Baldwin, Cooper and Republican Strategist Blaze July Media Trail

In the space of just a few hours today, all media hell has broken loose. On what was supposed to be a lazy holiday-week Monday.

Via Daily Beast email-share exclusive, Andrew Sullivan has officially confirmed CNN newsman Anderson Cooper’s sexual orientation. In a tease for their August issue interview cover story by Todd S. Purdum, Vanity Fair dangles a hellacious quote from Alec Baldwin about TMZ’s Harvey Levin. And on the front page of the LA Times, Republican TV ad guru Fred Davis reveals to reporter Mark Barabak that Obama regrets, he’s had a few.

Add in the Cruise-Holmes mess and this is about the wackiest July media kickoff in recent memory. Without even counting New York-based Susan Candiotti’s weekend CNN bomshell about some apparent Penn State, e-mail cover-up orchestration.

What’s going on here? Well, for one thing, plans by west coast reporters to put away the Smartphone and log off Twitter mid-week remain seriously scuttled. Levin’s response to Baldwin should be especially choice when it arrives via the TV show or TMZ website.