Sideshow: Bush accepts Kanye West's apology

"I'm not a hater." So said former President George W. Bush Wednesday on Today after accepting Kanye "The Ego" West's apology for suggesting otherwise.

West had attacked Bush in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005, saying, "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

He retracted the diss Tuesday in a chat with NBC's Matt Lauer. "I didn't have the grounds to call him a racist," he said. "I believe that in a situation of high emotion like that, we as human beings don't always choose the right words."

Bush writes in his memoir, Decision Points, that the incident was a low point in his presidency. "I don't hate Kanye West," he said on Today.

"I was talking about an environment in which people were willing to say things that hurt. Nobody wants to be called a racist if in your heart you believe in equality of races."

Mel Gibson and Oksana Grigorieva had a sedate face-off Wednesday in a family-court hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court over child support for their 1-year-old daughter, Lucia. Gibson, 54, was ordered to pay three months in back support totaling $60,000. Judge Scott Gordon denied Gibson's request to deduct $6,000 a month he pays for the home Oksana shares with Lucia and the baby's 61-year-old grandmother. Gordon has yet to rule on Oksana's request to end Lucia's overnight stays with Gibson. Reportedly, Oksana is worried the actor-director's bad temper may adversely affect Lucia.

Speaking of George W. Bush, the former prez's book, Decision Points, sold more than 220,000 copies on its first day of release, Random House says. That's the publisher's highest since former prez Bill Clinton's My Life debuted with 400,000 sales in '04.

Fans of Sarah and Todd Palin's adamantine bond will be happy to learn that the Alaskan couple joke about breakup rumors, which include a recent report that they are about to sign a $20-mil divorce settlement.

"I call Todd on the cell phone," Sarah tells People about her response to seeing the tabloid story at her local supermarket, "and I say, 'Todd, you won't believe this cover!' And he says, 'Twenty million? Write me a check.' "

Meanwhile, the couple's daughter Bristol has made it to the semifinals on Dancing With the Stars! Is it a GOP plot? No, says Bristol, it's because viewers relate to her status as an un-celeb: "I think lots of people see themselves in me because I'm pretty untouched when it comes to celebrity status," Bristol tells EOnline. "I'm pretty raw and vulnerable when it comes to this whole thing."

After a year's underemployment, Lou Dobbs, 65, who, after working at CNN since its founding in 1980, quit the cabler last November, is joining Fox Business Network for a multiyear deal. His daily show starts in early 2011; he'll also be a commentator and analyst across FN's programming. At 2 p.m. today, CNN founder/owner Ted Turner will be on Fox News to discuss all these developments.

Marie Osmond tells Oprah that her son Michael, who committed suicide in February at age 18, had long battled depression - something she's also faced. "When I heard him say to me, 'I have no friends,' it brought back when I went through depression because you really feel so alone," Osmond says on Thursday's Oprah Winfrey Show. "I'm not a depressed person, but I understand that place, that darkness." Osmond calls Michael's death "probably the hardest thing I've been through."

"I'm not going to be soft" on Skating With the Stars contestants, judge Johnny Weir tells People. The Coatesville-toughened local hero won't give a pass to any celebs, including Bethenny Frankel and Vince Neil. "I suppose I'd be Simon Cowell, but with a lot of Paula [Abdul] underneath," says JW. Yikes!

It's a question Ricky Martin would love to be able to pose. The plier of pop pleasures, who came out of the closet as a gay man in March, tells Extra's Mario Lopez he's a proponent of gay marriage.

"I want to have that option. I pay my taxes," says Martin. "How come people can have that option and not me? I guess we're working on it little by little." But Ricky's not ready: He's yet to go public with his partner's identity, saying only, "We know it'll happen eventually." For now, he says, "We are happy. My kids love him. He loves my kids. We're in love with each other."

She's already building a nursery! So claims Us Weekly, which says Doylestown native Pink, 31, has a baby bump on her tummy and is therefore totally pregnant.

An anon source tells Us that Pink and hub Carey Hart, 35, have been trying for a baby. No comment from the couple.

Halle Berry, commenting about her daughter, 3-year-old Nahla, says motherhood forever changed her life. Being a mom, she says, "puts things into perspective, and it's about real life, and life is about people, what we give, what we take, what we share."

Taylor Swift, 20, on Tuesday night became the youngest ever to win the BMI country songwriter of the year award. She also won song of the year for "You Belong With Me."

In related news, Swift's album, Speak Now, is No. 1 on Billboard's album chart for the second week in a row, selling 320,000 units, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The top three belongs to country acts: Jason Aldean's My Kinda Party debuts this week at No. 2 with 193,000, and Sugarland's The Incredible Machine is at No. 3 with 60,000.

Singer Phil Collins splatters his psyche all over Rolling Stone, telling the mag, among other things, that he has had past lives.

He also says he's contemplated suicide.

"I wouldn't blow my head off," Phil delicately pronounces. "I'd overdose or do something that didn't hurt."

Why would he do it? "A comedian who committed suicide in the Sixties left a note saying, 'Too many things went wrong too often.' I often think about that."