Maybe it's another David Plotz, we thought! Not so: on the day of publication of The End of Men by Hanna Rosin (pictured), as the pair were undergoing a jokey publicity tour, Mr. Plotz wrote another Amazon review. "I'm Hanna Rosin's husband, so I'm obviously biased," he wrote, "but I have also lived with this book and this subject for two years, and I can tell you confidently that Hanna has written an absolutely gripping and thought-provoking book about why the world has changed so fast." Six of fourteen Amazon readers found the review helpful.

Four out of Mr. Plotz's five Amazon user reviews grant the subject the perfect five stars (including a rave review for The Bush Tragedy, written by Jacob Weisberg, the editor-in-chief of Slate Group and a man Mr. Plotz calls "a colleague and friend"). The one negative review was for a Black & Decker toaster oven. "The timer did not function, causing me to nearly set fire to my kitchen when the first piece of toast I put in incinerated," Mr. Plotz wrote. "Also, it came without an instruction manual."

Hanna Rosin

“Last night we did a version of this where we walked down the aisle!” said Atlantic senior editor Hanna Rosin at the beginning of a debate last Wednesday at the Maritime Hotel, on occasion of the publication of her book, The End of Men. “It was like our wedding!”

She had just come onstage along with an unlikely interlocutor: her husband David Plotz, the editor of Slate. The couple were conducting a road show of sorts to debate whether or not the male gender was less nimble in the current economy, they appeared together in Washington the night before and were scheduled to appear on Today together on Thursday. The sell—woman declares male gender dead (or, at least, her book jacket does), and here’s her loving husband!—was irresistible, and the pair played it up at the Maritime reading. Mr. Plotz referred to himself, early in the evening, as “Mr. Rosin,” and instructed his debate partner, “You need to stay on mic, sweetie. Just hold it! It’s very simple.”

For her part, Ms. Rosin bristled good-naturedly at a tough question, saying “It’s weird! Because you’re my husband! And you’re Charlie Rose-ing me!”

Not every viewer was entranced, however. We noticed New York Times Magazine editor Hugo Lindgren, who excerpted The End of Men for a recent, characteristically splashy cover spread in his publication. The editor spent much of the speech whispering loudly to one male and one female friend.

“Do you like my boots?” Mr. Lindgren asked his male friend, pulling up the leg of his trousers to peacock.

“Yeah! Do you like mine?” asked his male friend, as Ms. Rosin spoke.

The debate was won by Ms. Rosin, but by then Mr. Lindgren was already gone.

Hanna Rosin

Hanna Rosin of the Atlantic has that slightly troll-y publication’s knack for provocation—she’s just published a book called The End of Men: And the Rise of Women. But that’s not the whole story—oh, no, Ms. Rosin has committed to her viewpoint, engaging her husband, Slate editor David Plotz, in a debate over whether or not men are in fact a dying breed. This Matalin-and-Carville act should provide some insight into the Rosin-Plotz marriage as well as offer a fitting end to a Fashion Week during which straight men were an invisible race.

North Cabanas, Maritime Hotel, 363 West 16th Street, 7pm, tickets and information can be found at endofmen.eventbrite.com.

And apparently he's not the only fan-boy. Slate podcast downloads "typically reach five to six figures per episode."

General interest papers like The Boston Globe are abandoning podcasting—waste of time and resources, they say—publications with narrow audiences and opinion-driven content like Slate can make a killing, reports Nieman. Brand mentions in Slate podcasts are the most expensive ads the company sells and have the highest sell-through rate.

"What makes it work is not a groundbreaking format but an expertly arranged mix of personalities: editor David Plotz and writers Emily Bazelon and John Dickerson have an infectious rapport,"  Andrew Phelps wrote.

Mr. Spitzer will be sitting down with Matt Lauer on Monday, April 6. Presumably, he'll be talking about the financial crisis, as he has recently for Slate, The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post, and Newsweek.

The release we were just sent doesn't say exactly what he'll be talking about, but it's his first interview on broadcast TV since he resigned as governor in March 2008.

As we wrote last week, "And maybe this is exactly the job Mr. Spitzer wants. To serve as a Sunday-style talk show pundit. An attorney general without the subpoena power, or the political headaches."

It's been working gloriously! Newsweek editor Jon Meacham told us that he always "admired him," and Slate editor David Plotz said, "He’s really invigorated." (Incidentally, Mr. Spitzer was at Mr. Plotz's book party last night at Slate Group editor's Jacob Weisberg and ex-Domino editor's Deborah Needelman's Tribeca loft.) Now let's see what Mr. Lauer thinks as Mr. Spitzer makes by far his biggest splash back into the public's eye.

Here's the release:

ELIOT SPITZER WILL TALK TO MATT LAUER IN HIS FIRST LIVE BROADCAST INTERVIEW SINCE HIS RESIGNATION

Interview to Air Live on "Today," Monday, April 6

NEW YORK - Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer will sit down live with Matt Lauer, Monday, April 6 on NBC News' "Today."  Spitzer, the
hard-charging New York attorney general who then became the governor of New York, took down titans on Wall Street. Then he had his own
well-documented fall from grace. He will talk to Lauer in his first broadcast interview since he resigned as governor.

Jim Bell is the executive producer of "Today" (Mon. - Fri., 7 a.m. - 11 a.m.)

Members of the media can get more information about NBC Universal and its programming on the NBC Universal Media Village Web
site at www.nbcumv.com.

This week the Steamroller has been on a roll, writing columns about the financial mess on Slate, appearing to talk about it on national TV and on the radio at WNYC, giving an interview to the Times and floated across a magazine cover as the best next Treasury secretary. That's all in a week.

We had an inkling of this back to December, when we first learned he'd be writing a biweekly column for Slate about finance and politics, something that seemed to position him on the slow road to a comeback.

And then this last week, with AIG and American populist rage in the news, we saw a Spitzer boomlet. The crackdown artist has increased his metabolism on Slate, with not one, not two, but three columns published there in the last week.

There was an appearance on the Brian Lehrer show. "As you suggested, there was a period when as attorney general of New York I was pursuing issues that nobody else wanted to pursue," said Mr. Spitzer to Mr. Lehrer, barely concealing his glee. "And we pursued AIG and Wall Street’s structural failures in a way that others shied away from because it was politically unpalatable for them to address those issues. Now it is the flavor of the month."

We'll say!

There was a quote in Joe Nocera’s Saturday Times business column where he was posed as a genius on AIG. On Sunday, there was an appearance on Fareed Zakaria GPS, a friendly forum where he also talked about those bonuses.

And then, there's his byline, on the cover of Newsweek yesterday, floating over a stock photo of a torches-and-pitchforks crowd. Inside the magazine, there’s Mr Spitzer's restrained, stoic piece, explaining that civil debate is the way out of the financial mess.

"What we need to restore to the Washington debate is logic, not anger; principles, not wrath," he wrote in his Newsweek piece.

As of this morning, it is both the most emailed and most viewed story on their Web site.  

And then, finally, Katrina vanden Heuvel wrote for The Nation's Web site yesterday that Mr. Spitzer would make a fine candidate to replace Tim Geithner.

“Spitzer took on Wall Street's metastasizing corruption before the meltdown,” she wrote. “He defended consumers' and taxpayers' rights. He speaks with passion and clarity about what went wrong and what needs to be done to restore integrity to our system. He is chastened by personal scandal, yet untouched by complicity in Wall Street's public scandals which have obliterated peoples' savings and devastated our country. Spitzer for Treasury Secretary?”

Welcome to the Spitzer resurrection project of 2009. (Why, we didn't even mention the Vogue spread that Silda Wall Spitzer got in March!)

“He’s really invigorated,” said David Plotz, his editor at Slate. Mr. Plotz said he is an easy edit. He’s fast, clear, insightful. And he’s especially aces on the AIG stuff.

"The column has worked out incredibly well, for us and for him," he said. "These are subjects he knows intimately and that he was prescient when he was in public office. And he says what he thinks!"

“We reached out to Spitzer at mid-week as we were thinking of which voices might add value to the debate over populism,” said Jon Meacham, the editor of Newsweek.

