“Where’s it raiiiining, Lindsay?” Doocy, a former weatherman, asked, after positioning Ellingson on the west coast and Lima in the east.

“It looks like it’s raining down here,” she said, waving her hands around Los Angeles, “and up there.”

“And what do you think is happening in the middle?” Doocy asked.

“It’s really dry,” Ellingson said.

Doocy then turned his attention to Lima, who noted that, in New York, “it’s quite dried for now,”

“Quite dried for now,” Doocy repeated, nodding.

He wasn’t done with the humor, though, noting that it’s “always hot” in Brazil, and later, after Ellingson said she loves Los Angeles and New York equally, added a pregnant pause in deeming her “bi…coastal.”

Doocy kicked it back to Brian Kilmeade and Gretchen Carlson, who joked about bras, before making a wonderful segue to senior White House correspondent Ed Henry, who admitted he had no idea how to follow the segment.

How’s it looking in your neck of the woods? You won’t get an answer from the clip below, but enjoy anyway, courtesy of Fox News:

O’Brien did a good job of challenging that false premise, but allowed guest Rep. Marcia Blackburn (R-TN) to slip in the lie that the mandate covers the “abortion pill.”

RELATED: Contraceptive Mandate Is Not About Religious Liberty, It’s About Female Liberty

Ms. O’Brien repeatedly pressed Rep. Blackburn to explain how the administration’s decision had anything to do with religious liberty. In responding, Rep. Blackburn inserted a popular lie about the mandate, one which the media has been slow to correct.

“It is about forcing employers to provide things that go against their religious beliefs,” Rep. Blackburn said. “And when you have individuals that go to church on Sunday and put money in the offering plate, they need to be assured that that money is not going to go and pay for contraception items, for abortion pills. And this mandate covers all FDA-approved medications.”

RELATED: This Week Host Lets George Will Lie About Contraceptive Mandate And ‘Abortion-Inducing Drugs’

The “abortion pill,” RU-486, is not covered by the mandate, of course, but Rep. Blackburn was likely trying to conflate emergency contraception with the abortion pill. They are not the same thing, so while some religions may promote that idea as an article of faith, it is a medical fact that they are not the same. Emergency contraception prevents pregnancy from occurring, and is for use long before a pregnancy is even possible.

O’Brien’s other guest, the ACLU’s Louise Melling, explained why the mandate does not infringe on religious liberty. “This respects religious liberty,” Melling said. “Churches don’t have to provide contraceptive coverage as part of their package. What this rule says is institutions like hospitals and charities and schools that open their doors to the public, serve primarily the public, don’t have a primary purpose of religion, have to offer the same insurance everybody else does. 98% of American women use contraception, including Catholics. This say it is you serve the public, you play by public rules.”

RELATED: Fox News Analyst Falsely States New Regs Require Religious Employers To Provide Abortions

The “religious liberty” argument has even gained traction among Democrats, partially because the Obama administration, and even people like Ms. Melling, have failed to make the simple, essential argument that this decision is about equal protection under the law for women. The Preventive Services Mandate itself is about achieving parity for women’s preventive health services with everyone else’s, and the decision about the “conscience exemption” is about extending that protection to women who work in institutions that serve the general public, religious or not.

While I disagree strongly with most of what he says about this, Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough deserves a bit of credit for pointing out, this morning, that the Preventive Services Mandate doesn’t cover abortion services of any kind, and I’d even tend to agree that the administration did a poor job of rolling this out. By letting it just sort of pop out and lie there, shivering, the administration has allowed the measure’s critics to control the discussion, so that even when they do a good job of defending the decision, the best they can do is convince people they’re not infringing on religious liberty. There’s a bumper sticker.

RELATED: Dear Media: There’s No Such Thing As A ‘Morning-After Abortion Pill’

They should have announced this decision with a strong statement about equal protection, and about protecting women from having their employer’s religious beliefs imposed on them. Instead of answering questions like “Why should Catholic hospitals provide contraceptive coverage?” the media could, and should, be asking “Why should a woman be denied the same rights as others, just because she works at a Catholic hospital?”

Here’s the clip, from CNN’s Starting Point:

This might not have been Fox News’ fault — in theory, talking to an M&M could have been a fun idea. But things began going off the rails early, as Ms. Brown’s answers were just a little too cute for TV, which made her incredibly annoying. For people who, for whatever reason, don’t especially like co-host Brian Kilmeade, his unamused facial expressions throughout the interview will likely win you over. He was mercifully rescued from follow-up chatter on the segment by Misty May-Treanor, who “crashed” the set to get him outdoors for a volleyball segment.

