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. Read more…

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Let’s just say it: Sommer Mathis used to write about a lot more interesting things on her personal blog. Now, however, she just talks about horses. And! She talks to The Washingtonian’s Garrett Graff (who kind of looks like a horse, now that we think of it). In a wide ranging interview, on stands now, she shares some golden nuggets:

Last year she became the first paid editor of DCist. (No wonder Mike Grass got the hell out of there.)

She loves to sit by the big fountain outside the Hirshhorn Museum to snag the Smithsonian’s free wireless Internet . (No one ever said DCist paid well.)

Her favorite book is Lolita. (If you read her old blog, you’ll know why!)

And, finally, she heads to the Outer Banks every Memorial Day. (Now you can schedule around that.)

Earlier: Should DCist Editor Sommer Mathis Be Fired?

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Garrett Graff, after reading our scathing indictment, last night talked to Mark Warner. “Why the hell did you drop out?” he screamed at the ex-Virginia governor. “You royally screwed up my book!”

OK, we jest.

But Graff truly did speak to Warner about why his decision came so early. “He explained that everything was moving quickly and that to be fair to his staff and supporters he needed to move sooner,” Graff told us. “I’ve been on the trail with him several times before — as recently as a month ago in Iowa — and it’s been pretty obvious that he was vacillating a bit in whether to run. He really cares about his family and, since he’s worth north of $100 million, he never has to do something he doesn’t really want to do.”

As for how the drop-out will affect Graff’s book, he said that “Warner was never the main focus, just a part of the larger story about how politics is changing to meet the challenges of a new economy.”

In this day and age, we suggest that Graff simply turn another page.  

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Remember last year when we muddied the waters, unveiling that the Washingtonian’s editor-at-large Garrett Graff was leaving FishbowlDC?

After we spoiled his surprise, he announced that he was indeed exiting stage right to pen a book for publication by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux titled “The First Campaign: Democrats, The Internet, & The Future of American Politics,” that would examine “the impact of technology and globalization in politics” and focus “on Mark Warner, the former Virginia governor, as the first presidential candidate to come out of the dot com era.”

Graff must have been crying today when Warner announced his decision not to run because he “wants to spend more time with his family.”

Fuck. That’s going to make for a pretty boring middle of the book, now isn’t it:

Chapter 6, January 1, 2007: Today, while Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and John Edwards threw jabs at each other, battling for the Democratic nomination, Warner made sweet love to his wife, Lisa Collis.

Chapter 7, January 12, 2007: Warner’s daughter, Eliza, kissed a boy today. And liked it. She really liked it.

Chapter 8, January 15, 2007: Warner has grown tired of me following him and his family, so we’ll have to cut this short. 

We kid, of course, but are exceptionally curious how Graff will handle this situation. If you’re reading this Garrett, we’ve got Russ Feingold’s number. And we hear he toils on the net sometimes. It could work.    

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Will Patrick Gavin continue to recycle old items when he finally becomes co-gossip columnist with Jeff Dufour at the Examiner? Tongues are wagging that he’s much more than a day late and a dollar short with his FishbowlDC item today, “Lloyd Grove Back to DC?” The news first appeared in his own paper way back on May 2.

Former Fishbowler Garrett Graff even noted the item (maybe Gavin was too busy schmoozing that day to notice?)…

Speaking of stale fish, when is FishbowlDC going to fill it’s perennially open slot for the new Gavin sidekick? They’ve been advertising for months, and ever since the Aoife McCarthy debacle, we’ve been hearing lots of questions about what’s going on inside the dirty little fishbowl.

Gavin himself must be worried about juggling the new Examiner column without a reliable co-editor in place. Those silly New York City Mediabistro administrators (hi, Dorian Benkoil!) must be too busy thinking about the alleged impending sale of the company — and what they’ll do afterwards — rather than a blog that used to be a flagship enterprise.

Jon Fine, the husband of Mediabistro’s founder, Laurel Touby, even recently confirmed to Big Head Rob that he doesn’t read the blog, yet he does partake in the FishbowlNY and FishbowlLA offerings. Word is that he’s going to buy Gavin dinner to make up for it.

Enough for now–you’ve gotta stay tuned if you want more.

Happy Friday, kids.

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