• Pageant Place [MTV]

In the opposite corner Star Jones was being filmed, her face dancing a jig of a thousand expressions, each one seeming more grotesque than the one before it.

"Donald, Donald," called out a man on the far side of the velvet rope. Donald approached warily. The man extended his hand. His face was a marshland of splotchy red, and looked like it had been lifted no more than an hour ago. Instead of eyebrows, he had two smears of white cream. "It's me, Abe Wallach!"

Wallach was Trump's head of acquisitions for more than ten years before retiring. "Abe?" Trump said, incredulously, "I don't recognize you! You look 25 years younger." Trump turned to the security guy: "Let him in." The security man said," Sorry, Mr. Trump, but he needs a wristband." Trump turned to face the guard, his eyes somehow narrowing further. "You know who I am, don't you?" he hissed. "I do, sir. But he still needs a wristband." Trump unhooked the rope from its stand and in went Abe. Trump continued to insist, somewhat tactlessly, how he could not recognize Wallach. "Ha, that's what retirement will do," said Wallach, laughing uneasily.

When we finally got a hold of Trump he was hot and annoyed. "''Scuse me, Mr. Trump. Let's talk about a woman we both know well. Do you feel any sense of victory now that Rosie is out of The View?" He assessed for a split second before saying, "I don't want to talk about Rosie. She's a sleazebag, what more is there to say? I'm not going to talk about it."

Sensing our Trumpian moment was passing, we asked, "Ok, let's talk about ponies." "No," he said, moving on, "you're done." His newest wife, Melania, shot us a sympathetic look as she trailed her husband. We shot her one straight back, since she was the one that had to let him bed her routinely.

We never got to ask him about how he freaked out at that golf tournament last weekend—we hear he was partnered with some teenager, and near the end of the match, thinks went south and Trump stomped off and got in his car and just left. But now we'll never know for sure!

In the big tent for the poorer, the plastic surgery was a lot worse than even Mr. Wallach's. On the other hand, the crowd was pleasingly rowdy. In the far end, two "rocker dudes" were standing around. One had a choker on. They told us they were in the band Rammstein; obviously we didn't believe them. So we gave them a hard time. Who would pose as a German industrial band? Later it turned out they actually were in Rammstein! Oops, our bad.

As the Polo match wound down, Rocco DiSpirito could be seen wandering around dispirited and lonely. The ponies were being loaded back into their trailers; who would load Rocco into his trailer? The plastic faces and breasts of the polo goers sagged in the heat. Only Donald Trump, his hair an island of placidity, seemed unfazed. He took the mic and began to speak. Through the loudspeakers and echoing across the now empty field, the voice of Trump echoed, "Trump, trump, trump, trump, trump."

The good people over at MSNBC actually pitch their channel as a middle aged, centrist-Democrat's alternative to the other cable news outlets. Gosh that sounds fun, right? It is not.

The party over at MSNBC rocked on all last week starting with Chris Matthews' celebration of the fourth anniversary of the Iraq War on Monday's episode of "Hardball." Matthews' broadcast featured an interview with human sleeping pill John Kerry who apparently didn't get the message that the whole country is sick of him after seeing both Barack Obama and John McCain make exactly the same dumb mistake that he did without getting themselves kicked off of the campaign trail for it.

Later on "Scarborough Country," squinty-eyed tanning salon victim Joe Scarborough marked the anniversary of the war by having NBC Nightly News Anchor Brian Williams drop by for a thorough ass-kissing. You see, Williams recently returned from a five-day stint in Iraq, so he's able to put this whole Sunni vs. Shi'ite mess into perspective.

Williams said that the one thing that could "sum up all of our time there" was this: "If you want to come with me and go over there and find three reasons to prove why the so-called 'surge' is working, I can take you to at least three places and show you nothing but advances and good news. And at the same time, if you're looking for three reasons to just call it a disaster and say that the US is wasting its time in this war, I can take you to three places and show you three incidents a day that prove that thesis." So basically, despite Scarborough's childlike gushing ("Brian, thank you so much, and thank you for risking your life and leaving your wife and children. I'll tell you what, it certainly did us all a great service."), it seems like the only judgment Williams was able to make after his much-heralded trip to Iraq was, that you can't make any judgments one way or the other about the situation in Iraq. Wow, he makes the whole thing sounds so mysterious. It's kind of like the rules from "Fight Club."

Strangely enough, it seems like the folks who've actually been to Iraq for more than five days don't have any trouble calling the whole thing a "catastrophe." Personally, I'm sticking with Brian's assessment. He's got way better hair.

MSNBC's other prime-time host is Keith Olbermann, who has spent the past two weeks on "Countdown" foaming at the mouth over the Alberto Gonzalez "scandal," which even when accompanied by Keith's seemingly endless selection of loud, poorly-chosen suits, is boring as hell. If Keith wants to constantly focus on the Bushies being unseemly, perhaps he might want to stick to the issues where people are actually dying because of their misconduct instead of a bunch of possibly questionable emails. Or you know, he could talk about something else!

I was planning on making this week's edition of Themtube an MSNBC-only affair, but let's face it—that's just dull. There's only so much John Kerry, old-school news anchorin', and ponderous legal analysis that one person can take. That's why I headed over to "Hannity & Colmes" Tuesday night where Hannity and E.T. impersonator Alan Colmes conducted a hard-hitting interview with noted substance abuser and outgoing Miss U.S.A Tara Conner. At first, it seemed like the recently rehabbed Conner might go all Danny Devito on us when she began the interview by saying, "I'm on a really happy high right now." Sadly, she only meant this figuratively. Even though Conner wasn't loaded, the interview was still amusing as hell, especially when she said, "I was a functioning alcoholic/addict, you would never know when I was using." Oh really Tara? Hate to break it to you, but I think we might have noticed.

Would you ever consider posing for Playboy or doing a nude scene? "Never. I've thought about that because it's so common, but you can use body doubles. I think nudity is exploited a lot, and I'm not comfortable with that.

Former Queen Tells Reigning Queen and Ex Pop Queen: Off With Your Heads [Complex]

• But Fox smear ads compare the CNN anchor to Paris Hilton, which is just unfair. [Page Six]
  
• Tyra Banks, still talking about her fat: "If I had a lower self-esteem, I would probably be starving myself right now. That's exactly what is happening to other women all over this country." Especially the ones competing for spots on ANTM. [People]
  
• A negative Factory Girl review that involved nary a word: we hear that an exclusive press-only event last night featured a puddle of urine on the screening room floor.
  
• Michael Jackson's kids pretty much just look like kids. [TMZ]
  
• Diddyspawn. [NYP]
  
• Wonderland's pretty cushy, but it can't fulfill all of Lindsay Lohan's needs— she's been texting Brody Jenner about her cravings for fast food, and for his Big Mac. [Us Weekly]
  
• Miss USA blames cokesluttiness on her abusive childhood. Ok, Tara, now explain your abusive haircut. [TMZ]
  

I'm pretty sure there are laws against wearing a bikini when your body looks like it's filled with mashed potatoes. If not there should be. And maybe also some against poor people.

Tara Reid Stays Classy For Christmas [The Superficial]

Earlier: Gossip Roundup: Tara Conner Pardoned. Related: Are All Girls Named Tara Drunks?

Miss USA vowed that - from this day forward - she'll keep her nose clean.
And her urine sweet.
And - to employ my current favorite euphemism - her cooch untouched by human hands.
"I have an open heart!" Tara burbled, as she stood before hundreds of the nation's finest media minds, and even more camera-toting tourists, in the glittering Trump Tower atrium.
Unfortunately, her heart is not the organ in need of closing.
But who am I to judge? Oh, right.

Weepy Floozy's A Conner Artist [NYP]

· We tried and we tried (we swear!), but in the end, we just couldn't make ourselves give a shit about the Miss USA situation. Even a little. We will, however, run this large picture of the semidisgraced Tara Conner getting theatrically weepy at press conference announcing The Donald has temporarily exiled her to rehab until she learns to party in a manner more becoming a Trump-owned pageant winner.
TMZ EXCLUSIVE 'AMERICAN IDOL' SHOCKER! Prospective Contestants To Be Brought To Hollywood, Made To Sing Songs By Established Musical Acts!
15 grams of coke? Tawny Kitaen really didn't fuck around with her drug abuse.
Year-End ListMania! 10 TV Shows That Failed! 10 Celebrity Videos That Went Viral!
x17 Online has some striking before and after pics of Paris Hilton running the alcohol/chemical-abuse gauntlet at Teddy's. Couldn't she pull herself together a little bit for the cabbie?

[Photo: Getty Images]

If I ever got that "if you could have one wish" question at a beauty pageant, incidentally, I guess I'd have to go with that most standard of answers: World peace. But if I had two wishes, well, let's just say I'd give serious thought to wishing for a press corps that covers real news instead of manufactured publicity stunts like this.