RELATED: Watch Suzanne Malveaux Ask An Awkward Tim Tebow About His Love Life

Host Steve Doocy, however, seemed to be fully invested in the interview. He mentioned that Eddie Van Halen used to stipulate, in his contract riders, that there should be no brown M&M’s in the dressing room.

“That’s got to make a candy feel bad,” Doocy said, feigning a frown.

“Well, he didn’t know what he was missing,” Ms. Brown replied, “and I’m the ruler of all. So…it’s his loss.”

“Take that, Eddie,” Doocy replied.

Gretchen Carlson then followed up by asking Ms. Brown to describe the personalities of the other M&M’s. We learned that Green is attractive, Blue is up on current events, Yellow is naive, Orange is — ah, you know, we’re just going to stop there.

“We’ve been doing this show for 15 years,” Doocy told Ms. Brown. “I believe you’re the first talking candy.” If there is any justice in the world, she will also be the last.

Watch the clip of the interview below, courtesy of Fox News:

The liberal blog Raw Story is accusing Fox and Friends of “inventing” a conspiracy around the jobs report, but that’s not true; Bolling simply neglected to credit the inventor of this silliness, Rep. Allen West (R-FL).

In a segment devoted to the President’s Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer, Bolling made sure to keep his accusation sufficiently vague. Speaking about the people who have left the workforce (who are never counted in the monthly unemployment figures, no matter who the president is), Bolling said “Are they playing around with the numbers? It’s the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s supposed to be nonpartisan. Hilda Solis heads the Department of Labor. Hilda Solis works directly for Obama…”

“Are you saying they’re cooking the books?” co-host Steve Doocy asked, helpfully.

“I’m saying there’s room for error. there’s a — when you’re talking about four million people, how do you know?” Bolling responded. He and Gretchen Carlson pointed out that the jobs figures are “estimates,” and that they “didn’t make four million phone calls.”

While it’s impossible to vouch for the entire F&F crew, there’s no doubt that Eric Bolling knows that every Secretary of Labor reports to every president, and that the unemployment figures are always based on a representative survey, and so on. He stopped short of actually accusing the administration, but imagine if, as a business reporter, someone asked Bolling if Company X was “cooking the books,” and he essentially replied “Well, you never know!”

But it was helpful of him to point out that there’s room for error, even if he didn’t then go on to reveal that in January’s jobs report, that room for error resulted in the November and December jobs numbers being revised upward by about 63,000 jobs. That’s in addition to the 243,000 jobs created in January.

The liberal blog Raw Story accused Fox And Friends of “inventing” the “cooking the books” conspiracy, but they were actually just shoveling another bat’s guano. When those encouraging jobs numbers first came out on Friday, Tea Party Rep. Allen West (R-FL) was quick to reach for the Reynolds Wrap:

There is something suspicious about the job numbers released today and it has me very concerned,” West wondered Friday. “Is this dramatic supposed decrease in black unemployment a result of job creation or is someone playing around with the census numbers??”

Complicating matters is the fact that the Bureau of Labor Statistics included an adjustment to the total population, based on the 2010 census, which has some conservatives crying foul. However, no one has produced a single shred of evidence to suggest that January’s jobs report was compiled using any unusual methods, or that this is anything but an apples-to-apples comparison. As Bolling stated, and January’s revisions underscore, the figures are always subject to change, but there is absolutely zero reason to think anyone “cooked” anything. It would be pretty silly of the Obama administration to underestimate November’s jobs gains by 60,000, then let those jobs get buried in January’s revision.

Here’s the clip, from Monday morning’s Fox and Friends:

“There was a lot riding on that particular race in Nevada and it was interesting, because the numbers were much, much greater than you thought,” Trump gloated. “And a lot of people are giving me credit for that. And I will accept that credit.”

RELATED: Poll Finds Trump Endorsement Was Net Negative For Mitt Romney

Earlier in the interview, co-anchor Steve Doocy asked why Trump took so long to endorse a candidate.

“I like Newt a lot, but I think Mitt Romney is going to win the election against Obama,” Trump observed. “I really believe that. I think Obama will not do well and won’t do as well as people are thinking he’s going to do, and I think that Mitt Romney is going to win the election. But there was a lot of confusion as to who I was going to endorse and frankly, that made things exciting!”

A Facebook/Politico poll found that forty-one percent of Nevada caucus-goers surveyed said Trump’s endorsement gave them a more negative view of Romney.

Watch Trump give himself credit for Romney’s landslide below via Fox News

McCall’s pitch initially warmed the heart of Croatian-American investor Robert Herjavec, who bordered on tears as he discussed his immigrant father’s first factory job, but ultimately rejected McCall’s protectionism, saying, “I can’t support something where you don’t take care of the business, so I’m out.”

RELATED: Shark Tank‘s Barbara Corcoran On Cable News As A Business: ‘I’m Out’

“Are you still insistent that the product has to be manufactured here in America?” Bolling asked McCall.

‘Oh, absolutely,” McCall replied. “I won’t waver on that, no.”

Bolling asked if his company would mention that in its advertising.

“Oh, yes, we state that it’s made in the United States and since the airing of the Shark Tank show we’ve had an overwhelming response of people who are in support of it and, you know, are insistent that we stay here, too,” McCall explained, “It’s high time that somebody stood up and not just bow down to the automatic of going to overseas to do anything.”

Bolling commended McCall for keeping jobs in the country for his product.

“Thanks,” he said, “for manufacturing that product here in America,”

Watch Bolling’s interview of McCall below via Fox News:

And here’s another contestant on the show who refused to outsource jobs:

RELATED: Dear Media: There’s No Such Thing As A ‘Morning-After Abortion Pill’

Women’s health has been a hot topic in the news this week, with heated interest in the Obama administration’s announcement that certain religious employers would have one year to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s Preventive Services Mandate, and the intense backlash toward, and reversal of, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure charity’s decision to de-fund Planned Parenthood. There are strong opinions on every side of these issues, but on issues of medical fact, there is only one set of facts, and it is the news media’s duty to ensure that.

Conservative opponents of contraception have been trying to inject their articles of faith into the medical nomenclature around emergency contraception for a long time. Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich mentioned the medically paradoxical “Morning After Abortion Pill” in an opposition memo a few months ago, and Rep. Michele Bachmann had also been dropping references to the mythical meds into her stump speeches.

In early January, Bachmann made the unchallenged claim on Fox News’ Fox and Friends, and a few weeks later, Fox News legal analyst Peter Johnson, Jr. falsely claimed that the new Preventive Services regs require religious employers who employ people of multiple faiths to “provide drugs that induce abortions.”

RELATED: Fox News Analyst Falsely States New Regs Require Religious Employers To Provide Abortions

Hardball host Chris Matthews made the qualified statement that Catholics believe that certain types of contraception are “abortive,” but failed to provide the correct medical information, in a recent segment on the mandate.

On Sunday morning’s This Week, columnist George Will tried to change the subject from the Komen decision, telling host George Stephanopoulos “A much more important decision politically that was taken this week was the Obama administration saying that Catholic institutions have no choice, and this was applauded by pro-choice people, have no choice but to provide contraception, abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization.”

Stephanopoulos blankly replied, “I want to get to that, as well,” meaning the subject of the contraceptive mandate, but he never corrected Will’s assertion.

As I’ve written in this space several times now, the “morning after pill” is not an “abortion pill,” it can never be an “abortion pill,” because pregnancy cannot occur within the drug’s effectiveness window. Furthermore, the actual “abortion pill,” RU-486, is not covered by the Preventive Services Mandate (nor is it approved for over-the-counter sale, like Plan B is). The information that Will, et al, are disseminating is medically inaccurate, and people like Stephanopoulos have a duty to correct it, the way news organizations eventually corrected Michele Bachmann’s ludicrous claims about the HPV vaccine.

Broadcasting false medical information is a potentially dangerous act that is, at the very least, grossly irresponsible. In this case, it has the potential of discouraging women from using a medication that they have no reason to fear, or to encourage misuse of that same medication.

If Geogre Will said that large doses of aspirin cause four-hour erections, or that Lipitor makes you go blind, Stephanopoulos would surely have corrected him, but when it comes to women’s health, the media doesn’t seem to be taking science seriously. It falls to news consumers like you (and me) to demand that they do.

