a link to a chilling set of before and after pictures.

The Media Center, which has been doing all sorts of interesting work, has now started a take-on-all-comers blog, called morph. It looks a little bit like a cross between The Corner and Slashdot. Give it a look.