During an ABC News interview in Liberia yesterday, Bill Clinton got "a little testy" with a reporter, as he is wont to do these days. She asked him if he had any regrets about anything he did while he was campaigning for Hillary Clinton. He said he does, but not the ones we think, which tells me he's probably still in denial about how he might have damaged his wife's campaign.

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A smart software engineer is going to develop a nifty little application called, say, Favors, which tracks who's done nice things for you in the past, and who's totally screwed you over. But while we wait for Google Labs to churn that one out, we'll have the Web 1.0 version: Doug Band. He's the "chief gatekeeper" for Bill and Hillary Clinton, who diligently registers every time a constituent plays nice with the political power couple — and every time they're ignored or thrown under the bus. (You can imagine where Gov. Bill Richardson falls on this chart.)

Insists Hillary's campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe: "Revenge is not what the Clintons are about." That is, the list is about practicality, making it easier to pay special attention to your allies. And making sure folks like Chris Matthews, Vanity Fair's Todd Purdum, and Matt Drudge are never, ever given special treatment.

On that never-ending Vanity Fair article on Bill Clinton: "Just as I argued that we should not let what’s right with Purdum (his “nicest guy” and “ex-New York Timesman” cred) distract us from talking about what’s wrong with his Clinton article (namely that, as Jay Rosen wrote in explaining why it doesn’t meet OffTheBus’s standards for publication, “it supports damaging allegations with unnamed sources”), let’s not let how we feel about Show Girls, for example, (or the fact that Gershon made the above statements while on Regis and Kelly to Regis-substitute Mario Lopez) overshadow the valid questions that Gershon raises about Purdum’s piece." [CJR]

Blogging grandpa Jeff Jarvis wants reporters to identify themselves when leaving comments. Newsweek's Jonathan Alter wants bloggers to identify themselves when conducting interviews, especially ex-president Bill Clinton.

In this era where "citizen" and "journalist" are paired as often as "drunk" and "uploaded the video to YouTube," who's responsible for disclosing what here?

Should we just assume everyone is, at some level, a reporter? And if they aren't doing the reporting, isn't everyone at least a source?

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After, presumably, watching (or hearing about) Todd Purdum's CNN appearance, where he defending against allegations his article on Bill Clinton "insinuated" anything, VF editor Graydon Carter finally got around to weighing in on the controversy: "The responses from the former president and his camp are very saddening in their own ways. Characteristic, but nevertheless shocking." [NYO]

It's just like when we learned Graydon was smoking again. Characteristic, but nevertheless shocking.

Gina Gershon is lying in the same bed as Bill Clinton. But not in the way you think!

In fact, if you were thinking that way, then you'll understand the whole reason Gershon is complaining about Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair article in the same way Clinton was: Because she claims the insinutations made about her – that she enjoyed the romantic company of the ex-president – aren't true. So she's got her mouth-off-y lawyers at Lavely & Singer demanding VF issue a retraction for a story … that just keeps on giving.

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Vanity Fair yesterday trotted out Todd Purdum, the author of the 10,000-word Bill Clinton piece "The Comeback Id" article," on CNN's The Situation Room, where Wolf Blitzer read passages from the Clinton camp's lengthy response, and Purdum had a chance to defend himself against accusations that he penned what amounts to an egregiously long gossip column.

Below, we're going to quote a few big chunks from his CNN interview. But one general theme is clear: Purdum's defense against the ex-president's rebuttal is that he doesn't insinuate anything about Clinton; he simply is reporting some of the concerns about people who know Clinton.

Know what that sounds like? Jossip's entire M.O.

We don't always care about the facts of a story; we care whether insiders are pushing one gossip tidbit or another, because the mere presence of somebody's agenda is, to us, newsworthy. If whatever piece of information a source is pushing turns out to be true, fantastic — but the inner workings of the gossip industry is what always gets our attention.

Vanity Fair, however, does not stoop to this "low," as some might describe it. The magazine aims to be an upstanding, above-the-fray news source. But it's very arguable that Purdum's story did nothing but stir the gossip mill, push insiders' agendas, and make for very interesting inside baseball commentary. And it will sell magazine's for Graydon Carter and Conde Nast. But it will not help brand the magazine's reputation in authenticity.

True, reporters need not "insinuate" anything. The facts of the matter should do that. But basing your entire pitch on, say, doctors who have never treated Clinton is like a celebrity tabloid, well, doing the exact same thing.

