TMZ's Harvey Levin is queried and probed and poses in heterosexual men's sex magazine

We'd assume there would be little chance of finding a Playboy magazine in the home of Harvey Levin, the shaved bronzed midget frontman of the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com and its inconsequential whitewashed syndicated television version. Of course, Harvey’s got his own bunny hutch in his West Hollywood office aerie, but Harvey’s bunnies have balls.

But now the old men’s mag, which has strained its back muscles dipping into the celebutard scene of late, is featuring the prominent appreciator of the male form (see: Matthew McConaughey) in the 20 Questions section of its June issue, which is out today and would make the angry jealous gossip queen the one man in America telling the truth when he claims to read Playboy for the articles.

Playboy’s publicists were kind enough to send us an advance copy, because “we know you have covered Harvey Levin of TMZ before.” Yes we have. Of the twenty questions, two provoke answers that are the most chilling, journalismwise. One is a sad fact that we’ve pointed out: that the “mainstream" news media lazily cite the subliterate celebbaiters as a legitimate news source:

"When we started, two and a half years ago, there was a feeling that nobody except National Enquirer covered this material, and the national media turned up their nose at us. Now you're in trouble if you don't cover it. We play a little game in our office sometimes when we post a big story. We bet on how soon it will take CNN to flash 'TMZ is reporting...' across the bottom of the screen. Often it's a matter of seconds.”

The other worry is where Harvey is next setting his sights:

"I see huge opportunities in covering politics in a way that would be interesting and fun for people. People say you can't make politicians as interesting as Hollywood celebrities, because they're not as good-looking, not as well-known, not as entertaining. I totally disagree. These are some of the most interesting people in the country, and they haven't been covered that way before."

By the way, a reader recently asked about those male torsos featured on this and some of our other recent TMZ-related posts: they’re not of Harvey (Playboy sent us a clothed shot from the magazine, but wanted us to sign a release form to post it), but the corporate-porn-pushing equivalent of the old TV news “headshot.” These are Harvey’s on-air toyboys, the ones who point home video cameras in people’s faces and then report to Harvey about the confrontations on the TMZ TV show. Photographs like these are posted by the boys themselves on their MySpace and other public websites in order to promote their careers and themselves.

We’ll leave it to you to put faces to the bodies. And to send us more.