On Tuesday, Vanity Fair's Power & Politics blog posted a satire of The New Yorker's now legendary Barry Blitt cover of Barack and Michelle Obama as flag-burning, Osama bin Laden-honoring terrorists. In VF's version, drawn by illustrator Tim Bower, John and Cindy McCain are portrayed as their own worst caricatures: The presumptive Republican nominee for president is seen hunched over a walker, while his wife is juggling various prescription pills. On the wall is a painting of George W. Bush; in the fireplace, the Constitution.

But to several commenters—you know, those scourges of civilization—on VF.com, the cartoon was a little too similar to one by The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's David Horsey that ran a week earlier. In it, the McCain's appear on the cover of The National Review, he's drooling in a wheelchair (mumbling to himself, "Bomb, bomb, bomb—bomb, bomb Iran"), she's pouring prescription pills into her hand. On the wall is a painting of Dick Cheney; in the fireplace, the Constitution.  read more »

"It's really easy to get killed in Iraq," says Phillip Robertson, a freelancer who covered the war for Salon and wrote the introduction to the book Unembedded: Four Independent Photojournalists on the War in Iraq.

"They want to kill you. All you have to do is give them a chance and somebody will kill you or kidnap you." Mr. Robertson had his own near-kidnap experience, but he managed to get away. His driver's car was totaled, but Salon paid for a replacement. "No one has ever been killed because of me," he says. "And I'm very, very proud of that. There have been repercussions because of my stories but I can look you in the eye and say no one has been seriously hurt because of me."  read more »

On the afternoon of June 2, Wolf Blitzer was talking to Vanity Fair national editor Todd Purdum about his 9,647-word piece about Bill Clinton.

“Some people who work for him now say that he seems to be angry all the time, angry when he gets up in the morning and angry when he goes to bed at night,” Mr. Purdum was saying.  read more »

What do you do if your magazine was embroiled in a possibly manufactured controversy over its allegedly sexualized photos of a minor? If you're Vanity Fair, you make fun of the whole thing, of course.  read more »

As you may have already read, Miley Cyrus is totally embarrassed by the semi-topless (back view) photos printed of her in this month's Vanity Fair. In a statement put out by her publicist, Ms. Cyrus, age 15, said, "I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be 'artistic' and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed... I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about."

Representatives of the magazine responded that during Annie Liebovitz's shoot, "Miley's parents and/or minders were on the set all day... Since the photo was taken digitally, they saw it on the shoot and everyone thought it was a beautiful and natural portrait of Miley."

This isn't the first time a star has felt stung by VF. Dewey ingenues like Lindsay Lohan and Paul Wolfowitz have complained of being misquoted and beloved icons like Courtney Love and Paris Hilton blame the magazine for their subsequent vilification. Here, a look back in anger, denial, and occasional admission.  read more »

Each New Year brings with it the obligatory slate of resolutions. And like some college-level sociological experiment, each New Year also brings with it a slate of stories about what famous people have resolved to either quit—smoking, say—or begin—usually something kind of boring, like marathon training or French classes. True to form, WWD recently called some executives in the magazine world to ask them what they hope to accomplish, respectively, in 2008.

Vanity Fair honcho Graydon Carter, who also happens to own a restaurant famous for its tony, truffled mac ‘n’ cheese, is working towards “less food, more exercise.” Meanwhile, Mr. Carter’s publisher, Edward Menicheschi, wants more-or-less the same thing, though he was slightly more specific, aiming to “cut back to four nights a week at the Waverly.”  read more »

Lindsay Lohan’s mother, Dina, was partying Tuesday night at the Tropicana Zone in Times Square.

“I’m doing a reality show; if you asked me two years ago, I’d be like, ‘You guys are smoking crack! I’m not doing this!’ But now I realize that I have no choice. I have to fix it for my little kids, and I have to fix my life,” she explained, while two ambiguous video-camera crews, complete with blinding lights, swirled around Ms. Lohan, 45, and her touchy twenty-something male friend, who was smiling behind strangely-appropriate dark sunglasses.  read more »

When Michael Wolff started shopping his biography of Rupert Murdoch, he opted to go with a "high six-figure" offer from Doubleday instead of taking the risk of having his previous publisher, Harper Collins, put out the book. (Mr. Murdoch's News Corp. owns Harper Collins.)

But these days Mr. Wolff has emerged as something of a sympathizer—at least with Mr. Murdoch's ambition to own The Wall Street Journal.

In The Times:  read more »

MemoPad is reporting that the Bono Vox guest-edited July issue of Vanity Fair, with its theme of Africa, will up the ante on that whole "collect-'em-all" cover trend:

"Sources close to the title said it could publish as many as 20 different covers, all shot by Annie Leibovitz."

Insiders seem to be telling MemoPad good things about Bono's editing abilities, though we can't help but wonder what's going on between the lines here:  read more »

Vanity Fair has a profile of John McCain in which he says of Hillary Clinton:

"People underestimate her political intelligence and her antennae. She's not her husband--no one's her husband. But she's good. And I like her. I know you're not supposed to say that, but I do."

In a wrap-up of 2008 candidates, The Fix speculates about whether Barack Obama will announce his candidacy around MLK Day.

A former U.N. ambassador joins the race for Yvette Clarke's City Council seat.

Karol Sheinin learned that she doesn't have to be on the same airplane as her luggage and doesn't feel safe flying.

The Brennan Center wonders what rules the state Senate will pass when their current ones expire on January 15.

Jerry Nadler hopes to read more this year, while the guy behind Streetsblog hopes to convince drivers "to stop honking their f--ing horns so much."

And pictured above are two guys who share an interest in member items: Joe Bruno and Andrew Cuomo.