In a USA Today column, Rand Paul sets out to distance himself from the Libertarian label. Ironically, he winds up spending the majority of his time articulating his libertarian philosophy rather than making a case for a philosophical alternative.

Rand Paul may belong to the last generation of politicians who have to be worried about their college transgressions. By the time the current generation starts running for office every stupid thing they’ve ever done will have been documented on Facebook and cease to have meaning. In the meantime, a new GQ profile on Rand Paul may prove to be disruptive to his current campaign for Senate.

Now that the media is “all Shirley Sherrod, all the time” (with a dash of Journolist thrown in as well), see if you can work your memory hard enough to picture the golden days of late June 2010, back when it was “all Gen. McCrystal all the time.” Yes, it was just about a month ago that Rolling Stone got their biggest publicity in years. Zeke Turner over at The New York Observer’s Media Mob (and a Mediaite alum, whoo!) got the crazy story today that the article that brought down a five star general was originally supposed to go to GQ.

Here’s a blast from the past, in cable news time: former CNN anchor and current radio host Lou Dobbs has inexplicably popped up in an extensive 6-page profile in GQ, railing against bad grammar, illegal immigrants, potholes and stopping his endless ranting for a few seconds to suggest he is running for president in 2012.

So apparently there was this photo spread in GQ that featured John Edwards’ baby mama Rielle Hunter, and it caused quite a stir across the great American news punditscape (yes, that word now officially exists.) What – you missed it? Well in the event that you need to catch up on what all talking heads think of this strange twist in an already bizarre story, the fine folks at Newsweek.com have done all the watching for you, and put together this highly entertaining video.

The pictures are, in fact, kind of sexy. There, I said it. Rielle Hunter, the woman behind the man who might give the National Enquirer its first Pulitzer, has finally come out of her shell. In a big way. Her interview with GQ is all over the place (in more ways than one), but it’s the accompanying photo spread that’s getting all the attention. The revealing shots have drawn near-universal condemnation (even from Hunter) for their odd mixture of stuffed animals and a seemingly fresh-from-sexytime Hunter. I’m here to tell Rielle not to be so hard on herself.

Well, it looks like no matter how much you wish for it the Edwardses and their scandals are not going away. Behold the latest installment. Rielle Hunter has given a long interview to GQ in which she says, among other things, that it was Andrew Young’s idea to claim paternity and that (alas) the Dave Matthews anecdote is completely false. There’s more.

Political satire blog Wonkette is making its mark on magazine giant Conde Nast. Two Wonkette alums separately announced today that they are joining magazines within the Conde Nast family. Original Wonketteer Ana Marie Cox, who has also worked for Time and the now-defunct Air America Radio, became the newest addition to the GQ staff. But that’s not all.

Last fall, a hacker broke into Conde Nast’s computer system, flinging early copies of GQ, Vogue and other publications all over the Internet. To prevent further breaches of trust and budget, Conde set up the Fraud Reporting Hotline. According to the memo sent by Chief Financial Officer John Bellando, employees are encouraged to turn in anyone guilty of “release of proprietary information, accounting/audit irregularities, falsification of company records, theft of goods/services/cash,” and “unauthorized discounts/payoffs.”

In the lead-up to the release of the Apple Tablet, publishers like Condé Nast have somewhat tepidly ventured out on their own into the digital marketplace. Both the December and January issues of GQ were released as iPhone apps, becoming the first title to supply digital versions that count toward circulation numbers. Now, Condé Nast has released the first batch of stats and claimed success, but the numbers seem small. Is there hope?

Esquire, Fortune, Playboy, Vanity Fair, New York: End the War on Christmas Magazine Covers! Who knows, magazines might even increase those newsstand sell-through numbers that are all doing so terribly if they just get back into the holiday spirit. To make a case, we’ve collected the Top 20 Christmas Magazine Covers of All Time.

GQ magazine released their list of the 50 most powerful people in Washington D.C. this week, and the story has been covered online and on the cable news networks.

But most powerful lists have been done before (ours is in Grid form). How about the 10 least powerful people in D.C.?

Now would be a good time for the folks at Condé Nast to make a brave and convincing foray into the online world, right? And so they have — well, it’s brave at least — with the launch of a new dating site trulymadlydating.com. The idea is to get Glamour readers into a dating pool with GQ readers, and make money setting them up in stylish relationships. Since something is terribly wrong with Condé’s core business, it seems the publishing house is ready to try anything.

When Megan Fox told GQ last year that “Olivia Wilde is so sexy she makes me want to strangle a mountain ox with my bare hands,” she made quite a statement. Just about every media source picked up the saucy story, from Perez Hilton to Fox News. Who was this Olivia Wilde chick, and what [...]

GQ is apparently none too keen to make available their Sept. article about Russia (‘Vladimir Putin’s Dark Rise to Power’) to the Russians. In fact they are so serious about keeping it out of Russia one wonders if the piece contains U.S. nuclear codes. But what about that pesky Internet?

We normally count on graffiti-chic Esquire covers to be the edgiest of the men’s mags . But this month, Esquire tries to hard, leaving the door wide open for the September Details and a brooding, bloodshot Tom Brady — edgy but relatable.

In a fascinating Washington Post column this week, TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington described how AOL is scooping up some of the best print reporters from short-sighted print publications. Is racking up writing talent part of Tim Armstrong’s vision for preparing the massive online entity for spin-off?

Every week we take a look at the newsstand and try to pick the winners and losers. We call this feature “Cover Wars” and this week we’re looking at the world of men’s magazines — or should we say ‘magazines that men might like to read’. We’re always looking for something a little smarter to read, especially if photos of Brad Pitt eating donuts over his keyboard are involved.

Recent reports of the vanishing wealth of Si Newhouse have raised eyebrows in New York publishing circles. Is the international market is still a monster source of revenue for publishing giant, and will it help turn things around at Conde Nast?

GQ’s July issue is the “Comedy Issue” so who better to put on the cover than a naked and coquettish Sacha Baron Cohen. But as Stephanie Clifford reports in the New York Times, the naked visage of Bruno has made a lot of people nervous — just like the movie:

Every week we take a look at the newsstand and try to pick the winners and losers. We call this feature “Cover Wars” and this week we’re looking at the July issues of the leading Men’s Lifestyle magazines, which featured a lot more skin than usual.