And maybe this is exactly the job Mr. Spitzer wants. To serve as a Sunday-style talk show pundit. An attorney general without the subpoena power, or the political headaches.

But is there more to the Spitzer boomlet than meets the eye? His regular column appears in Slate, owned by the Washington Post Company. Newsweek? Also owned by the Washington Post Company. And by appearing on CNN with Fareed Zakaria, he got to speak to a Newsweek international editor.

When he made his biggest splash in public life after he resigned in disgrace in March 2008, it was in the editorial pages of (where else?) The Washington Post.  It was that column that prompted Slate Group editor Jacob Weisberg to get Mr. Spitzer under contract. That, along with the fact that former Slate publisher Cliff Sloan, one of Mr. Spitzer's closest friends going back to their days at Harvard Law together, wanted Mr. Spitzer to return to public life as a writer, and doing it for Slate.

"It seemed to be a natural fit.," said Mr. Sloan, who is now a partner at Skadden in their D.C. office. "It definitely is something I mentioned to [Eliot] and to Jacob. And they, along with David Plotz, had further discussions."

Was that perhaps why we were noticing so much encouragement from Washington Post properties?

"I was involved with helping the initial introductions at Slate," he said. "I haven’t been involved since then."

“I have always admired him, and think his fall is a genuine tragedy,” said Mr. Meacham, explaining why he chose him to write an essay for their cover package. “We like having voices from the arena, and nobody spent as much time on these issues as he did as AG.”

We remember Mr. Spitzer was a hero in his AG days. But we also remember a first-year governorship that couldn't seem to expand the platform from raiding the Wall Street raiders to running a state. Mr. Spitzer, like so many before him, thought that Albany must be reformable, if Wall Street could be reformed. He only had a year, but there wasn't much there to prove him right. There was lots of disappointment before Ashley Dupre was a twinkle in the New York Post's eye.

So in a way it's no wonder that Mr. Spitzer is in demand now; it's back-to-square-one time, and Mr. Spitzer seems to be bringing all of his Sisyphean strength to bear on the project.

“There are different kinds of resurrections,” said Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “This obviously is one that is based on his personal desire to reenter respectable society. And there’s a tradition in American life—not just in politics—that when people pay their penalty and suffer appropriately for their crimes and misdeeds, then they should be able to reenter respectable society.”

But: “That’s a giant leap away from ever again getting elected to public office or being appointed. His days in any type of public office are over. You don’t resign the New York governorship in disgrace and then get elected to something else.”

Well, Ms. vanden Heuvel seems to think that at least an appointment can be managed now!

Anyway there was no use speculating so we called Mr. Spitzer to find out what he's really up to here.

He called us back late yesterday afternoon to say that he was on vacation with his kids; he said he doesn't really want to do interviews right now. Presumably, that is, interviews on the topic of Eliot Spitzer. Finally he gave in, albeit briefly.

"At rare moments, I’ll do my best to add to the public conversation," Mr. Spitzer said. "I’m a private citizen, which I’m fully enjoying."

We'll report back to you in short order.

Even more remarkably, Mr. Plotz is sending his writers out of the office to go work from home and pull together a big project and all the while still get paid for it.

Mr. Plotz has informed his staffers that they will, one by one, take anywhere between four to six weeks off, return home and develop a long-form feature for Slate, possibly incorporating multimedia for optimal Web presentation ("we're not striving to recreate New Yorker features," Mr. Plotz said). They won't be allowed to think about the horse race of daily Internet publishing. Editors won't edit. Bloggers won't blog. The big assignment can be 5,000 words—"It can be 100,000 words," he told The Observer. They can sleep till noon, close the blinds (or the neighborhood bar) and read all afternoon long, as long as they've got something to show for it at the end. They will continue to draw their regular paycheck.

"For Slate to be a great magazine, for us to be as good as we can be, it’s not simply enough for us to be responsive to the news of the moment," Mr. Plotz explained. "We have to do work with a longer time horizon."

The editor has reservations about the term "sabbatical"—all the work performed will be for Slate—and said the in-house name for the experience is Fresca Fellowships—an inside joke about how much Mr. Plotz adored the Fresca sodas that used to come free to the Slate offices, but have since been written out of the budget (hey, everyone gets hit these days somewhat). First to take the Fresca is senior writer Timothy Noah, who is doing a piece about why America hasn’t been attacked since 9/11. It will be out in a few weeks, Mr. Plotz said.

