There were three separate pieces today on "watchdog" website Media Matters complaining about how badly Barack Obama has been manhandled by the press. The first piece takes aim at Good Morning America, the New York Sun and The Politico. The second impugns CNN anchor and debate moderator Suzanne Malveaux, and the third takes a long mean look at by U.S. News & World Report editor David Gergen. Hey, Media Matters, why the crush on Obama?

With Oprah Approved™ presidential hopeful Barack Obama trailing to Hillary Clinton, it would seem the voiced support of Angelina Jolie's do-gooding wingman—rounding out a megastar hat-trick that already includes George Clooney and Matt Damon—would be precisely what the candidate needs to get ahead in the polls. However, fearing heartland voters might be turned off by the endorsement of someone perceived as an overly privileged and left-leaning actor who's "all shacked-up with that vampire lady and her 14 colored kids," Obama's campaign has kindly declined Brad Pitt's generous offer:

According to third-quarter donation reports, Hollywood is still lavishing cash at presidential hopeful Barack Obama, the candidate Oprah Winfrey recently dipped in honey, heaved into the money pile her friends built at her Montecito compound, and allowed to walk off with the three million dollars in donations that clung to his sticky, glistening form. But we suspect that most of those fickle little political starfuckers will be cured of their Obamamania and climb into Al Gore's hybrid bandwagon the minute the Oscar/Emmy/Nobel triple-threat announces he's running. [HuffPo]

The December Atlantic will have bear-blogger Andrew Sullivan on Barack Obama as its cover. Can you hold your breath until then? Let's hope Sully is as right on Obama as he's historically been on everything from "the end of AIDS" to publishing excerpts from The Bell Curve in The New Republic to his participation in a religion that hates him to his misreadings of Susan Sontag to supporting the war in Iraq to linking the 2001 anthrax mailings somehow to the war to endorsing Bush in 2000! [Folio]

· Rob Reiner officially endorses Hillary Clinton, immediately embracing her campaign's talking points on Barack Obama: "Based on the experience I have had in politics, and I have been on the front lines in a lot of these fights, I came around to realizing that we do need the most experienced and most qualified person to run the country." [Variety]
· The much-anticipated premiere-night Nielsen deathmatch between NBC's Bionic Woman remake and ABC's Grey's Anatomy spin-off is won by Bionic; meanwhile, Kid Nation dropped off from its unspectacular debut numbers of last week. [THR]
· Mark your calendars, Michael Bay fans, because giant fucking robots are coming again, eventually: Paramount and DreamWorks have staked out June 26th, 2009 for Transformers 2. And the project stays even if Spielberg and his pals go. [Variety]
· Bonnie Hunt is getting a daytime talk show. [THR]
· And on the development battlefront, NBC and ABC set up competing, Famesque projects about young people chasing their performing arts dreams in NY. [Variety]

If you've been going through a bit of a dry spell lately, take heart: Tonight's Barack Obama rally in Washington Square Park (and the afterparty at Jay Z's 40/40 Club) should provide even the most unattractive and inept among you with the opportunity to get some hot, politically-motivated ass. As one Obama supporter tells Daily News reporter Jo Piazza, "Let's face it: Leftie girls are easy." (And they're totally pro-abortion, so you don't need to worry about protection!) And what of the guys? "Look, you never meet good guys in a bar. Something like this naturally weeds out the losers for you. You aren't going to get some pickup artist at a political after-party." Uh, you are now!

Barack Obama explains exactly how black he is. [Newsgroper]

Eric Savitz goes through Federal Election Committee filings, picks out the top political contributors in Silicon Valley. Barack Obama gets some big names: Sequoia Capital VC Michael Moritz, Google backer Ram Shriram, and YouTube founder Chad Hurley all gave to his campaign. Sadly, no information on Ron Paul supporters. [Barrons]

John Edwards: "I'm white. Down here in my pants? A cock! Let's be honest, who else ya gonna vote for? The black dude? The vagina-haver? I don't THINK SO." [NYO]

