The Nation’s David Corn wants to be clear about one thing: his “Hubris” co-author is a dreamboat.

“[F]or the record–lest anyone mistake a quip for something else–working with Michael Isikoff was a highlight of my three decades in journalism,” he told BHR. ”I’m looking forward to our next collaboration: a Broadway musical about Guantanamo. That’s an exclusive. Feel free to run with it.”

We’re looking forward to that, too, but what, is this a virus, or something? First Mary Ann, then Jack and now this?!

But don’t get Corn started on Bob Woodward. You wanna hear gushing…

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Slate’s Jack Shafer is trying to pull the wool over somebody’s eyes.

In yesterday’s column about vain journalists (say what?!), he discloses, “[Mark] Feldstein is a friend—not as good a friend as David Corn, but a lot better than Michael Isikoff,” which some people are interpreting as a fast-on-the-heels new diss of the freshly engaged Newsweek journalist. (Earlier this month, in a review of the new book, “Hubris,” penned by Corn and Isikoff, Shafer also wrote, “Michael Isikoff is a friend, but not so good.”

But does Shafer really hold that much hate in his heart for Isikoff? Not from what he tells Big Head Rob (By the way, does anyone else believe in just flat out asking people about who they hate anymore?).

“On and off, I’ve been dissing Isikoff in print for the last fifteen years in hopes of destabilizing him just enough to prevent him from becoming the best reporter in the universe,” he told us recently. ”Such a development would hurt the feelings of Bob Woodward and Seymour Hersh, and we can’t have that.

“I conduct most of my anti-Isikoff psy-ops in public, towel-snapping him at parties and on the streets of Washington. But once in my Washington City Paper press column I described him as such a good friend that his daughter called me daddy. People still ask him what I meant by that.

“Isikoff’s career didn’t really take off until I left town in 1995 and I could no longer undermine him as part of my daily routine. Since I returned to Washington in 2000, I’ve done my best to cripple his ego, but to little avail. I think my recent diss rolled right off his back.”

Isikoff, indeed, confirmed that there’s no hard feelings between the two during his recent BHR interview, so it seems high time for people to stop speculating about these secret bosom buddies — no matter how well Shafer appears to keep pulling off his schtick.

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Disclosure: We consider Shafer to be a friend, but not as good a friend as Corn, and not as good as Isikoff – and definitely not as good as Hersh and/or Woodward.

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…you’re just like Bob Woodward. (Did we just hear John Stossel all the way from NYC yell, “Gimme a break!!!”?)

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By now you know that the dynamic journalistic duo of Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff and The Nation’s David Corn spent the last year penning a book together. But, while Isikoff remembers the experience all-too-well, even calling Corn “indefatigable” in our exclusive BHR interview last week that doesn’t necessarily mean that Corn has a single fond thought regarding the experience — or any thoughts at all, for that matter.

“I worked on a book with Michael Isikoff this past year?” he recently asked Big Head Rob. “Huh. I barely recall anything of the past twelve months. But if he said so, it must be true. I hope we had a good time.”

We hope so, too. Because “Hubris” was ranked #112 on Amazon when we last checked. And “State of Denial” was still #1. Guess Woodward isn’t that “unreadable,” huh Mike? 

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Maybe Bob Woodward should have used this picture taken at a 1985 charity event to better illlustrate how Henry Kissinger has sometimes put his head where it doesn’t belong. Yes, that’s Dolly Parton, her two pals, and the old statesman himself.

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His balls are growing. They’re hairy, hairy balls. The size of baseballs. WaPo’s Dan Balz reports:

…Kerry barely said hello to the New Hampshire Democrats who filled a banqueting room here on Friday night before unloading on President Bush.

“This war in Iraq is a disgrace,” he said in the second sentence of his speech at a party fundraising dinner. “Bob Woodward’s right: They are in a state of denial. But it’s worse than that. They’re also in a state of deception.”

But why were those balls all tucked up inside him two years ago?

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Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff is a busy boy. He’s not only trying to sell his new book, ”Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War,” he’s also been forced to honeymoon all about Washington with his co-author, The Nation’s David Corn, and to make up with Slate’s Jack Shafer, who dissed him a tiny bit this week.

We have strong feelings, though, that he’d much rather be spending his time planning his impending wedding to Roll Call’s Mary Ann Akers. In this exclusive BHR interview, we take a revealing look inside Isikoff’s head — and his heart: 

BHR: In a nutshell, what’s Hubris about, and who should buy it?

MI: Hubris is a narrative of what was really going on inside the White House, the CIA, the Pentagon, and within Congress — during the run-up to the war in Iraq and how the case for war — a case that turned out to be almost entirely bogus — came to be made. The New York Times Book Review this Sunday calls it “the most comprehensive account of the White House’s political machinations” in the selling of the war. It takes the story through the post-war period focusing on the Valerie Plame investigation — a matter that grew out of the White House’s need to defend its ultimately false pre-war sales pitch.

BHR: Is its contents going to get you labeled as one of those liberal journalists by the likes of Bill O’Reilly? Do you care if it does?

MI: No, I’ve learned not to worry too much about what people like him say about you. In any case, I’m hardly a “liberal journalist.” My co-author may be, but what we end up writing in the book is fully reported and entirely devoid of political ideology or partisanship. (Most of the Democrats don’t come off that well in this story either.)

BHR: How did you and David Corn divvy up who would write what? How did you decide to do the book together?

MI: It’s all a blur. We both reported. We both wrote. Then we rewrote each other and kept doing so until one of us dropped dead from exhaustion.

BHR: Would you have prefered to go it alone?

MI: David never stops so his sheer indefatigability kept us on track and insured that we got it done and out before Woodward did.

BHR: Why are you no longer a “very good friend” of Jack Shafer and now only “somebody” he knows?

Read more…

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That was the message for Dems in this election cycle straight from political writer David Mark on the Daily Show tonight, promoting his new book, “Going Dirty: The Art of Negative Campaigning.” When Jon Stewart asked Mark about Bob Woodward’s still number one “State of Denial,” he commented with a smile on his face that the veteran WaPo journalist is a like a “weather vane” who covers the Bush administration based on whichever way the political wind is blowing. You can catch more of Mark’s political observations when he debuts later this fall with the new Capitol Leader newspaper.

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Chris Matthews predicted tonight on Hardball that Bob Woodward’s State of Denial will still be “number one” on election day. Um, Woodward has been on every show from here to Paula Zahn over the past three days (oh, and we hear that even the Post and the Times might have done something noting his news). Yeah, so we have a pretty good idea of what’s in the book at this point. If we’re going to put down the laptop (yeah right), we’d prefer to check out “Billion Dollar Smile: A Complete Guide to Your Extreme Smile Makeover,” currently number four on Amazon. Yeah, a book about smiles. BS. And we linked to it.

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LOL and happy belated b-day, birdy:

Also, advice to Bob Woodward. I didn’t come to the festival to hear Scott Turow talk about “Presumed Innocent” (1987) or to hear Doris Kearns Goodwin talk about “Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream” (1976). So I certainly didn’t come to hear you talk about “All the President’s Men.” When you’re speaking at a major book festival in the nation’s capitol the weekend your new book comes out about the very naughty behavior of the people running said capitol, and it’s already been written about in the New York Times, don’t have some flunkie festival official come out and tell the folks who’ve waited all day to see you that you’re not going to take any questions, nor are you going to talk about that book because you’ve cut a deal with “60 Minutes” for an exclusive. That’s the kind of thing that gets you booed. To be specific that’s the kind of thing that did get you booed. Loudly. Mainly by me. In your defense though, everyone else could have just been yelling, “Booourns, Booourns.” 

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