Rolling Stone Magazine is turning 40. It just released its first digital issue. I was a teenager when it first came out and read it religiously. I subscribed for years. I still read it from time to time.

So, it's painful for me to see there's been a brouhaha in the media this week about Jann Wenner and Corey Seymour's biography of Hunter Thompson. For a quick recap, check out:

• This NY Daily News article
• The LA Times Review which really hurt Hunter's wife, Anita Thompson
• This Washington Times article defending Hunter's later writing and Anita
• Anita responding on her Owl Farm Blog.

I'm not going to slam Wenner's book, I haven't read the whole thing -- just the 8 pages of excerpts in Rolling Stone last month, which I read on an airplane and enjoyed. Even Anita says there's some good stuff in the book.

But Anita very much disagrees with Wenner's characterization of Hunter (see the LA Times review)at the end of his life, his criticism of Hunter's ESPN reporting and the impression he gives that Hunter did nothing worthwhile after leaving Rolling Stone.

On Hunter's ESPN reporting, his activism and the impact he made during the final years of his life, I feel qualified to weigh in and I'm going to side strongly with Anita (and not just because she's my friend.)

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Bump and Update: Barack Obama did the "Live From Saturday Night" opening line...he was good!

****

It seems like an incongruous choice, but I bet Brian Williams is good tonight on Saturday Night Live.

From this new interview, he's got a sense of humor and may not be as strait-laced as he sometimes comes off doing the news.

What's your favorite medication?
Ambien.
....When's bedtime?
My natural body clock bedtime is 2 to 3 a.m. See Ambien.

On the human side:

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The Hollywood Writers Strike will start Monday.

There will be a "last ditch" effort to avoid the strike Sunday when both sides meet with a federal mediator.

On one side: "CBS Corp.; NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co.; and The Walt Disney Co., owner of the ABC network." On the other: Writers Guild of America.

First casualties, probably Monday night: the late-night talk shows, from Leno and Letterman to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. All are expected to go to repeats.

After that: Day time talk shows and the soaps.

What the writers are fighting for: a fair share of the profits from dvd sales and internet programming.

What to do instead of watching tv? Read more blogs. Support the writers.

More here.

Right now, HBO -- Bill Maher, has Markos of Daily Kos and Joe and Valerie Wilson on.

Markos: Hillary didn't do bad in the debate, she just wasn't perfect as she had been in earlier ones. The media just wants a horse race.

Maher: The Republicans are making immigration the "bogeyman" of the election.

Martin Short and Allison Stewart are on too. The Wilsons' segment is over. Did anyone see it?

Via atrios and Molly Ivers, MoDo is particularly stupid and offensive today. As for the "politics of Hillary," she quotes someone saying:

That [Clinton political] tack, Caitlin Flanagan writes in The Atlantic, would only work if she were “willing to let us women in on the big, underlying struggle of her life that is front and center in our understanding of who she is as a woman . . .

Perhaps in the silly salons of Washington, DC that is true, but the polling indicates one thing for sure, Hillary's great strength is with women:

The consistent lead that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has maintained over Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and others in the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination is due largely to one factor: her support from women.

Much to the chagrin of MoDo and her fellow Hillary-hating travelers, women think very well of Hillary and not so well of the silly people of the Washington salons. Poor Sally Quinn.

In a much cited WSJ Op Ed piece, former Carter Administration Attorney General Benjamin Civilleti writes with Republican Dick Thornburgh and former FBI Director William Webster that:

Public disclosure of the NSA program also brought a flood of class-action lawsuits seeking to impose massive liability on phone companies for allegedly answering the government's call for help. The Intelligence Committee has reviewed the program and has concluded that the companies deserve targeted protection from these suits. . . . We agree with the committee. Dragging phone companies through protracted litigation would not only be unfair, but it would deter other companies and private citizens from responding in terrorist emergencies whenever there may be uncertainty or legal risk.