· While it seemed that Steven Spielberg had ended the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in throwing his support behind Hillary Clinton, an undeterred Barack Obama has gone above the Hollywood kingmaker's head by getting Oprah Winfrey, the beneficent daytime TV deity Herself, to host a fundraiser for him at her Montecito compound. An expected $14 billion will be raised for the Obama campaign in a single night when Winfrey commands the heavens to open up and shower bundles of hundred-dollar bills upon her chosen candidate. [Variety]
· In the short term, the stockpiling of projects in anticipation of a multi-union strike may increase the number of entertainment industry jobs, but overall, the threat of a walkout could cause an employment slowdown whether or not the guilds and producers usher in the End of Hollywood Days with a prolonged work stoppage. [THR]
· CBS sets its fall schedule, but will hold risky musical drama Viva Laughlin until October 21 in order to buy more time to figure out how the hell to market the show to inevitably confused audiences. [Variety]
· Despite having his TV show let go to make more room on the schedule for caveman-related programming, George Lopez doesn't seem to be having too much trouble finding movie work. [THR]
· Beleaguered Fox/Spielberg collaboration On The Lot now only being watched by accident. [Variety]

Rhymes With Cory: So remember last week when you were all, "Oh no, Emily's going to be gone all week, we're never gonna have enough material?"
BALK BTW: As if it were Friday.
Rhymes With Cory: And I was like, "Nah, we'll be fine." And you said, "We're going to be begging My Cock for posts." And I told you it would never happen?
BALK BTW: Uh huh.
Rhymes With Cory: Is Your Cock awake? Because we have a huge hole.
BALK BTW: Funny enough, we were just IMing. Are we really that desperate?
Rhymes With Cory: I would take a post from Your Balls at this point.
BALK BTW: Okay, lemme see if he's up for it.

You've heard about that Obama girl video, right? Everyone's talking about it. But is it harmless fun or an insult to womanhood's long struggle to be considered equal to men? It's an issue driving a wedge between even the closest of friends—for instance, Huffington Post media critic Rachel Sklar and Star editor-at-large Julia Allison. We've obtained a transcript of a recent (private) clash they had on the subject, and we make it public here because, well, it's very important. Whose side are you on? The answer might surprise you!

Barack Obama "received more donations from employees of investment banks and hedge funds than from any other sector, with Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase among his biggest sources of support." The junior senator from Illinois has thus far pulled $160 grand from Lehman and $100K from Goldman. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, got a mere $47,850 from Morgan Stanley. [FT]

Anna Quindlen: Democrats should take the most winnable election since 1932 and gamble on the chance that Americans who hate blacks will be mollified by a woman at the top of the ticket, and that Americans who don't believe a woman should be in charge will say to themselves, "Well, hey, at least they've got a black guy in there to help out." Great idea. [Newsweek]

Add another politician's name to Google's visitor logs. Presidential candidate and YouTube superstar Ron Paul will address Google employees this Friday, following in the footsteps of fellow candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain.

"A full 15 percent of Americans say Clinton gives them the creeps... Clinton's Democratic archrival Barack Obama skeeves out 4 percent, while John Edwards gives the heebie-jeebies to 6 percent." [NYP]

Dealing a death blow to once-trendy Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's chances of landing the crucial entertainment industry endorsement that spurred Presidents Gore and Kerry on to historic White House tenures, show business deity Steven Spielberg has officially anointed Hillary Clinton Hollywood's Savior, releasing a statement today indicating he's "convinced that [she] is the most qualified candidate to lead us."

Hey, so the Vanity Fair Africa issue hit newsstands today! Guest-edited by Bono! We rushed out to get our copy and brought it to the office where we realized that, you know, we're kind of shallow. Isn't Africa kind of last fall? We don't have the attention spans for that stuff. You know what we do care about, though? Celebrities! And with twenty different celebrity-studded covers, the magazine kept up involved for a good five minutes looking at the Annie Leibovitz compositions. Each one blends one subject from the previous cover, so you've got your Don Cheadle and Barack Obama giving way to Barack and Muhammad Ali. Here's a handy guide to who you'll want to look for at the newsstand.

Here's a cartoon drawn by Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) for a neurofibromatosis charity. The doodle, which sold on eBay for $2075, "features Senators Chuck Schumer, the head of the Senate Democrats' campaign arm; Harry Reid, the majority leader, Dianne Feinstein of California and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts." How can you not love this guy? He's a stirring speaker, he offers the nation a chance to heal its differences, and he's completely able to capture Chuck Schumer's gigantic, Jewy hooknose! We think the choice is clear.

• Oprah Winfrey endorses Barack Obama. Hell, if she can move copies of The Road she can probably sell anything. [NYT]