Former crackhead, cheating husband, womanizer, baby daddy, child endangerer, and lady abuser David Carr, whose drug-laden memoir The Night of the Gun, excerpted in yesterday's Times, dutifully receives write up treatment from his colleagues including Howard Kurtz.

Always one to ask the tough questions, Kurtz prompts Carr: Why write the book?: "Carr, 51, isn't quite sure. 'I ask myself that all the time,' he says in an interview. 'I still feel uneasy about it. It may well be a mistake.'"

Let's clear up the matter with an explanation everybody can understand: $300,000, and Hollywood dreams.

He wrote the book, he says, to help pay for his daughters' college tuition, and he videotaped the interviews for a companion Web site and to increase his chances of landing a movie deal.

Hey, sometimes answers are easy!