Unless they reviewed the material, it is hard to see how they could have agreed. But leave that aside. The authors of the piece may have reached this conclusion in good faith, but their conflicts of interest need to be disclosed. Civiletti is a Senior Partner in the Washington law firm Venable, which represents telcos. Similarly, Thornburgh is affiliated with Kirkpatrick and Lockhart, also a telco law firm. And Webster is with Milbank Tweed, also a telco law firm. It may have had no effect on their views, but its disclosure is necessary to maintain journalistic ethics. Not surprisingly, the Wall Street Journal choose not to disclose these facts.

Here's the movie trailer to Running Down the Dream, a 4 hour documentary by Peter Bogdanovich covering the past 30 years of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

It just was released last week and Sundance Channel aired it the other night. I saw about 2 hours of it and loved it. It will air again Nov. 1 at 3am ET, so tivo it if you get the Sundance Channel.

A Studio and bigger version of trailer here.

Say it isn't so! Crooks and Liars has the details. Apparently, a Clear Channel memo went out .

Shorter version: Old Springsteen tunes are fine but not the new ones. Some speculate his age is behind the decision. Also missing from Clear Channel:

There is no sign at major radio stations of new albums by John Fogerty or Annie Lennox, either. The same stations that should be playing Santana’s new singles with Chad Kroeger or Tina Turner are avoiding them, too.

Like Springsteen, these "older" artists have been relegated to something called Triple A format stations — i.e. either college radio or small artsy stations such as WFUV in the Bronx, N.Y., which are immune from the Clear Channel virus of pre-programming and where the number of plays per song is a fraction of what it is on commercial radio.

Are they going to play the new Eagles' album? Are Tom Petty or the Rolling Stones too old? The age excuse is hard for me to believe -- it sounds like speculation to me.

Howie Klein, who should know if anyone does, doesn't buy the age excuse either. In an update, he points out the story isn't totally right as some independent-minded Clear Channel stations, like Boulder's great KBCO, are playing it.

The New Eagles album, Long Road Out of Eden, releases tomorrow. Only at Wal-Mart. Why Wal-Mart? Keep reading, I'll explain in a bit.

It's their first album of new songs in 28 years. Some of the themes sound familiar. Instead of "Life in the Fast Lane" there's "Fast Company." Henley and Frey wrote it for their daughters. It's about peer pressure.

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Despite chiding from John McCain and the pulling of federal funding this week, the Woodstock Museum will go forward.

In recognition of the war protests today, this clip is Country Joe and the Fish, Feel Like I'm Fixing to Die Rag.

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Fred Hiatt, an extreme partisan on behalf of the Bush Administration, insists on bickering about the FISA bill. Mr. Hiatt insists on partisan sniping at, for instance, Ron Wyden:

An amendment to the Senate bill by Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden would go too far by requiring that a warrant be obtained when U.S. citizens are the target of surveillance overseas; this would be an unnecessary and potentially disruptive precedent.

Rather than explaining why he believes requiring a warrant for government surveillance, as the Fourth Amendment requires in the United States, of US citizens residing overseas is "unnecessary and potentially disruptive," Hiatt instead engages in empty partisan bickering.

It is people like Fred Hiatt, who engage in partisan bickering, who keep our good representatives in Congress from enacting bipartisan laws. After all, the FISA bill Hiatt is engaging in partisan bickering about was passed overwhelmingly 13-2 by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Why does Fred Hiatt hate bipartisan legislation? Why must he constantly engage in partisan bickering

On the other hand, Hiatt is wrong in his diatribe against those who oppose Telco Amnesty. That is principled and brave representation of the principles of our country. You see the difference I hope. When I support or oppose something it is principled. When Fred Hiatt supports or opposes something, it is "partisan bickering." We must end the gridlock in Washington. Fred Hiatt must be detained by the government.

Via Kevin Drum, Schlesinger pegged it:

When I was chatting with Gil Harrison before [Walter Lippmann’s memorial] service, he confided that he had just resigned as editor of the New Republic. I said that I thought Gil had been assured editorial control for three years in the sales agreement. The assurance had not been strong enough, however, to block [Marty] Peretz, and Gil said somewhat enigmatically that money had talked. He well remembered that I had warned him against Peretz, who has always seemed to me an unprincipled egomaniac. When I first heard that he was after the New Republic, I wrote Gil saying that, if he ever got hold of it, he would destroy it.