Here’s the clip, from ABC News’ This Week:

The reviews were not kind. Here’s a clip of the performance from Fox And Friends, complete with progressively more critical chyrons, including my first thought, “Maybe Leave The Singing To The President”:

Later in the show, the Fox And Friends gang played a snippet for Romney’s chief rival, Newt Gingrich, and offered him equal time to belt out a tune.

The former Speaker declined, saying, “I’ll just say that I think you have to know your limitations, so I’ll open up with talking about the need to create jobs and the need to develop an American energy plan to bring down the price of gasoline, and I won’t try to compete in the singing department.”

I thought Romney started out strong, with an entertaining lounge vibe, but got a little pitchy (maybe a lot pitchy) in the middle, and at the end. In Romney’s defense, he did ask the crowd to sing along, but they pretty much abandoned him, which could not have been great for the nerves.

Still, it wasn’t that bad. True, he’s no Rev. Barack Obama in the pipes department, but for my money, he was at least as good as Steven Tyler was at the AFC Championship game (and probably made the same amount of money for his time), and it beat hell out of his Who Let The Dogs Out.

Romney’s rendition might actually help him with some voters, who will likely identify with the former Governor’s patriotic spirit, and with his sub-superstar vocal skills. For a candidate who could use a healthy dose of humanization, this might be what the doctor ordered.

The thrust of Doocy’s brief segment on the study was that Romney is getting clobbered by the networks, but he bragged “Meanwhile, the most balanced coverage, Fox. 52% positive. 48% negative. So fair and balanced not only a slogan, we actually live by it.”

He was referring to the results for the entire Republican field, not Romney specifically. While Gov. Romney did best on Fox News, the network still gave him 63% negative vs. 37% positive, hardly anything to write home about. According to the study, Rick Santorum is Fox’s guy, at 63% positive to 37% negative.

While Fox News’ coverage of the overall Republican field was balanced, “NBC was the most negative overall with 27% positive vs. 73% negative coverage, followed closely by ABC with 32% positive vs. 68% negative coverage. Both NBC and ABC featured 85% negative comments on Romney,” according to the survey.

Even higher on the Republican field than Fox News, though, was CBS News, whose overall coverage of the GOP race was 57% positive, to 43% negative. That stat, however, is skewed by the fact that CBS featured 89% positive coverage of Rep. Ron Paul, the Texas Congressman with that ultra-loyal following and disproportionate knack for fundraising.

There is a catch, of course. The study looked at coverage of the Republican primary from Jan. 1 through Jan. 10, the night of the New Hampshire primary, where Ron Paul finished second. That accounts for the fact that Rep. Paul was getting so much attention, but still, that 89% positive figure is stunning, especially given the media’s well-documented habit of ignoring or marginalizing the candidate.

It’s also worth noting that in the same timeframe, current national frontrunner Newt Gingrich got 52% positive to 48% negative coverage from the broadcast networks, but was not even included in the Fox News results because he didn’t receive enough evaluations on FOX for meaningful analysis.

Here’s the clip, from Fox News: (you can view the full survey here)

RELATED: Red Tails Could Set Black Film Back

Alarmed by the Academy Award winner’s tardiness, Brian Kilmeade led a search team throughout the Fox News studio to try to find out the actor’s whereabouts. “Where is he?!” exclaimed Gretchen Carlson. “Funny, Gretchen, would have been much better had he been there at this time. We would have walked in together and the drama would have been uncanny and I understand that he’s close to appearing on our show. We’d like him on the couch. But he’s not here yet,”

“Where do you think he is?!” Steve Doocy asked.

“Not really sure where he is,” Kilmeade admitted, combing the whole area — even looking in the closet.

“Is he down the hall? Is he still outside?” Doocy asked.

Finally, after vamping for what seemed like an eternity, Gooding finally arrived, blaming traffic for missing his interview.

“The good thing is we still have videotape,” Carlson said. “That means we can tape the interview with Cuba Gooding Jr. and we will air it for you tomorrow about his new movie Red Tails!”

“You’re going to be fantastic tomorrow, aren’t you?” snarked Doocy, as Gooding looked on sheepishly.

“Great movie, great career!” Kilmeade said. “So we’ll have a chance to go over everything and we only blame New York traffic!”

Awkwardness ensued. Needless to say, George Lucas is probably not amused by any of this.

