We should have realized it earlier, but Tina Brown's enlistment of Conrad Black, the ex-news baron serving time in federal prison, to give a review of the new Rupert Murdoch biography The Man That Owns the News, was sheer Shakespearean revenge plot.

You see, Brown has a personal vendetta against Newser founder and TMTON author Michael Wolff, who has a long standing feud with the "old magazine hack" (his words). And hiring a cellmate, however famous, to critique his memoir definitely got under Wolff's skin, the way it was most likely meant to.

The fact, for instance, that Conrad Black is both a subject of my book and a convicted felon (i.e. he’s lied about the very issues I’m discussing) might ordinarily make him a suspect reviewer. But his true function on the Web is not to review, but to be outlandish, part of a new freak show. Black and Spitzer, and, in a way, Tina herself, are not so much to be taken seriously but to be taken as novelty acts. It’s a laughing-at-them thing.

Hey hey hey…Tina and Conrad are fair game Wolff, but are you sure you want to take a pot-shot at Eliot Spitzer quite yet? If the price is right, you might be able to persuade him to leave Slate and come write for you!