Appearing on Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, The Dally Caller‘s Tucker Carlson argued with Alan Colmes about President Obama’s State of the Union address, with Carlson blasting it for many of its pro-government themes.

On Wednesday night’s The Rachel Maddow Show, the story of how Rick Santorum and wife Karen dealt with the loss of their newborn son Gabriel again became fodder for criticism of Santorum’s presidential prospects. Although he handled it in a marginally more delicate fashion than Alan Colmes did (for which he apologized), MSNBC contributor Eugene Robinson cited the incident as a “weird story” that might put off some Republican voters.

Earlier today, Alan Colmes made headlines by making an unseemly comment about Rick Santorum– namely, about his child who died hours after being born. Colmes let his Twitter followers know that he did his part to apologize to Santorum, and the latter responded to that apology on air today with Sean Hannity, explaining his actions with his child and his acceptance of Colmes’ apology.

In a wild exchange on Fox News’ Happening Now, longtime contributor Alan Colmes lost it a little bit when National Review‘s Rich Lowry pressed him over an attack on Rick Santorum‘s handling of the 1996 death of his newborn son. Colmes used Santorum’s reaction to the death of 2 hour-old Gabriel as an example of “some of the crazy things he’s said and done,” prompting immediate, sustained pushback from Lowry, and death-stares from Colmes.

Back when Mediaite was still in its infancy, when all the writers you know and love were adorable baby versions of themselves being cared for by a mysterious, sock-wearing woman named Nanny, a tradition was formed. Whenever the holidays would roll around, the Mediaite brain trust would choose the big pop cultural event of the year and find all the media counterparts for the various characters. At the time, back in the sepia-toned days of 2009, that cultural event was Harry Potter. Well, now it’s 2011…

On today’s edition of Red Eye, Andy Levy called out Alan Colmes for not acknowledging that there are members of the Occupy Wall Street protests who have engaged in less-than-civil means to spread their message. Levy brought up the continued acts of aggression and general chaotic nature of some Occupy Wall Street protestors, and asked Colmes why he thinks it is unfair of media outlets to show the more undesirable elements of the movement, when he had no such objections to tea party coverage.

On America Live Friday afternoon, host Megyn Kelly played referee in a shouting match between Fox News liberal embed Alan Colmes and conservative radio host Mike Gallagher over supposed outrage at Democratic support for Occupy Wall Street. Colmes chided Gallagher, and the media, for focusing on the actions of a small number of protesters, but what really set Gallagher off was Colmes’ comparison of OWS to the Tea Party.

Sarah Palin offered some advice to Mitt Romney, encouraging him to more openly embrace the fiscal and social conservative side of the Republican party, and to develop a more robust relationship with the Tea Party movement. This morning on Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, host Martha MacCallum asked Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson and liberal “embed” Alan Colmes to discuss Romney’s strategy in engaging the powerful Tea Party contingent, which Carlson put in remarkably stark terms.

Radio hosts Mike Gallagher and Alan Colmes faced off Friday on Megyn Kelly‘s Fox News program and debated the Obama Administration’s decision to delay his decision over the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. “20,000 jobs is important except if it comes to polluting the snail darter!” Gallagher exclaimed. “All we’ve heard from both parties, Alan, is it’s all about the jobs — 20,000 American jobs are being flushed down the toilet because they’re going to pollute a little bit of water! Are you kidding”

With the Herman Cain candidacy increasingly in jeopardy, on tonight’s program Bill O’Reilly asked guests Alan Colmes and Monica Crowley to gauge the rest of the field, of which neither seemed particularly excited. In discussing the lack of emotion surrounding Rick Perry, O’Reilly argued that Cain and Rep. Ron Paul had the “most emotional support,” particularly the latter, whose supporters he compared to “bees.”

Reporting on the alleged comments by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and President Obama over a hot mic has been remarkably uncritical, failing to note the fundamental weakness of the quotes attributed to the two world leaders. On Fox News’ Happening Now, anchor Jon Scott hosted a panel on the remarks that illustrated why journalists should hesitate before amplifying remarks that could inflame diplomatic relations.

With today being the first time weekly media criticism program Fox News Watch got to discuss it, the top of the program was devoted to the Herman Cain sexual harassment scandal. After going through the more bizarre elements of the story– the fact that, despite 50 stories on it in Politico, no one has any details; the seemingly botched response from the campaign– they turned to the commentary on the story, and neither Judith Miller nor Alan Colmes had anything positive to say about Ann Coulter taking the opportunity to tout the superiority of “our blacks” this week.

In the aftermath of the Jimmy Hoffa Voter Encouragement Crisis/Incendiary Rhetorapocalypse, conservative media figures have been selectively freaking out, and the White House response to ABC’s Jake Tapper has led to a newly-coined “Hoffa standard” by which campaign surrogates are to be judged. Perhaps James Hoffa‘s remarks ought to be judged by the “Bachmann Standard,” since current GOP hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann used nearly identical rhetoric to encourage voters in 2010.

The various ways many on the left describe their distrust of the Tea Party seem to be growing ever more graphic– so argued Bill O’Reilly tonight in response to Rep. Andre Carson‘s comment that the Tea Party “wanted to see us [African Americans] hanging from a tree.” On a panel in which O’Reilly and talk radio host Tammy Bruce decried the comments, Alan Colmes was left to attempt to explain the rationale behind the comment, despite emphasizing he “wouldn’t use that language.”

Alan Colmes spoke with Don Imus this morning, and no topic was off limits as they tackled Neil Cavuto‘s “big head,” how the Democrats “folded like a cheap suit” during the debt negotiations and whether Pat Buchanan referring to President Obama as “your boy” in a conversation with Al Sharpton was racially tinged. Given Buchanan’s history, Colmes thought Buchanan might have some ‘splainin’ to do.

When a tragedy like the one in Norway occurs, it’s human nature to try and explain the unexplainable. This almost always turns into a search for someone to blame. This frequently leads to attempts to guess what media figures the killers in question may have followed, putting those figures on the defensive. That defense is much harder when the terrorist himself cites your work explicitly. Such is the position that Robert Spencer, director of the blog Jihad Watch, now finds himself. Today, he appeared on Alan Colmes’ radio show to defend his site and his work.

Unsurprisingly, they found very little common ground.

Tim Pawlenty as 2011 has come to know him is a pretty even-tempered guy: that is to say, about as milquetoast as they come. But he has shown a sense of humor, drawling out Tiger Woods jokes and enthusiastically (well, enthusiastically for Tim Pawlenty) gushing about Lady Gaga‘s oeuvre. Perhaps the national spotlight has kept his sense of humor in check, or the heightened sensory ability of the 24/7, Twitter-driven news cycle to catch off-color jokes has warded him off them, because he was delivering punchline after awkward punchline to Hannity & Colmes in 2008.

Last week Fox News’ media criticism show barely mentioned the media scandal involving the news network’s parent company, News Corp. This week Fox News Watch more than made up for it, devoting two segments to the controversy, with Alan Colmes in particular pulling no punches in discussing the details of the story and the potential involvement of his boss, Rupert Murdoch.

In December 2008, cable news’ premier debate couple, Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes, split up, one to host his own program and the other to contribute to the debates of many on Fox News. At the time, it was unclear to what extent Colmes would remain with Fox News or what a program without Colmes to balance out Hannity’s conservatism would look like. When discussing the run of Hannity & Colmes, many tend to look back at the heartfelt goodbyes (featuring a fairly nationally unknown Tim Pawlenty!) Colmes’ fans gave him, but seem to overlook the fun Colmes had with the departure in the immediate aftermath.

Alan Colmes appeared with Don Imus this morning to debate President Obama’s Afghanistan policy with Bernard McGuirk, yet when the topic turned to Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, the sparks humorously began to fly. Colmes rattled off various verbal gaffes Bachmann made, to which McGuirk replied Obama has made mistakes as well. Yet Colmes emphatically highlighted the difference: “Bachmann is doing stuff today!”

President Obama’s speech on Afghanistan set the stage for a fun debate on Fox News Watch between conservative commentator Cal Thomas and liberal commentator Alan Colmes. Given that no one seems happy with Obama’s plan for Afghanistan, Thomas senses a “disturbance in the liberal force” and playfully referenced Colmes as Jabba the Hut. Yet even if liberals are upset with Obama now, Thomas is confident the media will fall back into line by election time.

The panel on Fox News Watch was exploring whether the good reviews from the mainstream media for Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s candidacy for President since the Republican debate, have been sincere or if there is truly a hidden agenda behind them. With some like Chris Matthews barely able to contain their new excitement for Bachmann, at least one panelist here warns Bachmann that such praise is really a trap!

Given his many years working at Fox News, it may neither be the first nor last time Alan Colmes faces a conversion effort, though this may be the most high-profile. At an Right Online event on Friday, Andrew Breitbart read a supportive email from Colmes to the audience he was speaking with, and added that he would convert the world to conservatism “one Alan Colmes at a time.” On his blog today, Colmes replied graciously, though seems to have been scared off by angry commenters.

Liberal commentator Alan Colmes debated conservative commentator Steve Hayes on Fox News today, but it was host Bill Hemmer who ended up raising his voice at Colmes. Colmes declared “I think it’s a shame that [Anthony Weiner] has to step down or feels he must step down.” Before Colmes continued to rail against Republicans for being hypocritical, Hemmer demanded Colmes explain why exactly Weiner’s forthcoming resignation is a “shame.”

After calling fellow radio host Laura Ingraham a “slut” on his radio program, Ed Schultz received a week-long suspension from MSNBC and gave an extended apology on his program. But many, especially on the right, are suggesting he got off easy with only a week of punishment. Today’s Fox News Watch panel mostly arrived at that conclusion with one notable exception: Alan Colmes, who argued that Rush Limbaugh made a career out of far more offensive comments.