Like the natty yet faceless figure in the opening credits to Mad Men, Condé Nast editors could be forgiven for feeling like their world is collapsing around them and their lives—not to mention their lifestyles—are in a state of free-fall.

How good was it at Condé Nast before the fall? Very, very good, according to Slate's David Plotz, who offered a snapshot of life in Si Newhouse's gilded aerie in a piece from December 1997 headlined Let Si Get This.

Read now, Mr. Plotz's essay is like a dispatch from a lost world, where from the moment editors wake up:

And that's all before lunch! (Mr. Plotz also noted that the editors' homes, in some cases, were bought with the help of "low- or no-interest home loans" from the company.)

During the reporting of his article, Mr. Plotz heard some only-at-Condé Nast stories about $50,000 clothing allowances, a cover shoot that supposedly cost $100,000, liberal use of the Concorde, an editor expensing a "$20,000 weeklong trip to Paris," and one Vogue editor who allegedly "furnished her summer house from items purchased for fashion shoots—beautiful furniture, designer pillows, coffee-table books. Vogue assistants have nicknamed the house 'Petty Cash Junction.'"

Need more examples? The New York Times' Alex Kuczynski (an Observer alum), wrote in a profile of Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter on March 15, 1999 that:

Ms. Kuczynski also wrote on August 20, 1999 of the "no-expenses-spared ethos of Condé Nast, a company that will send luggage overnight by Federal Express if a fatigued fashion editor does not want to carry it on a flight."

In June 1996, three years before Condé Nast moved its operations to 4 Times Square, John Tierney wondered in New York Times Magazine:

If anything, Condé Nast has grown more elite, sitting atop ESPN Zone and a handbag's throw from Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. than it was, in Mr. Tierney's words, with "the two men's stores flanking the entrance, Brooks Brothers and Paul Stuart, [which] have been compared to sentinels at the Temple of Aphrodite and to a couple of tuxedoed gents balancing Marlene Dietrich on their shoulders."

For one thing, the new headquarters features the ultra-elite Frank Gehry-designed cafeteria, which never fails to attract interlopers and gawkers. And who can forget that novel, which became that movie (and was nominated for those awards)? Or that memoir that also became a movie. Not to mention another novel that preceded both and this Web satire that had them all beat, all of which portrayed Condé Nast as the place for young, ambitious writers and editors who wanted a piece of the good life even as they pursued a profession that had been historically under-paid and unglamorous. Seen from outside, who wouldn't want to work at Condé Nast, even if those who did sometimes felt like slab rats who lost friends and alienated people by making deals with the devil?

Nowadays, they're probably just hoping they can find a new job or get into law school.

After a series of disturbing dreams featuring Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, he's inviting readers to contribute any and all dreams about Ms. Palin.

Here's his call for entries:

"I’ll be in charge of what we do: who works for us, who writes for us, how we cover it," said Mr. Plotz to Media Mob today.

Plotz has been with Slate since before it launched in 1996, and has been its deputy editor since 2003. He's not entirely unfamiliar with the roles of top editor: when Weisberg went on book leave last spring, Plotz took over his duties. And he's got ideas for the site.

"I think the lesson I've drawn from is Slate can’t live simply on daily commentary alone," he said. "That’s a huge part of what we are, but we also need to create long-form, heavily Webby journalism in a consistent way. It’s not just that you’re going to come to us for a great 800-word Christopher Hitchens piece or Jack Shafer's best piece about Murdoch, but we'll also need larger projects that can use the Web in an experimental way."

For example! When he was reporting on the Nobel Prize sperm bank a few years ago, he started with a request to readers: send me tips if you know anything. And slowly they came trickling in--a donor here, a daughter of a Prize winner there--and soon enough, he had a very big story, and then a book contract.

Weisberg, meanwhile, will oversee the entire Slate family, which includes Slate.com, their video site SlateV, theroot.com, and their new business site The Big Money.

An announcement just went out to staff, and here's the press release: