Billy Bush isn't a tool: A sentence we never thought we'd write. But still, Access Hollywood's Billy Bush took a stand for journalistic freedom and we respect him for it. Billy balked at signing the Brangelina gag-order pre-interview contracts, so he and Access Hollywood were barred from the Mr. & Mrs. Smith junket. Awww. Billy Bush blogged that "to sign that agreement is to present yourself as a tool." And God knows Billy Bush never presents himself as a tool. Sorry, but that's a joke that demands to be made twice. [NY Mag]

Stars: they're just like us, only in HDTV some of them actually look worse. HDTV is coming, and it's going to change the way we look at our anchors, pop tartlets and reality show contestants, because we're going to see them with ridiculous clarity. Right now it's enough to be mostly hot; with HDTV, on-air talent will have to be pretty much completely hot. Botox man, ready thy syringes. For those of us blessed with a face for blogging, it's of slightly less concern. You know, I think K-Fed might even be hotter close up. Yeah, I said that out loud. [NYT]

Dick Cheney, proud advocate of the Fourth Estate: Right now, Cheney is presenting the Gerald Ford Journalism Awards at an exclusive luncheon in D.C. That's basically the punch line of this article from The Nation, which details all the ways that Cheney, in fact, does not love the press. At the end, he realizes that GWB doesn't read the papers and Cheney watches Fox, so he concludes that Rupert Murdoch is actually the president. Meanwhile Roger Ailes is like, yeah! You can keep your stupid HuffPo. Doozy, standing behind him with his arms folded across his chest, adds his own "yeah!" for good measure. [The Nation via Yahoo!, which seems somewhat incongruous but whatever]