As the election heats up, the attacks and/or vetting of each candidate have reached a boiling point. The latest narrative concerns former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, and comes courtesy of a new book — The Real Romney — that purports to offer an in-depth look into his past, both as a businessman and as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Among allegations contained in the book is the claim that, back in 1983 Romney, then a Mormon bishop, urged a single mother to give her baby up for adoption.

Author, journalist and Vanity Fair contributor Christopher Hitchens has passed away tonight from pneumonia, a complication of his long-standing battle esophageal cancer, at Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Pop star Justin Bieber might have the ability to drive pre-teens into a shrieking hormonal frenzy, but when it comes to selling magazines, The Biebs (as we refer to him around the office) simply doesn’t cut it.

Vanity Fair, taking a break from its tried and true formula of featuring flaxen-haired starlets in pin-up poses on its cover, made Bieber its February cover model. And, in this case at least, it hasn’t quite paid off.

I suppose Vanity Fair readers might be the sort to be interested in the family life and personal musings of Bill Keller and his wife, as well as the type of readership for whom someone like Keller is something of a celebrity, his personal life being as newsworthy as his professional choices.

I’m not a Vanity Fair reader so, while I understand, somewhat, the interest, I find Gilbey Keller’s piece indicative of something that trouble me in media, even though, by covering it, I’m a part of the problem. The angst!

The fact is that Gilbey Keller’s piece, while interesting and moving, sure, isn’t just one wife’s look at her husband’s work and its impact on their family. It’s a piece about a well-known man with a well-known job whose family is, now, also known.

Rep. Anthony Weiner has somehow become the only worthwhile news story for a great deal of the media through what some allege was inappropriate conduct towards a young woman, but this isn’t the first time the recently-wed legislator has been (allegedly) caught flirting by the press. A decade ago, in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, a Vanity Fair article chronicles how the 36-year-old Congressman introduced himself as an auto-parts salesman and asked out a young congressional staffer.

Graydon Carter, editor in chief of Vanity Fair, is set to star in his newest role since that of “Recipient of Angry Letters from Donald Trump.” He is set to appear in the upcoming thriller Arbitrage, starring Richard Gere as a hedge-fund magnate whose firm Carter’s character is trying to overtake. The film, which also [...]

Donald Trump, it is fair to say, doesn’t do anything halfway. When he builds a hotel, he makes sure it’s slathered in enough glittering black and gold to make the Taj Mahal look positively plain in comparison. When he combs his hair, he’s aided by a small army of tophat-wearing bluebirds. And when he writes a letter to an editor… Well. He goes all out.

Such is the case with a letter Trump sent to Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter in response to a May 17th blog post on “VF Daily,” written by Juli Weiner.

There was a time that the word “fag” probably wouldn’t cause much of a stir. But Vanity Fair contributor Brett Berk has found himself in the middle of a weekend firestorm after dropping the f-bomb in a column about the recent episode of Glee in his Gay Guide to Glee on VF’s website.

Here’s a glossy magazine profile that may not make it to the walls of Piers Morgan‘s office at CNN, James Wolcott‘s It’s Morgan in America, which asks “how did we get stuck with Piers Morgan? Who is he, why is he here, is he returnable?”

What follows is an extensive exploration of Morgan’s career, and an analysis of Piers Morgan Tonight, before wandering off into a discussion of Sarah Palin, Kate Gosselin and the 2012 elections. On PMT, Wolcott makes the assertion that as an interview show, Larry King Live was campy but compelling, and Piers Morgan Tonight isn’t:

Jack Dorsey is quite possibly one of the most influential people in tech of which you’ve probably never heard. Dorsey, you see, invented a little ol’ social network called Twitter (Perhaps you’ve heard of it? It’s a great way to share thoughts, stay abreast of breaking news and creep out young actresses.) and is currently working on a new project, Square, which aims to change the way we make payments by allowing users to attach a device to their mobile phones, and then simply swipe a credit card to pay quickly and efficiently.

At the top of the Oscar list are two movies – True Grit and The Social Network – that have attracted and delighted audience that are now vying for supremacy in the eyes of the Academy Awards voters. Last week, Grit pulled ahead in box office totals, but Social Network has been the favorite thus far among major critics’ awards. Because of the late momentum Grit has generated at the box office, Social Network will be re-released in theaters.

Say what you will about Wikileaks supreme hero/villain Julian Assange, he has crafted quite the reputation as one of the most difficult men to work with in the world, despite fronting an organization that relies upon collaboration with the media. Vanity Fair‘s latest extensive feature goes behind the scenes into how at least one newspaper, The Guardian, kept Assange at the table. Hint: it involved “a great deal of coffee followed by a great deal of wine.”

Surprise! Christopher Hitchens is annoyed by something. In the January issue of Vanity Fair, Hitchens penned a caustic essay titled “Tea’d Off,” in which he offers some of his many thoughts on Ross Douthat, the Tea Party, and Glenn Beck. It’s Beck, he says, who deserves the blame for “canalizing old racist and clerical toxic-waste material” in America.

Greta Van Susteren is piping up in defense of Glenn Beck. Sort of. Seem Greta stumbled upon this headline on Vanity Fair yesterday — Fox on the Rocks: Glenn Beck Despised by Network President, Other Employees — and took umbrage with it.

Sarah Palin is apparently unhappy with Michael Joseph Gross, the author of the much-talked-about Vanity Fair piece.

But when she appeared to refer to him as “impotent and limp and gutless” in an interview on Sean Hannity’s radio show, was she also doing a little gay-baiting?

Vanity Fair has released its 16th annual ranking of the 100 most influential people of the Information Age. Spoiler alert: They are all white men. Other than that the top five is full of the usual suspects, though further on the list gets more interesting.

Two years after entering the nation’s klieg lights Sarah Palin is the subject of a detailed and scathing profile in next month’s Vanity Fair. The portrait that emerges is one of a willful, often-paranoid, sometimes vengeful woman with a terrible temper and a knack for folksy soundbites, who knows her strengths, saw her moment in the spotlight and has grabbed onto it with both hands.

The news that legendary polemic Christopher Hitchens had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer earlier this summer struck at the heart of Washington, and after officially announcing it in Vanity Fair, Hitchens sat down with Anderson Cooper tonight to talk about how he is handling it, and the prayers for and against his good health.

Interesting news from our friends at Gossip Cop. It appears that Lindsay Lohan will be appearing on the October cover of Vanity Fair and that the issue will also feature an interview that Lohan gave shortly before her incarceration. The interview is apparently very candid and deals with all the pressing issues in the troubled star’s life including her legal problems.

In a show of cable news’ tight relationship with news consumers, CNN and Fox News dominated a recent 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll when it came to the “most trustworthy source of daily news.”

Beating out broadcast outlets and newspapers, the results come the same weekend MSNBC’s President praised FNC CEO Roger Ailes‘ ‘brilliance’.

This Tiger Woods story from December just refuses to skulk away in disgrace. The morning greeted us with a new Tiger mistress exposé in Vanity Fair and a New York Times Opinionator post evaluating the damage Woods has done to America. Even if Robert Wright is right about the Tiger story incinerating American culture, no one wants this story to die more than Tiger Woods, which is exactly why we should keep writing about it.

Vanity Fair is reporting that a poll they’ve done in conjunction with 60 Minutes has 50% of those responding claiming they would support an openly gay president. The poll was conducted by the CBS News interviewing facility and used 967 randomly selected adults contacted by telephone.

Gawker’s Ravi Somaiya made it into the Vanity Fair Oscars Party uninvited last night for “seven minutes in total,” and today described (with pics) some of what went down in the extremely hard-to-crash event. Besides the interaction with Rupert Murdoch and everyone’s favorite pilot Chesley Sullenberger, he also ran into Anjelica Huston before getting run out of the event.

Daily Intel’s Jessica Pressler dug a pretty explosive anecdote out of a James Verini Vanity Fair article on Matt Taibbi‘s exploits in 1990′s Russia, and now it’s making the rounds on blogs and Twitter. According to Verini, Taibbi reacted to some criticism with a meltdown worthy of Christian Bale. Verini should have known trouble was brewing when Taibbi threw coffee on him, but it didn’t end there.

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.