The LA Weekly's Nikki Finke got a rude response when she phoned up New York Times Washington correspondent (and former L.A. bureau chief) Todd Purdum to ask about his Monday night dinner with Graydon Carter, Maureen Dowd and Dee Dee Myers (the former Clinton press secretary, "West Wing" consultant and Purdum's wife). Purdum later apologized by email for describing Finke with a certain vulgar c-word, but it made her column in Thursday's Weekly anyway. She goes into why all the sensitivity in Carter's circle these days. Myers, Finke reports, has been advising the Vanity Fair editor to get himself a crisis manager to help defuse the ethical questions dogging him and the magazine. And in the absence of more sober advice, Carter loyalists have apparently taken to blaming Karl Rove and "Republican operative" Tom Strickler, a literary agent at Endeavor, for the recent L.A. Times reportage on Carter and Hollywood. Writes Finke:

Strickler’s as much a Republican operative as Martin Sheen is the real president of the United States.

Also in LA Weekly: After 20 years, attendance is dwindling at the local clothing optional meeting (2nd item) of Overeaters Anonymous.