Watching the prim, polished Rachel Maddow show as it exists today– MSNBC’s flagship– it’s hard to recall the days Rachel Maddow was a radio host first and foremost, with some gigs on TV on the side. Her first regular stint on national television was on The Situation with Tucker Carlson– a news opinion program that preceded both Wolf Blitzer‘s The Situation Room and Jersey Shore‘s Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, and eventually became simply Tucker, giving way to a series of programs before ceding the 9PM MSNBC spot to Maddow herself.

This weekend’s NATO summit in Chicago has already attracted some unsavory behavior from protesters, as the AP reports today that three protesters have been arrested for conspiracy to commit acts of terror after police discovered a plan to make Molotov cocktails to throw into the Obama Campaign headquarters and Mayor Rahm Emanuel‘s house, an arrest their defense attorney called “propaganda to create a climate of fear.”

President Obama, at least in part, soured on the media in his public statements recently, telling the graduates at Barnard College that America has to overcome the challenge of a media where “good news doesn’t sell as well as bad news.” On Fox News Watch today, the panel analyzed his statements, somewhat shocked that a President most on the panel perceived to have benefitted from a media bias in 2008 would turn on the press.

Hilary Rosen, whose profile as a pundit was raised perhaps the highest of any other during the peak of the “War on Women” contraception and motherhood debate, told CNN today that she “hated” the term “War on Women” and found the concept “disturbing.” Rosen, on a panel to debate women as a political constituency with Margaret Hoover and host Christine Romans, explained that it did not make sense to “think of women as a constituency– we are the majority,” and she and Hoover agreed that, as far as the economy goes, women are just as much at its mercy as men.

The 2012 elections are not just a challenge for incumbent President Obama, but for a number of freshmen Congressmen swept into the House of Representatives by the Tea Party movement in 2010. On Fox News today, anchor Uma Pemmaraju hosted a panel featuring Tea Party Express leader Amy Kremer and Tea Party Rep. Mick Mulvaney in which they debate whether the campaign rhetoric matched the voting records of the Tea Party Republicans.

Comedian Jon Lovitz has somehow become a Fox News media darling after a comedy rant against President Obama over tax policy, and he made his way Thursday night to Hannity after appearances with Megyn Kelly and Bill O’Reilly earlier this week. Hannity thanked him for his “refreshing” honesty, asking whether he has felt a backlash and, of course, giving him a hard time for voting for President Obama the first time around. Lovitz wouldn’t say whether he has decided to, but he wasn’t particularly happy with the President’s language as of late.

Usually in the business of chronicling cable news, a debate on austerity and inflation is a pretty hard sell. In a world of Jeremiah Wrights and Sandra Flukes, the Euro crisis is rather low on the personal drama scale. This morning’s Melissa Harris-Perry shattered that conventional wisdom, with The Washington Post‘s Ezra Klein and Reason‘s Nick Gillespie going head-to-head on the woes of the Eurozone and whether the nations should continue to spend money, the sort of crosstalk-laden panel discussion host Melissa Harris-Perry had to interrupt to remind them to keep the audience in the loop.

The story of a Super PAC planning on resuscitating Rev. Jeremiah Wright as a campaign issue has raised questions on both sides of the aisle– from the ethics of doing so to why the mainstream media avoided the topic. On Fox & Friends this morning, Jonah Goldberg noted that he found in the mainstream media a “deep, nagging insecurity” about the way they handled the 2008 campaign, one that has made them somewhat hesitant to bring up issues from 2008 that could politically help the President.

After a tense diplomatic standoff between the US State Department and China following his attempt to escape house arrest, Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng and his immediate family are on a plane to New Jersey today after receiving sanctuary from the United States. Chen, who is best known for his activism against China’s One Child Policy, was reportedly not told where he was going until arriving at the airport, but had faith that he was leaving for the United States.

Geraldo Rivera is not letting Trayvon Martin‘s wardrobe escape scrutiny as the court begins work on the George Zimmerman trial, calling his black hoodie “thug wear.” On The O’Reilly Factor last night, Rivera dismissed the THC in Martin’s bloodstream as a serious issue, but once again noted that, given his size and wardrobe, he considered it reasonable for Zimmerman to think Martin could be a criminal, something O’Reilly was quick to call profiling.

It is 2012 and the nation faces a brand new presidential election, but somehow Rev. Jeremiah Wright has become, once again, a focal point in the campaign, due in some part to a Super PAC proposal the New York Times dug up suggesting hammering that point into the political consciousness of voters. On last night’s Ed Show, host Ed Schultz argued the fairness and relevance of bringing up Wright again, and how Mitt Romney may be exposing himself to attack over his Mormon faith if he allows his campaign to go after Wright.

Watching the prim, polished Rachel Maddow show as it exists today– MSNBC’s flagship– it’s hard to think of the days Rachel Maddow was a radio host first and foremost, with some gigs on TV on the side. Her first regular stint on national television was on The Situation with Tucker Carlson– a news opinion program that preceded both Wolf Blitzer‘s The Situation Room and Jersey Shore‘s Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, and eventually became simply Tucker, giving way to a series of programs before ceding the 9PM MSNBC spot to Maddow herself.