The influence of power agency CAA is, in some respects, inscrutable. Then again, so is Oprah's. And when two unstoppable forces meet, well, you see who the weaker party is.

In the instance of Oprah's new TV channel OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, it's CAA agent Michael Camacho who's the weakling. Camacho worked on the deal between Oprah and Discovery Communications, which handed off its Discovery Health channel so Oprah's latest offering would have a home among cable operators. But then, after trying, surreptitiously, to set himself up to steer OWN, Camacho finds himself out of a job.

Camacho, as chief of CAA's Alternative TV unit, worked alongside CAA mega-agent Kevin Huvane on the deal. But without telling Huvane, Camacho is said to have gone directly to Oprah with a pitch to become the network's CEO. (While her name and money is involved in every aspect of the machine, Oprah will not be its chief.) Oprah's camp was dismayed; CAA reacted in kind, by firing him.

But apparently, the agency isn't intent on parting ways entirely. Nikki Finke hears CAA is working to help him set up his own company, while other agency's are reading his resume.

Last night's First Annual Young New York, thrown by CAA's "Assistant Task Force of New York" (gag, right?), was, by all accounts, a bust. Funny, 'cause we had a hankering it would be. We're told the only anybody worth talking to in a sea of gophers was Israeli actress Meital Dohan (you've seen her and her ribcage in Weeds), sitting in a makeshift VIP area – what CAA event wouldn't have one? – with her, ahem, chief of staff. Add to it that in an evening of downpour, the coat check managed to lose umbrella after umbrella, while handing out multiple umbrellas to a certain select few. (This violation of umbrella ethics is a personal issue, dear to our heart.)

No wonder Alec Baldwin fired them.

Calling all young professional ladder climbers. If you've got plans tomorrow night, cancel them. CAA is in town with its army of assistants ("CAA Assistant Task Force of New York"), rounding up "entertainment industry professionals, trendsetters and celebrities" to raise money for … oh, that's where they lost us. Anyhow, the event is the First Annual Young New York Party, and it promises to attract the upwardly mobile crowd normally content to keep their levels of obnoxious inside the confines of Buddha Bar.

So, see you there?

• While we thought Dave Chappelle was having a mental breakdown, it turns out that all he wanted to do was to trash white people a little more than usual. But damn those caucasian bosses, they wouldn't have any of it. [AP]

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• Kate White spends 10 hours a month perfecting the craft of the perfect Cosmopolitan cover line. With two million newsstand sales, it's 10 hours well spent. [Forbes]

• More Paid $ix fallout: News Corp. is denying, on Richard Johnson's behalf, deceased landlord-slash-media powerplayer Lou Rudin ever gave the Page Six editor a rent-controlled Upper West Side flat, though former NYTer Blake Fleetwood stands by the story. [Daily Politics]

• Meanwhile, Jared Paul Stern will answer Gawker's questions, but not ours. It's nice to know he's still got kind words for Page Six, the institution. [Gawker]

• Egads! Sometimes the Washington Post news desk and editorial board don't match up. [Washington City Paper]

• Meanwhile, President Bush wants WaPo to apologize for its "reckless reporting" regarding White House intelligence. [E&P]

• Leaks don't only come from the White House; they arrive from the taping of Will & Grace's series finale, too. (Spoiler warning.) [MNH]