Jerome Corsi, he of Swift Boat fame, was on CNN's Larry King Live last night defending his new book, The Obama Nation against Paul Waldman, a fidgety fellow from progressive watchdog group, Media Matters. On August 12th, Jim Rutenberg and Julie Bosman pointed out in The New York Times that many of Mr. Corsi's claims—specifically that Barack Obama never addressed when he stopped using drugs—were false.

Mr. Corsi, at one point said, "My argument is that the self-reporting of people who used drugs as to when they quit is not reliable." That's kind of interesting, actually, since Mr. Obama's two memoirs, while pretty good and everything, do contain exactly the sort of fake dialogue and imagined details David Carr's recent memoir, The Night of the Gun rejected.

Video above.

Barbara Corcoran was on Larry King Live last night as part of a panel on the mortgage mess (transcript here). The founder of the Corcoran Group, now an author and TV personality, couldn't understand why more people weren't now buying homes and quickly:

I think you ought to be out there shopping the market now. You have three times more inventory. Prices have been reduced by over 15 percent in many markets, some markets 66 percent. And there's cheap money still. Why wouldn't you be shopping right now? I can't imagine why people are sitting at home in their La-Z-Boy chairs.

Barely a few minutes later, though, in response to a question about the origins of the mortgage crisis, Ms.  read more »

Michelle Williams is reportedly feuding with Heath Ledger's family over the late actor's will. [P6]

Ron Perelman and his ex, Patricia Duff, are back in court because a court-appointed lawyer for their 13-year-old daughter says that the girl has been subjected to emotional abuse. [NY Daily News]

Ashley Dupre thanked her fans and critics on her MySpace page yesterday. [NY Daily News]

Helena Christensen will not shake your hand if you cross her. [P6]

Larry King's wife, Shawn Southwick King, has reportedly gone to rehab for her addiction to painkillers. [P6]

Bravo's Shear Genius stylists will give New Yorkers free blow-outs in Times Square today. [The Cut]

On Tuesday April, 22, Steve Krakauer of TV Newser was the first to report that CNN's suspender-wearing newsman Larry King had re-upped with the cable news network through June 2011.

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Filling out the rumors floated in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, today the New York Times reports that a “wide-ranging discussion” about Katie Couric’s future took place among CBS executives back in February:

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CNN fixture Larry King’s 9-year-old son Chance Armstrong King plays Beverly Hills Little League. King père is the coach of Chance’s team.

On Monday, March 10, during a heated game, the suspendered talk show host apparently got into a confrontation with one of the league’s umpires. “[Mr.  read more »

Candid Katie Couric can be a great thing. But recently most of the genre's memorable moments—Husky eyes!—have come to us courtesy of Harry Shearer. Not from the official Ms. Couric sanctioned YouTube channel.

That said, this most recent clip from the YouTube project, in which Ms. Couric travels to an interview with CNN's Larry King, has one pretty classic moment.  read more »

Shirley MacLaine was just honored with a lifetime achievement award at the Santa Fe Film Festival, and according to the 73-year-old film star, the win meant more than her 1983 Oscar for a poignant, now-iconic turn in director James Brooks’ Terms of Endearment. “Of all the awards I've gotten all over the world—and I have been in this business a long time—this means more to me because I'm being awarded this in a place that I seriously and deeply love,” she said. Channeling Georgia O’Keefe, Ms. MacLaine elaborated on her love for the arid state, touching on the spiritual peace she finds only in the American Southwest, where she becomes “reassembled and renewed and reorganized.”

The American Southwest is also where she gets a little freaky. Those who missed Larry King’s totally bizarre episode on U.F.O. cover-ups that recently aired on CNN—during which Ms. MacLaine waxes wacky on the presence of alien beings—can watch the clip here. The talk show appearance might be one of the few things more heartbreaking than Terms of Endearment.  read more »

Gawker catches New York Times TV reporter Bill Carter in what looks like an embarrassing slip. Mr. Carter reported today that Shepard Smith's new contract with Fox News, which is worth around $7 million a year, will make him better-paid than anyone at rival CNN, "if reports of $5 million for Anderson Cooper and $6 million for Lou Dobbs are accurate." But in 2002, The Times reported that CNN's Larry King was set to sign a contract that would pay him $7 million base salary. And in 1998, Mr. Carter himself reported the same thing.

This post, by the way, was for those of you looking for some hot media on media on media on media action....

"There's only one thing I know with absolute conviction. If she got elected, she'd be fabulous. I don't know if she's going to run, I don't know if I want her to run, I don't know if she'd win if she ran. She would be a magnificent president. I do know that."

I presume he'll be at liberty to decide how he feels about Hillary's presidential run starting November 8.