Watch Kilmeade hilariously try to find Cuba Gooding Jr. below via Fox News:

And watch Gooding’s interview awkwardly get postponed:

RELATED: Newt Gingrich And Mitt Romney Slug It Out In Heated Immigration Argument

Host Steve Doocy highlighted the fact that Gov. Romney hasn’t exactly bragged about his Mexican roots before. “The other night when I saw you at one of the debates in Florida,” Doocy said, “you mentioned for the first time in my memory, where you were talking about that anti-immigrant allegation by Newt Gingrich. You were talking about how your father was born in Mexico. It’s the first time I’d heard you say that. Is that helping you with the Latino community in Florida?”

Romney replied “You know, I wish I could claim that I’m Hispanic…”

That’s a bit of a weird thing to say, but let’s hear him out. Does he admire the rich cultural heritage, the strong current of faith, the diverse culinary tradition? Romney continued “…and it would help me with the Latino community here in Florida and around the country, but my dad was born of American parents living in Mexico.”

Oh, right, he didn’t say he wished he was Hispanic, just that he wishes he could claim it.

RELATED: Mitt Romney And Rick Perry Get Into Illegal Immigration Slapfight

Romney went on to say that his father “was Anglo at the time and yet, I’m very proud of the fact that he came to this country at a critical time, was helped to get on his feet by folks in this country, and he and his dad went around America, started a construction business, ultimately my dad went off and ran a car company. It’s an amazing land, of course, people coming from all over the world seeking opportunity.”

The sentiment alone is such a naked pander that even an eloquent unspooling of it would have done little to mask it, but when you’re pandering to a group, you don’t just come out and say you’re doing that. What if Newt Gingrich said “I wish I could claim to be a woman, because I am getting killed in the gyno-American vote!”

RELATED: Brain Bleach Alert: Viral Attack Video Shows Newt Gingrich As ‘Kim Kardashian Of The GOP’

Gov. Romney has a habit of this kind of Murphy’s Law-guided honesty, from his explanation that he fired undocumented landscapers because “I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake!” to his revealingly casual $10,000 proposition to Rick Perry at another debate, to his recent interview with conservative radio host Laura Ingraham. In that Obama Campaign ad-ready chat, Romney told Ingraham that “Of course (the economy is) getting better,” and when asked if “Obama is making the economy better, but vote for me” is a tough argument, Romney responded “Do you have a better one, Laura? It just happens to be the truth.”

While Gov. Romney’s honesty might not be all that refreshing to Republican primary voters, it’s like a York Peppermint Patty to the President’s reelection team.

Here’s the video, from Fox News:

RELATED: Al Sharpton Guest: Jan Brewer Incident Is More Race-Related Disrespect For President Obama

Host Gretchen Carlson asked McGlowen which political party Independent voters would support in 2012.

“It’s whoever can give them solutions,” McGlowen surmised. “Independents are solutions oriented. What can you do to create a more prosperous America for me? What can you do to help my children live the American dream? And I’m sorry to say, as a registered Republican, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich aren’t doing it that well in fighting with each other over tax policy, or who did what with whom with Freddie and Fannie. People want results, Gretchen, I thought it was so great when you brought up earlier that you have the State of the Union address and no one talked really about policy or Barack Obama until towards the end of the debate.”

Democratic political commentator Jehmu Greene said she surprisingly agreed with McGlowen, saying that Independent voters were fair game. “You have audiences that are booing gay veterans, that are cheering on old people without health insurance and you have these candidates on the stage denying science. These are all things that they’re going to make independent voters say ‘Whoa! Wait a second.’ I mean, they are up for grabs. We’ve seen a lot of shifts and a lot of shifts from being registered Democrats in that historic election in 2008 and now they’re independents so Obama has a challenge to get them back into our camp.”

Watch McGlowan’s analysis below via Fox News:

RELATED: Dear Media: There’s No Such Thing As A ‘Morning-After Abortion Pill’

The Obama administration announced, last year, that insurance plans would be required to provide a raft of preventive services, including contraception and sterilization. Currently, religious organizations enjoy a “conscience exemption,” but Sebelius’ announcement means that non-church religious employers will be required to cover such services, without deductibles or coinsurance, beginning in August of 2013.

In discussing outrage over the announcement, Fox legal analyst Peter Johnson, Jr. falsely claimed that President Obama “has said the federal government is going to demand that Catholic universities, Catholic social service agencies, and Catholic institutions other than churches provide drugs that induce abortions, provide sterilizations, provide contraceptions free, really in violation of Catholic faith and really, other organizations and other religious organizations, it violates their faith.”

The truth is that the new regulations would apply only to contraceptives, including emergency contraception, and does not require these employers to cover the “abortion pill,” or any drug that “induces abortions.” This is part of a campaign by anti-science conservatives to conflate emergency contraception with RU486, the so-called “abortion pill,” and one that Fox and Friends has participated in before.

In fact, I don’t even watch Fox and Friends all that much, but out of the four times I’ve tuned in this month, they have done this twice.

The fact is that emergency contraception doesn’t “induce abortions,” and can’t induce abortions. Plan B must be taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, and the “Ella” pill, within 120 hours, long before a pregnancy could actually occur.

Anti-abortion activists have tried to muddy the waters, not only by falsely calling Plan B a “morning after abortion pill,” but by also claiming that “Ella” can cause abortions if taken after pregnancy occurs. This isn’t based on any evidence (the drug hasn’t been tested as an “abortion pill,” but women who have inadvertently taken it after becoming pregnant haven’t had problems), but on the notion that “Ella” is “chemically similar” to RU486. As far as that goes, water is “chemically similar” to hydrochloric acid, but you don’t see anyone trying to ban Dasani.

Even the activists who posit this evidence-free claim do so under the hypothetical premise that women would use the drug outside its recommended effective time frame, and in hugely excessive doses. Based on that logic, you could ban any drug, and there’s still no evidence that, even then, “Ella” would induce an abortion. Here are the facts about Ella:

The two emergency contraceptives work differently:

• Plan B contains levonorgestrel, a progestin hormone used in lower doses in many birth control pills.
• Ella contains ulipristal, a non-hormonal drug that blocks the effects of key hormones necessary for conception.
• Plan B should be taken as soon as possible after sex. It may work for up to 72 hours after sex.
• While emergency contraception should not be delayed, Ella’s effectiveness does not fade for 120 hours (five days) after sex, regardless of whether the hormonal surge has occurred.

There is a legitimate discussion to be had over whether the Constitution protects religious organizations’ non-religious activity (in my view, it doesn’t), but giving out false medical information is not only irresponsible, it’s dangerous. Fox & Friends should correct Johnson’s reporting.

Here’s the clip, from Fox News:

Tyler’s rendition has been getting less-than-rave reviews, but from the looks of it, the American Idol judge was most likely selected to sing The Star Spangled Banner because he was probably there when Francis Scott Key wrote it. I’m not saying Tyler is old, but his first electric guitar was attached to a kite.

In what is surely a sign of the Apocalypse, I find myself in agreement with Fox and Friends‘ Gretchen Carlson, who said Monday morning that “the National Anthem performance everybody should be talking about is Kristin Chenoweth.”

While delivering the best National Anthem performance ever by a singer named for a military vehicle (narrowly edging Bridget Steathbomber‘s performance at Super Bowl VXI), the Broadway actress was greeted by boos from the crowd whenever Fox’s cameras showed New York Giants players onscreen. While the booing is rightly the main source of outrage, the fans’ thunderous applause when the ‘Niners were onscreen was no less irreverent.

As a lifelong Jets fan, I understand the impulse, but in my state, we’re Americans first, and football fans second. We would never think of disrespecting our National Anthem like that. If anything, we’re committed to making it even better.

Here’s Chenoweth’s performance of the National Anthem, via YouTube: (you can see Tyler’s here, if you dare)

RELATED: Ann Coulter: Tea Party Ignores Romney Because They’re Looking At Who Is ‘Calling [Obama] A Kenyan’

Co-host Dave Briggs asked Coulter if Romney –her candidate of choice– needed to “show more fire in the belly than we have seen?”

“No, he’s doing fine,” Coulter responded. “This is not going to be the electorate in the fall. I am pretty sure we’ll get everyone who voted for John McCain, since no one voted for John McCain, because we liked McCain, it was to stop Obama. We have those voters and now you have to get people who voted for Obama and having a candidate who calls Obama a Kenyan colonialist or socialist, that is not what you need, and at the same time, with Newt Gingrich you get the name calling for the president, very popular with the tea party crowd, not so popular with independents, and, he won’t put a fence on the border but wants amnesty for illegals and took 1.6 million from Freddie Mac and he attacked Paul Ryan’s plan on Social Security and with Newt Gingrich you throw out the baby and keep the bath water!”

Clayton Morris noted that what Gingrich was doing was out of Michele Bachmann’s playbook.

