We don't even know if Jon Meacham's latest project had been started when he was booked on 'The Daily Show' (Weeknights, 11PM ET on Comedy Central).

The Random House executive editor was on to talk about his contributions to a re-release of Shelby Foote's massive trilogy 'The Civil War: A Narrative.'

But then, after the death of Bin Laden, he put together what he called "an instant eBook." 'Beyond Bin Laden' is a compilation of essays written since Bin Laden's death this past Sunday, so it truly is remarkable for it to have been turned around so quickly.

The book will be available for pre-orders Friday, May 6, 2011 and is expected to be released next week.

The New York Observer is reporting that Stephen Colbert will guest edit the June 8 edition of Newsweek. According to the Observer, the idea came from a lunch between Newsweek editor Jon Meacham (who has been a guest on The Colbert Report) and Colbert, in which Meacham was impressed by Colbert's knowledge of current events.

The stories themselves will be treated seriously, as they would in any other issue, but Colbert gets to play in the margins, editing contributor bios, writing an essay, and annotating different stories. Which should make next week's issue look something like the magazine version of The Daily Show's faux text book America.

The Observer quotes Colbert as saying, "I'm confident we'll have mixed results! I want to be apart [sic] of that proud tradition!" and cites a few other guest editor ventures gone wrong. I wonder about the timing of it. Newsweek launched a complete redesign three issues ago, trying to re-conceptualize the newsweekly's place in the age of instant news.

Jon kicked off the episode by running a few rounds of paper football. Not that I'm a big paper sports enthusiast, but I couldn't help but notice that he wasn't holding the football quite right. Jon, your story just doesn't add up. He then flubbed a gag with a toy robot, which was pretty precious, even though it didn't make much sense. What can I say? I like satirists and robots.

"Indecision 2008": The Democrats took on Nevada and the media took on the world's most cliche Las Vegas metaphors to cover Hillary Clinton's win. However, Jon had them all beat with his "bet on black" comment. Of course, Hillary's win was met with criticism and Bill Clinton defended her like he's already the First Laddie. And then that drew even more criticism. So it goes.