TVSquad

Now we know that we're getting serious when it comes to the 2008 presidential campaign: Cindy McCain, wife of presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, will co-host on The View on Monday, according to both the AP and the show's own web site. Mrs. McCain has been on the show before, appearing with her husband in 2004, and Sen. McCain has been on the show a number of times, most recently last week. But this is the first time either of them have sat with the hosts for the entire episode.

As the AP article mentions, there's no word on whether Mrs. McCain will share any recipes on the show. Why is that significant? Nothing really, just a little bit of plagiarism committed by an overzealous campaign intern; the intern reprinted recipes from various Food Network personalities, including Rachael Ray, on the campaign's web site and tried to pass them off as "McCain Family Recipes." I'm surprised people didn't get suspicious sooner, because I don't think I've ever heard either McCain say the word "Yum-o."

[via Mediabistro]

Believe it or not, I'm a little bit surprised by this news: According to The Smoking Gun (via AOL), Missy Chase Lapine has sued Jessica and Jerry Seinfeld over the flap concerning the similarities between her cookbook, The Sneaky Chef, and Mrs. Seinfeld's cookbook, Deceptively Delicious.

Jessica is accused of plagiarizing Lapine's book. But why is Jerry included in the suit? Because Lapine has decided that in the process of defending his wife in various TV appearances, Jerry defamed her by accusing her of being a "wacko" and a stalker. In fact, the suit specifically mentions Jerry's appearance on Letterman where the w-word was uttered.

The April 4, 2007 entry on the "Couric and Co." blog on the CBS News site no longer includes a video essay on libraries, but rather an apology for omitting credit to a March 15 article in the Wall Street Journal titled "Of the Places You'll Go, Is the Library Still One of Them?" by Jeffrey Zaslow.

The blog contains video essays written by producers of the CBS Evening News and read by anchorperson Katie Couric and other contributors to the newscast. The producer who wrote the copy for this particular episode did not credit Zaslow's article, and was subsequently fired. Sandra Genelius, a spokesperson for CBS News, said the content was almost completely taken from the Wall Street Journal piece. The name of the fired producer was not released.

CBS became aware of the incident when an editor from the Wall Street Journal called to note the similarities between the article and the online video essay.

The Tonight Show's Jay Leno has filed a suit against comedy teacher Judy Brown. Brown has published 19 "joke books" quoting the routines of stand-up comedians - including Leno. According to the suit, Brown covered the LA comedy scene as a journalist and got the bright idea to record, copy and publish comedians' work for fun and profit. Her titles include The Funny Pages: 1,473 Jokes from Today's Funniest Comedians and Joke Express: Instant Delivery of 1,424 Funny Bits from the Best Comedians.