“She was conservative — Newt Gingrich is the least conservative of these candidates and the least electable!” Coulter exclaimed. “Fantastic but the South Carolina audience loves when he yells at John King for making a perfectly legitimate opening question.”

Watch below via Fox News:

Doocy began the interview by asking if CNN was over-the-line for starting off the debate with a question about Newt Gingrich’s personal life.

“You know, I think it’s over the line to suggest that there is a partisan tilt to — to a question from a network…” Schultz hesitantly began.

“Never heard questions like that during Democrat debates!” Doocy interrupted.

“Like John Edwards and all the rumors that were swirling around him?” Kilmeade added.

“Oh, come on!” Schultz exclaimed, quickly moving on.

RELATED: Mitt Romney: ‘I Feel Sorry For Debbie Wasserman Schultz

“Look, I think that the focus of that debate rightly ultimately was on the fact that Mitt Romney has hung his entire candidacy on his role in the private sector, which was as a corporate raider,” Schultz continued. “…Which was as someone whose job it was to outsource other people’s jobs to other countries, to deliberately bankrupt companies, to dismantle…”

“I believe that was Bain Capital mantra, we are here to raid and bankrupt companies!” Kilmeade sarcastically interjected. “No, and Bain is so bad –”

“That’s pretty much what it does!” Schultz fired back. “In the name of making money for their investors which is okay but you know, Mitt Romney just needs to come clean and say that that’s what he did. Instead, he is masking what he did and trying to — I mean, on any given day, he claims another number for the number of jobs he supposedly created!”

“I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to watch all the debates, I know how busy you are.” Kilmeade snarked, and replied to the DNC chief’s claims by saying Romney has already explained his work at the company in great detail.

“Look, I know that this is the apples and oranges network,” Schultz returned volley. “But at the end of the day…the OMB director isn’t hanging his record on his time at Bain.”

Watch the contentious interview below via Fox News:

“We’re here on Fox News,” Springer began. “Every single day, in fairness, you guys, every single day, bash President Obama. Every day!”

“I’m going to take you to task on that. I’m going to take you to task on that,” Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson replied. “Because on this panel right here, we have a fair and balanced panel right here. And I’m the independent.”

“For this panel!” Springer continued. “What’s the rest of the show? The rest of the show, every single morning, you guys are slamming Obama. You know you are. And I’m not saying you don’t have a right to, but every single conversation is something bad about Obama.”

At this point, an oblivious panel member interjected, making some unnecessary point that took Springer and Carlson off-track. But Carlson returned to dress down Springer before cutting to a break:

“And, by the way, Jerry,” an angry Carlson said, “you obviously don’t watch our show, because you do not understand that there’s a reason — I’ll speak for myself, I sit in the middle, as the independent on the panel — and quite frankly, we present both sides of the story and we leave it up to our viewers to decide where they fall.”

Watch a clip of the heated moment below, courtesy of Fox News:

Prompted to talk about Newt Gingrich’s comments from Tuesday, suggesting Santorum and Rick Perry should both drop out, Santorum pointed out that Gingrich hailed from one of the most conservative districts in Georgia (making his elections virtual cake walks), while he’s won in two Democratic districts and wide senate elections in Pennsylvania as a conservative.

“I’ve put together much, much bigger campaigns than Newt Gingrich ever conceived of doing,” Santorum said. “And by the way, let’s look at the record of his campaign. I’m 2-0! I beat Newt Gingrich in Iowa by a lot — I doubled his vote total — I beat him in New Hampshire where he had the Union-Leader endorsement and spent millions of dollars. The proof is in the pudding.”

Santorum then went on to suggest Gingrich had irresponsible policies and has made irresponsible statements:

“You want someone who is solidly conservative, who you’re not going to wake up in the morning and look at the newspaper and say, ‘Oh my gosh, he didn’t say that, did he?’”

Host Brian Kilmeade then brought up Romney, and while Santorum used the opportunity to talk about tax code improvements, he interrupted a follow-up question to add, “The thing that is the difference, Brian, is to make a statement that, ‘I made a couple of extra bucks giving speeches,’ when that ‘couple of extra bucks’ was over $300,000. That, to me, says a little bit more about Governor Romney and his connection with the American people than his tax rate.”

“You’re saying because he made a lot of money, he doesn’t understand what the American people go through?” Kilmeade asked.

