Bigwigs at The Price Is Right are wondering if maybe they’ve made a mistake by hiring rotund comic Drew Carey to fill the legendary Bob Barker’s shoes. And not because Carey isn’t doing a fine job of navigating the likes of Plinko. No, what’s got their proverbial Big Wheel in a tizzy is the fact that Carey has gone out of his way to tout his political beliefs by forging a partnership with the libertarian Reason magazine.

“We didn’t expect him to become political,” one CBS-TV insider admitted to Big Head DC. “We sure hope it doesn’t hurt the show’s ratings.”

In contrast to Barker, whose most visible political action over the decades was to support controlling the pet population, Carey made a splash in Washington over the weekend on the arm of Reason editor Nick Gillespie (shown at right). Carey is expected to contribute regularly to the magazine’s Web site, espousing his own conservative viewpoints.

Carey seems to know he’s treading dangerous waters — for a game show host, that is. Read more…

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In response to our quips about his days with teenage-focused publications, Nick Gillespie, editor-in-chief of Reason mag, wrote in to let us know that he’s got nothing to be embarrassed about.

“I have always been proud of my time spent writing teen-mag stories with exclamation-pointed titles such as “the lazy, hazy, crazy days of Patrick Swayze!” and “Debbie Gibson does disco!”, which is one reason such info is in every bio I’ve ever had (such as this one:
http://reason.com/staff/show/129.html) and features prominently in Q & A’s such as this one: http://www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a894.asp.

Fine. But some commenters on our item earlier this week could not have cared less about Gillespie’s past work endeavors — they just wanted to know more about his interesting hairdo. He clarifies: “And BTW, the hair is real, but i have two glass eyes.”

Now that’s hot!

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As Dave Weigel, over at Cosmo Girl (aka Reason magazine [we kid because we love, guys]) duly notes today, it seems that Wonkette’s got some sort of vengeance against Ron Paul — which happens to involve just plain wrong reporting. Earlier today they reported that the presidential candidate had more than 20,000 donors serving in the military when he actually got more than 20,000 DOLLARS from those donors. Big difference.

“The story on Wonkette is wrong,” Paul campaign staffer Jesse Benton told Weigel. “We’d love to have 22,140 active military donors, but that’s a lot of guys with five-figure salaries dipping into their wallets.”

Hey, here’s an idea: Maybe the Gawker Empire can start donating some dollars every time Wonkette gets a story wrong.

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Reason editor Nick Gillespie dropped by TV squawker John McLaughlin’s interview show (yes, it’s still on) over the weekend to talk politics, and he gave a very libertarian performance — pretty middle of the road, nothing too extreme.

But we did learn one anomalous morsel about the always-clad-in-a-too-big jacket journo man: Before becoming the mag’s editor in 2000, he edited teen magazines–a fact not mentioned in his publication bio, nor in his Wikipedia entry.

No wonder leather became such a teenage a fad in the 1990s!

Is Gillespie ashamed of being a former champion of the likes of Girl’s Life and Seventeen? We hope not, because young people can be libertarians, too. Just ask all those Reason kids who never knew their boss probably has a copy of YM hidden in his desk.

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Here it is, kids, my weekly conversation with the literary genius of our times, Marty Beckerman, author of Generation S.L.U.T.:

BHR: So how was your birthday party that I missed last week?

MB: My friends picked up the tab, so naturally I went straight for the Goose and Ketel because I’m a prick and it was my birthday. Unfortunately the bartender slung a glass of Jaeger my way and that was the end of the night. Of course, I started the night with tequila — Don Julio — which is a guaranteed way to have a horrible morning, so I was screwed anyway.
 
BHR: Wow. You really do drink. Did you hang with any big stars?

MB: Oh, just Charlie Sheen. (Who has an uncanny resemblance to Reason magazine’s Dave Weigel. Such a resemblance that you could almost swear that it was Dave at the party, not Chucko.)

BHR: Hmm, I like Reason magazine, but I think Julian Sanchez might be a prick. But I digress. Speaking of big stars, just wait to you see what’s planned for the coming weeks involving Big Head DC. You’re going to be quite humbled, Mr. B.
 
MB: What? Did you file for food stamps or something?

BHR: Even better. It’s very gossip-worthy. Hey, what’s the best gossip you’ve heard this year?

MB: Just what I read on your hate site.

BHR: That’s not a hate site, silly, it’s my libelous fan site. They watch my back. And good. Apparently they found that sex video I downloaded to Youtube of me having sex with a dressing bottle. I can’t wait til it finally leaks because at least the painful memories of that evening will finally be worth it. Talk to you next week. 

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