The reign of Alex Pareene is truly over, kids!

We just received a message from Wonkette’s new associate editor Jim Newell (who’s got quite a potty mouth on him, we hear, but not quite as big a potty mouth as new editor John Clarke Jr.) about that whole Wonkette stole copyrighted material from the GW Hatchet item we wrote earlier this morning.

“[W]e did take down the post with the Ben Stein photo yesterday afternoon as per their request,” Newell tells Big Head DC. Which, let’s face it, has helped Newell to become our favorite Wonkette editor in ages (he actually communicates, which is unique amongst that breed — God, remember the time when former editor Pareene hid under a table because he was having a panic attack and was afraid to talk to Karen Feld at a party?).

Don’t worry, we’re not forgetting that Wonkette still has a second post up mocking the GW kids to high heaven for bringing the whole copyright violation thing to their attention in the first place, which isn’t exactly fair, since the multi-million Gawker Media owns Wonkette, and, instead of mocking the kids, they could have easily afforded to pay them for the photo.

Oh, and lest editor Clarke feels left out from the Big Head DC love, we appreciated that he somehow got a disgruntled former Washingtonian editor to be quoted, albeit anonymously, for a= different article yesterday, complete with bitching about how bad the magazine has become. Which is really saying something, considering Garret Graff’s tight hold on the Washingtonian.