And with that, Purdum's defense:

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God bless those embed reporters. Some are armed with handheld video cameras. Others? Audio recorders. Which made for this fine clip of Bill Clinton responding to Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair article — which he sort of already did with that lengthy-ass letter. But now Clinton is saying things like: "[Purdum is] sleazy. He's a really dishonest reporter. And one of our guys talked to him . . . And I haven't read [the article]. But he told me there's five or six just blatant lies in there. But he's a real slimy guy. [...] Let me tell ya– he's one of the guys — he's one of the guys that propagated all those lies about Whitewater to Kenneth Starr. He's just a dishonest guy– can't help it."

And that's when he brought up David Granger.

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J.C., Clinton!

After Vanity Fair's long expose – a writearound, in fact, given that Bill Clinton refused to participate – in the July issue, which is getting more play thanks to the voluptuous Angelina Jolie gracing the cover, the ex-president's camp appears to have copy/pasted from its defense playbook, countering the article and the magazine that has a "penchant for libel."

Todd Purdum's article arrives just in time, because at some point this week, wife Hillary will be an after-thought as Barack Obama champions toward November, and our focus, genuinely, jumps to Obama vs McCain.

So while the public can still be relied upon for its interest in the Clintons, VF hits with "The Comeback Id," which opens with a not-so-kind portrayal of Clinton and his skeevy friends, like Ron Burkle, owner of the plane "Air Fuck One," and Steve Bing, whose favorite pastime is litigation. (Though there is this line: "In fairness, it should be said that Clinton’s entourage that weekend also included his daughter, Chelsea, and her boyfriend, Marc Mezvinsky, and no one who was there has adduced the slightest evidence that Clinton’s behavior was anything other than proper.")

The article, all nearly 10,000 words of it, which jumps around from his presidency and his scandals to his new sources of income and his role in his wife's campaign, can be summed up in this way: "What’s the matter with him?"

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The wingspan of Bill Clinton's power is wide! Or Bill Clinton thinks it is! Back in 2006, he tried squashing the ABC miniseries Path to 9/11, which his inner circle feared would blame some of the WTC attacks on Clinton White House policy (i.e. not finding Osama bin Laden), claims Carol Felsenthal in her new book Clinton in Exile: A President Out of the White House. Even Madeleine Albright jumped on the bandwagon, calling for the series to get killed, even though she hadn't even seen any of it.

Sound familiar? It should. It's the same sort of scenario Clinton pulled with GQ, threatening to drop out of participating in the magazine's "Men of the Year" issue of a critical profile of wife Hillary got printed. Editor Jim Nelson ending up killing the piece (though it was reused elsewhere), and Bill gave him a cover.

ABC, as history tells it, didn't cave.

Us Weekly is backing off its Barack Obama bias by allowing the spouses of Hillary and Barack to pen first-person arguments for the candidate they sometimes sleep in the same bed with. Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama have 1,000 words to argue who deserves to be Us' "Look of the Week," and who deserves a citation from the Fashion Police.

That's Rich. After months of stalling, Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton have released seven years of their joint income tax returns. And they're rolling in it: $109 million of it, actually. [Hillary Clinton]

Last week, David Shuster was indefinitely suspended for suggesting that the Hillary Clinton campaign was “pimping out” first daughter Chelsea, the most likable member of the Clinton entourage.

Chelsea Clinton has always been a bizarre public figure. In 1992, she was her dad’s biggest supporter. But since becoming first daughter, she has understandably struggled with her lack of privacy as an adult. Until Iowa, Chelsea mostly hid in the background of her mom’s campaign.

In Maine, where Barack Obama won one of four primary elections over the weekend, Hillary Clinton wrote NBC News president Steve Capus, “Nothing justifies the kind of debasing language that David Shuster used and no temporary suspension or half-hearted apology is sufficient.”

No one denies that Shuster’s verb choice leaves something to be desired, but indefinite suspension seems sufficient to say the least, especially considering that that Chelsea has been "pimped out" before. After all, how many teenagers do you know who held the hands of both parents on leisurely walks to a presidential helicopter following an investigation into their father's infidelity?

For the past week, Bill Clinton has been getting more media coverage than every other presidential hopeful except for his wife and Barack Obama.

You know what this means Team Change We Can Believe In: Michelle, it’s time to step up your game.

[Chart]

REALITY IS CALLING, EDWARDS FINALLY PICKS UP THE PHONE The son of a mill worker won't be president any time soon. John Edwards has acknowledged the unpopularity of white males and dropped out of the race. He has not endorsed a candidate, but we're betting he'll go with Barack Obama as a bitch-slap to the Clintons. [AP]