I'm totally with you on the child rapist excuses, Gainor. I'm a little bit less with you on the Late Night womanizer excuses. Remember: just because a man's legal relationships with consenting adults happen to be aired the same week that a notorious child rapist was arrested does not mean that the two incidents are related. And I'm really not with you on the mainstream media's Olympics "excuses," which amount to Katie Couric announcing, "Despite a high-powered, star-studded U.S. appeal from Oprah to the Obamas, the Olympics are awarded to Rio.”

Which is worse: Hollywood filmmakers excusing child rape, or Katie Couric alliterating on "Oprah," "Obama," and "Olympics"? To Gainor, it's pretty much a draw!

"Turn on any network last week and you saw famous people making excuses. It didn’t matter if it was Hollywood morons defending a rapist, David Letterman pretending he was a victim for treating his staff like a harem, or Barack Obama denying responsibility for the failed Olympic bid," writes Gainor. "It looked like some nightmarish recast of an awful 'Family Circus' cartoon with all of the major characters shouting 'not me' with their hands fully in the cookie jar."

Nope, my bad! According to Gainor, it "doesn't matter" whether these people are excusing heinous sex crimes against minors, or simply refraining from speculating as to the Olympic committee's reasoning for granting the games to Rio.

Gainor's logic linking defenders of Polanski, Letterman, and Obama boils down to this: the media is failing to treat Roman Polanski like he committed a crime. The media is also failing to treat David Letterman and Barack Obama like they committed crimes. Because they didn't. I'm just going to assume that my own failure to ignore this crucial distinction designates me as a member of the liberal media. Hey, got anybody who didn't do anything wrong that requires an excuse from the mainstream media? Hit me up!

Bonus FOX News fail: "awful 'Family Circus' cartoon" is redundant. Every Family Circus cartoon is awful.

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Sarah Seltzer for Reproductive Health Reality Check wonders if Levi is a "victim" in the Palin spotlight. "The Internet is buzzing over Levi Johnston's appearance on Tyra yesterday to 'break his silence,' and providing us all with a reminder that patriarchal policies like abstinence-only education hurt young men, too," writes Seltzer.

I couldn't agree more: We're all victims here: Levi, Bristol, Tripp, and Palin herself all suffered at the hands of her ridiculous abstinence (with a teenage pregnancy backup) method. Everyone, that is, except Tyra, who pulls a fierce Katie Couric to get the daytime interview of the post-pregnancy season.

Katie Couric fell into some pretty serious mom jeans territory last night in her pre-Grammy interview with Lil' Wayne. How nerdy does Couric look compared to Weezy? Let me count the ways:

1. Why wait? Go on, date yourself immediately. Couric intro: "He's got the teeth, the 'tats . . . and the 'tude."

2. Minutes later, Couric manages the impossible: She makes amateur bowlers look cool when she hits the lanes with Lil' Wayne (conceivably, before they head over to the local malt shop to chill with the kids). When Weezy bowls a gutter ball, Couric calls out, "Don't worry, we'll edit that one out!" But she was totally lying!

3. "By the way what do I call you: 'Wayne'? 'Weezy'? 'Lil'?"

4. Way to emphasize the final "R" in the question, "What does it mean when you say you're a gangster?"

5. "Tell me about this drink, Wayne, that you like, called 'syrup.' It's ... prescription cough medicine?"

6. After Weezy talks about his "syrup" habit ("It's what you take when you have a very, very bad cough, a flu or somethin'," he explains) and his marijuana use (it's "medicinal"), Couric gets on his back about being a "role model" to the "kids" (including his 10-year-old and two-month-old children). Weezy, as always, is ready with the perfect response: "If you need an example for how to live, then you shouldn't have even been born."

7. Nothing makes you sound quite as lame as haveing your serious journalist voice layered over Lil' Wayne's "Lollipop."

I wonder where Palin gets these ideas, seeing that the VP candidate, a journalism major, cannot name a single news source. "I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media," said Palin. When asked what newspapers, specifically, she read, Palin responded, "All of them, any of them ... we have a vast variety of source where we get our news."

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But when are we going to see the Roe v. Wade clip? Gotcha!

* Yesterday's Washington Post date lab, attached Michaeleen plays games with single Steve. "I never did the whole date-lots-of-people thing when I was younger. The man I am seeing is out of town, so he doesn't know about Date Lab," says Michaeleen. "I am going to tell [him]. I do believe in being honest and up front." Two weeks later, Michaeleen's boyfriend was still in the dark about Michaeleen's WaPo-funded dinner date. Until now!

* Once but a blog, now a full-fledged 'zine: The second issue of local fashion/lifestyle magazine panda head is available today.

* Brightest Young Things on last week's All-City Air Guitar Competition at Wonderland: Fenders replaced with cut-off shorts, DIO shirts, and tighty-whities.

* Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds make it official in a Canadian wedding.

* Tina Fey reprises her role as Sarah Palin on "Saturday Night Live"; Amy Poehler takes on Katie Couric: