Donald Trump popped up on Larry King Live last night (well, via his private jet's private telly) to again use his supreme intelligence and astute political mind to defile Rosie O'Donnell's - er - "good" name.

When asked why he's so zealous about this mini-war, Trump explains that he hates lies, liars and the lies that liars lie about. Here's the transcript:

Larry King: Why do you fight back so hard? In other words, you could have just said, "Ah, forget it".

Donald Trump: Because when people lie, Larry, I like to go after them. And I think, frankly, more people should be like that. If you look at this country, look at the problems we have. Lots of lies got us into the war in Iraq. And now we're mired in that and now I hear that they want to send more troops. It's, like, disgusting. People should tell the truth. If people told the truth, we wouldnt be in Iraq right now, Larry.

Someone get the UN on the phone, we have to do something about this...

Our friend Jordy from virtual matter sent us this video of Kathy Griffin on what may be one of the more informative episodes of Larry King Live. Well, not informative for us, but watch as Griffin schools King on "speaking gay", the ins and (more importantly) outs of the Saks shoe department and the parameters of Jim McGreevey's love. Also, something tells us she won't be chatting it up with Oprah anytime soon.

Since the dawn of man - or, at least, since the gay rights movement - people have questioned whether or not pundits and publications have the right to out people, particularly politicians. In the wake of TR Knight, Ted Haggard, Neil Patrick Harris and the rest, the debate has been raised to a pitch higher than a drag queen's hair.

With the whole Bill Maher/Ken Mehlman brouhaha: you know, when Maher called the former RNC leader gay on Larry King Live, a comment that later got the old censorship ax from CNN, The New York Blade's premier homo-journo, Kerry Eleveld takes a look at the ways in which different media outlets covered the story.

Aside from providing a compelling piece, Eleveld does something that we don't think has ever been done in the history of man: she uses our name in the same sentence as The New York Times.

The following Monday, pro-gay blogs such as Queerty.com declared, "Maher pussed out" even as the mother of mainstream publications, The New York Times, ran a story about Maher’s statements on CNN that steered clear of mentioning Mehlman’s name.

We will offer one correction, however. The actual headline read "Bill Maher Totally Pussed Out". There's a huge difference between only just pussing out and totally pussing out. Of course, as a legitimate reporter, we don't imagine Eleveld's ever had to make such a linguistic judgement call.

So, remember when Bill Maher told Larry King that he would be outing promiment Republicans on his Friday night show (including Ken Mehlman, whose mention later got axed by CNN's censors)?

Well, it seems Maher got cold feet. Not only did he not follow through, he didn't even mention the Larry King episode.

Of course, people are all about finding a conspiracy in all of this. Some insist the Republican National Committee - from which Mehlman just announced his retirement - pressured Maher to keep a lid on it. 247 Gay reports:

Whether CNN removed the reference and has gone to battle to eliminate all copies of the uncensored video is a result of pressure from the RNC or simply from fear of being sued for slander is in hot debate - with no statement from CNN being issued in regard to their actions.
...
[Many] fans to wonder if [Maher] too had fallen sway to pressure from the RNC or possibly from higher-ups at HBO not to make good on his word. No statement by Maher about the incident has been forthcoming.

As for Bill Maher - well, he's never been one to bow to political controversy. Thus, we doubt he held his tongue to please the RNC, nor do we think he ran from a possible lawsuit. His bosses at HBO, however, may be a different story. We've been looking for a strong link between HBO officials and the Republican party, but have yet to find any evidence at all. So, we're assuming it's a legal issue, rather than some vast political conspiracy.

If any of you kiddies can dig up some dirt, however, we'll be happy to take a look.

Oh, please, we know you're not doing anything better at work. We also know that you used to pretend to be Nancy Drew.

There's no shortage of homo-journos with their eyes on the pol-outing prize. Since the very public outing of Mark Foley, however, we've seen a new trend of straight-journos joining the game. First we heard that New York Times columnist Frank Rich's all about outing hypocrites, now Bill Maher's announced that he'll name some prominent GOP homo-politicos on his Friday night show, Real Time with Bill Maher.

Here's a bit of text from his chat last night with Larry King:

BM: A lot of the chiefs of staff, the people who really run the underpinnings of the Republican Party, are gay. I don't want to mention names, but I will Friday night...

LK:You will Friday night?

BM: Well, there's a couple of big people who I think everyone in Washington knows who run the Republican...

LK: You will name them?

BM: Well, I wouldn't be the first. I'd get sued if I was the first. Ken Mehlman. Ok, there's one I think people have talked about. I don't think he's denied it when he's been, people have suggested, he doesn't say...

LK: I never heard that. I'm walking around in a fog. I never...Ken Mehlman? I never heard that. But the question is...

BM: Maybe you don't go to the same bathhouse I do, Larry.

As you know, BlogActive's been on the GOP leader's case since we were mere faglings, so the news that he's a homo ain't exactly...well, news. While we're not sure if Maher will bring anything new to the table, it's refreshing to see mainstream journos (however celebrated) join the fun.

Okay, so onto the next part of Larry King Live: his interview with popster Clay Aiken. We admit, we find Clay Aiken to be a terrific bore, so we couldn't bring ourselves to watch the entire hour. (Also, the sound of his voice makes us cry blood. It's very messy.)

Basically, we just want to give King kudos. He tried with all his might to pry poor Aiken open, but Aiken simply wasn't having it. Watching him squirm up there, we actually started to feel bad for the kid. Though it's been years since we came out, we remember how utterly convincing the confines of the closet can be: the pervasiveness of denial seeps into your very being. Even if you've had sex with a man, the possibility of being gay becomes implausible. One truly believes they are straight. We suspect that's what's happening with little Clay Aiken. (No wonder he has anxiety attacks.)

Aiken insists that no matter what he says, people will believe what they want to believe. Um, no way. If Clay Aiken came out tomorrow, no one in their right mind would say, "No, he's straight." Never. Not in a million fucking years.

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We've been going on partial reports since last week, when Kathy Griffin's taped Larry King Live appearance got bumped from CNN by the North Korea missile incident. As diehard fans of her comedy and her reality show, we've been as eager as you to know the truth about (among other things) her divorce. How much did Matthew Moline's bank account stealing account for their problems? Was their reconciliation staged? See for yourself.

After the jump, another clip, courtesy big brother Jossip, that you'll also be interested in seeing: Wherein Larry King acts as the pimp between Griffin and none other than Anderson Cooper.

[Read On ...]