Glenn Beck had quite a vacation. It started with the Pakistani ambassador interrupting Beck’s fly-fishing to ask him to condemn the Koran-burning and ended with a media frenzy over his 9/11 event with Sarah Palin. Beck was predictably enraged by how the media chose to frame his appearance on 9/11, though the explanation makes it sound like what actually happened was that Beck & Co. got blindsided by Palin’s Facebook page gone rogue.

Call it Bachmann Tea-Party Overdrive: Last night Jon Stewart and the Daily Show staff revealed something remarkable: That in his coverage of Michele Bachmann‘s so-called “Superbowl of Freedom” last weekend in D.C., Sean Hannity used footage of Glenn Beck‘s 9/12 event to make the Bachmann rally look bigger. By a factor of thousands.

At yesterday’s White House Briefing, Jake Tapper asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about the Tea Party protest that was occurring on Capitol Hill yesterday. Gibbs responded by saying that he was tempted to make a joke about Tea Party speaker Jon Voight. Despite cajoling, he resisted. Despite that, we couldn’t resist an attempt to get him to clarify.

Rachel Maddow took some time on her show to vet a number of yesterday’s Bachman rally highlights, including Rep. John Boehner’s constitutional misstep, as well as offering up some questionable past statements from rally goers like Mark Levin who recently described Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor as “Ruth Bader Ginsburg plus about 50 pounds.”

Last night, Countdown host Keith Olbermann named Beck his “Worst Person” in the recurring segment, which in itself is not news. But last night he used language that is rarely used towards another person on a news program. After calling out Beck for “invoking 9/11 just to oppose health care reform,” Olbermann ended by telling him to “Go to Hell.” Wow.

Last night on The Daily Show Jon Stewart noted the different manner in which Fox News opted to cover the 9/12 tea bagger marches in September versus the similarly attended (numbers-wise) Gay Rights march this past Sunday. Short version: they didn’t.

‘Fringe media’ newspaper The New York Times finally catches on to what we’ve been saying for a while now: Obama needs his own Glenn Beck and to learn how to employ a chalk board when talking about health care. Also, video from Beck’s early days.

Mediaite has obtained an email from Fox News Vice President of News and Washington managing editor Bill Sammon to the staff of the D.C. bureau, in the wake of an FNC producer caught pumping up the crowd during the 9/12 tea party broadcast.

The email, with the subject line “standards,” addresses the controversy head-on: “We do not cheerlead for one cause or another,” writes Sammon. Full email after the jump:

Video shot at last weekend’s 9/12 Project protests has surfaced showing Heidi Noonan, an associate producer for Fox News, encouraging the crowd to hoot and holler behind Griff Jenkins while he talks live from the scene with Glenn Beck in the studio. Fox is calling this a rookie mistake by an inexperienced producer. But is it also an ethics violation?

The Washington Post ran a full-page instigating ad in today’s paper from Fox News that asks: “How Did ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC And CNN Miss This Story?” referring to the D.C. tea party protests on 9/12.

CNN’s Rick Sanchez said “you lie!” (seriously, he said that) – since his network and all the others did cover the protests. He also played a clip of Bill O’Reilly saying CNN covered the protests. But Fox News is sticking to their guns, and WashPost is defending the ad buy. What? (Updated, with comment from FOX)

Before Joe Wilson yelled at the President there was Muntazer al-Zaidi the Iraqi who threw a shoe at President Bush (who it must be said demonstrated some quick reflexes!) last fall in protest. al-Zaidi was released from Iraqi jail last week, where he claimed to have been tortured, and today explains himself in the Guardian.

Former President Jimmy Carter last night reiterated his belief that much of the anger directed at President Obama is racially motivated. Only this time Carter was a tad more specific, targeting those “demonstrators” as who describe Obama “as a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, or when they wave signs in the air that we should have buried Obama with Kennedy” as having a “racist attitude.” Sound like anyone you know?

President Obama just can’t seem to catch a break when it comes to holding the nation’s attention with details of his health care plan. Perhaps the President should embrace an ‘if you can’t beat’em, join’em’ mentality and stage his own outburst. It may be a good last resort before all is lost. Consider this.

In the passion of yesterday’s 9/12 protests against, um, something, Jay Rosen noticed that Michelle Malkin was crowing about attendance of 2 million at the protest in D.C. Also known as one out of every 130 people in America. A little high? You might say that.

Activist Alex Lawson, who was at today’s 9/12 rally in DC, captured some shocking images: Pre-printed posters passed out to protesters which read “BURY OBAMACARE WITH KENNEDY.”

But who was behind them?

“I launched a project back in March and it comes together Saturday, 9/12,” says Glenn Beck in a Foxnews.com promo video. “Thousands of people are going to gather in Washington, D.C., and around the nation, to stand up for the principles and values that have made America great.”

Where was Beck today? In his New York City Studio – but he wasn’t happy about it.

Today I watched one of the most bizarro TV shows that I have ever seen: Glenn Beck‘s 9/12 special on Fox News. Even now, I am not sure what it had to do with 9/11 — other than completely co-opting it for Tea Partiers, Fox News, dissent and — oh yes — Glenn Beck.