Last night on a heated edition of AC360, CNN’s Anderson Cooper gave a sharp retort to Rush Limbaugh over his comments that “the silver fox” is “reported more in gossip columns to be at the gym or that bar or a restaurant than he is in the studio,” featuring him on his nightly showcase of ridicule, “The Ridiculist.”

As we mentioned earlier, CNN just had its lowest-rated month in over a decade. In an interview with Piers Morgan, airing Thursday, Ted Turner came to the network’s defense. Unlike MSNBC and Fox News, which have political leanings, he said, he wanted CNN to be “hard news” — like The New York Times.

April saw CNN experience its lowest-rated month in over 10 years, with the network bringing in an average of only 357,000 viewers.

As the New York Times‘ Brian Stelter reports, much of CNN’s ratings struggles are attributed with its having to contend with two other cable news networks that provide a clear political point of view.

As we reported in March, Al Qaeda claimed that Fox News Channel was their least-favorite news outlet, for it “falls into the abyss … and lacks objectivity,” adding that they’d like to see the network “die in her anger.” I’m surprised Fox News hasn’t made promotional commercials based on the laudable distinction of being the terrorist organization’s most-hated network.

On CNN’s Starting Point this morning, Soledad O’Brien spoke with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and, much to his apparent chagrin, repeatedly tried to get him to acknowledge whether he would be open to being presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney‘s running mate.

On Wednesday, Rush Limbaugh exuded schadenfreude over CNN’s having the lowest rated month in more than a decade, taking a dig at AC360 anchor Anderson Cooper.

“Silver fox, Anderson Cooper–” Limbaugh ribbed. “I swear, that guy is reported more in gossip columns at the gym, or at that bar or restaurant than he is in the studio! And CNN probably thinks that’s great: ‘That’ll help the demo! Anderson out there doing all this stuff, people will be curious and tune in and watch.’ It isn’t working!”

Former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum sat down with CNN’s Soledad O’Brien to promote his new novel Patriots, when the discussion turned to the controversy over President Obama‘s new ad which claims Mitt Romney wouldn’t have gone after Osama bin Laden. “We’ve been talking a lot about whether or not this Osama bin Laden killing has been politicized for political parties,” O’Brien noted. “Do you think that it has been with President Obama — what’s the line between touting your record in an election year and going over that line and making it sort of political?” “If this raid had gone badly, President Obama would have had to wear the blame so because it goes well, he gets the credit. That’s the political deal. And I don’t think anybody in politics should deny him any smidgen of credit,” Frum acknowledged.

As with every year, the host monologue at the White House Correspondents Dinner has elicited days of analysis. Last night, said host Jimmy Kimmel appeared on CNN to discuss the event with Anderson Cooper. Like in the Entertainment Weekly interview released yesterday, Kimmel discussed how difficult the room is, pointing out that the audience is made up of politicians who refuse to laugh at half the jokes and journalists too afraid to laugh at any jokes.

CNN’s Don Lemon brought on contributors LZ Granderson and Will Cain to discuss what is quickly becoming the one of the more talked-about jokes to come out of this year’s White House Correspondents Dinner — President Barack Obama‘s joke about dogs and host Jimmy Kimmel‘s jokes about Michele Bachmann‘s husband, Marcus Bachmann.

A competitive Republican Senate primary in Indiana has ignited plenty of infighting among the GOP both in the Hoosier State and across the country – but not quite enough for CNN’s “Political Ticker” blog. CNN opted to pit former 2008 running mates Sen. John McCain and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin against one another in a proxy race for the soul of the Republican party when they published “McCain Vs. Palin in Indiana Senate Race” on Friday. Of course, the two Republicans with dramatically differing styles and ideologies have been “pitted” against one another before.

Roland Martin and Will Cain went toe-to-toe on CNN’s Newsroom over President Obama’s recent comments to Rolling Stone‘s Jann Wenner that global warming will become an issue on the campaign trail and “he’ll be voicing (his) belief that we’re going to have to take further steps to deal with climate change in a serious way.”

Tonight’s episode of Piers Morgan Tonight was a special one– an hour with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who answered an hour’s worth of candid questions about everything from politics to his finest moments and, of course, sex. The Dalai Lama explained to Morgan why he had chosen a celibate lifestyle and the peace he acquired from it, and what exactly goes through his mind when an attractive woman walks by.

The American Family Association’s Brian Fischer has been very vocal regarding his feelings about Richard Grenell, Mitt Romney‘s new foreign policy and national security spokesman. Grenell, you see, is gay. And Fischer believes that selecting a gay individual as a spokesperson is akin to having Romney tell the “pro-family community” to “drop dead.” Fischer appeared on CNN Tuesday to further discuss his take on Romney and Grenell.

On CNN’s Starting Point Tuesday morning, panelist Will Cain entered into a spirited back-and-forth with Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz over taxes and budget issues.

Piers Morgan may be a huge enough fan of America to move here and dedicate the last segment of his program every night to something great about it, but when the sovereignty of the United Kingdom is insulted, he takes up the line of attack. Tonight, Sean Penn, who has newly rechristened himself as some sort of Latin American populist advocate, learned this first-hand as he defended comments against Prince William for visiting the Falkland Islands on a military mission after Argentine president Cristina Kirchner threatened to take action to take the islands back.

On CNN’s Starting Point Monday morning, host Soledad O’Brien and TheWrap’s Sharon Waxman took several shots at the homogeneously white new HBO show Girls that depicts several 20-somethings living in New York City and their sex lives, chewing it out for its stark lack of diversity. “The entire show takes place in New York City and, yet, they really don’t have much diversity, if any diversity on the show,” O’Brien observed.

Andrew Sullivan is closer to being an American citizen than ever, and could not be happier. He joined Fareed Zakaria this week for an interview set to air tomorrow to narrate the troubles he went through to finally be accepted as resident, from finding out he was HIV+ to having his marriage to his spouse, legal in his states, rejected by the federal government under the Defense of Marriage Act.

Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus is waiting on Newt Gingrich and Rep. Ron Paul before his party can officially say the general election has begun. This he told Jessica Yellin on John King USA last night, when asked repeatedly why he would not exercise the power of his position and just tell the last two remaining Republican candidates to go away. “People are tired of folks in Washington telling them what they should do,” he explained, responding that he wanted voters to decide whether Rep. Paul and Gingrich should remain in the race.

On OutFront Thursday, a giggly Erin Burnett got into the stoner spirit a wee early for a segment about CU Boulder’s 4/20 Smoke Out. Burnett briefly flubbed her lines, apologizing glazedly. “Sorry, it’s as if I was on some sort of a drug,” Burnett joked, clearly far from high.

Reporter Jim Spellman was on the front lines of the “chronic Mecca,” Norlin Quad, where thousands of pot-heads were expected to celebrate, taking note of the fact that fish fertilizer, of all things, would be used as a deterrent to the puff-puff-passers.

If you think being a media blogger has been fairly horrifying this week, well. Writing about Ted Nugent wrestling a dog to the ground in the 7-11 cookie aisle because it told him his mother had never worked a day in her life (This is what happened, yes?) pales in comparison to the ordeal CNN chief business correspondent Ali Velshi went through this afternoon. Velshi was on a Delta flight to Los Angeles when he heard a horrible noise…

On Thursday’s Starting Point, CNN’s Soledad O’Brien held Florida Republican Congressman Allen West‘s feet to the fire over his allegations that up to 80 members of the House of Representatives were Communists. A visibly uncomfortable West squirmed as O’Brien demanded he start naming names.

Appearing on CNN, Retired U.S. Army Major General James “Spider” Marks was asked to weigh in on the unfolding scandal surrounding photographs, recently published by the L.A. Times, which show coalition soldiers posing with the mangled corpses of suicide bombers in Afghanistan. Marks said that he believes that the soldiers made a “terrible mistake” and that “you’ve got to hold these bad guys with the respect that they deserve.” But it is the military’s rules of engagement in Afghanistan that is the “terrible mistake” and it is the public hand-wringing when events like these surface that provide propaganda victories to America’s enemies and prolong U.S. involvement in its longest war.

As Piers Morgan noted towards the end of his chat, Robert De Niro isn’t particularly fond of interviews. Nonetheless, De Niro sat with Morgan and answered a range of questions about all sorts of topics: America’s economic future, how to pull it together, the Buffett Rule, Trayvon Martin, and his favorite living actors. De Niro seemed optimistic for the nation, but hoped the divisiveness in political talk would not diminish the optimism of the nation.

Over the weekend, Bill O’Reilly found his name being thrown around on CNN, where a panelist on Reliable Sources argued he was “in the tank” for Mitt Romney. O’Reilly objected but brought in a second opinion on his alleged bias: Bernie Goldberg, who seconded that: “the only tank I figure you are in is the Bill O’Reilly tank.”

The Denver Broncos are undergoing the lengthy process to find new cheerleaders and, this year, for the first time ever, a man made it through the auditions. Sacha Heppell, who ended up amongst 200 finalists vying for the spots, spoke to CNN, explaining that he auditioned because he loves to dance and he wanted to teach his students at Uzeke, a Colorado “youth media literacy studio,” that you should always follow your dreams. A wonderful lesson and even better if your dreams involve making drunk football fans vaguely uncomfortable.