“No, but,” Santorum responded, “to refer to three hundred-some-thousand dollars as ‘a few extra bucks,’ to me… $300,000 isn’t a few extra bucks to me!”

Watch a clip of the interview below, courtesy of Fox News:

“Nothing really changed,” Levin said. “Newt’s a good debater, Santorum’s a good debater, Romney’s a good evader, and Ron Paul wants to unilaterally disarm. So I think I’ve got all the positions down.” Levin said that if he could vote now, he’d go for Santorum, “because he’s the most consistent conservative.”

On the current GOP front-runner, Levin said that Romney’s been painted with a somewhat false brush. “I wouldn’t exactly say Mitt Romney’s mister capitalist,” Levin explained. “He supported TARP, which was the biggest bailout in American history of business.” Levin suggested, though, that people didn’t want to hear about that topic any more. “You know what’s killing this country? The government’s killing this country, not Bain Capital and not the private sector.”

Guest co-host Eric Bolling noted that, during the debate, Newt Gingrich seemed to shine when he moved the discussion away from Bain Capital attacks and focused instead on President Obama. Levin took this opportunity to affirm his belief that this country doesn’t need a Ronald Reagan clone, even though everyone keeps bringing up his name.

“We don’t have to have Ronald Reagan,” Levin explained. “What we want is an articulate, consistent, confident, relatively charismatic conservative. He’d wipe up the Republican primary, he’d wipe up the election. Obama is low-hanging fruit, his record is a disaster, his philosophy is a disaster.”

Levin finished the segment by pointing out that Romney needs to lock up some more support quickly, or he’ll be chasing independents in the general election (assuming he wins the nomination), many of which are conservative Tea Partiers, who have yet to warm to the former Massachusetts governor.

Watch a clip of Levin’s appearance below, courtesy of Fox News:

“John (McCain) certainly encouraged Fred to stay in,” Huckabee said on Thursday’s F&F. “I think everyone understood fred knew he was not going to get the nomination.”

“I don’t blame John, I don’t blame Fred,” Huckabee added. “They were good friends. Many people in the McCain camp have since confirmed, you know, he said ‘Please stay in. I need you in South Carolina.’”

Thompson reacted to the clip, saying, “Minding my own business, having my second cup of coffee, contemplating the election in general terms, and the future, and Mike wanted to revisit the campaign last time. I — you know, what Mike just said is fine except for one thing: there’s not one shred of truth to it.”

He went on to say that neither McCain and he, nor their people, ever spoke about Thomson remaining in the race, or even spoke at all between the Iowa Caucuses and the 2008 South Carolina primary.

Like Thompson, you’re probably wondering why Huckabee and the F&F gang don’t just dig out a quarter, and call someone who cares. The former Senator made it interesting, though, when he politely challenged Huckabee’s truthfulness. With all due respect, of course.

“Mike has been around long enough to know not to inhale all that stuff too deeply,” Thompson began, “and when he says several McCain people have come to him and verified it, I must say, you know, I have nothing at all against Mike Huckabee, but I doubt that. I doubt that. And if they did, he should name the names.”

Perhaps the best moment of the clip, though, was Eric Bolling‘s use of what should be, if there’s any justice, an instant catchphrase. As Thompson assessed Mitt Romney’s campaign in South Carolina (invoking Queensbury Rules, as if we didn’t already know he’s older than sand), Bolling had to wrap things up, using the double-take inducing phrase “We’re gonna get a hard-out in just a couple of seconds here.”

Here’s the clip, from Fox News:

Fox News contributor Andrea Tantaros‘ diagnosis: “most reporters” are “lazy and liberal.”

Appearing with Juan Williams, who “balanced” things out by saying Tantaros was “on target,” she went on to say “Juan and I are columnists, so we’ve been in the business. We know these reporters pretty well. A lot of them, Eric, don’t want to do the leg work. They’d rather have stories spoon-fed to them by the White House, by the Senate, or by the House, and then write them up themselves.”

She went on to accuse White House reporters of being “buddies” with this administration, and of dereliction in service of increased access.

I’m assuming she’s not talking about my friend Ed Henry, but her “lazy and liberal” descriptor doesn’t fit any of my White House colleagues. The reason we didn’t “expose” the Secret Halloween Party is that we did. There was a pool report about it. All of the drool over that story is over the fact that the White House made that event about military families, not the two (notoriously publicity-shy) Hollywood celebrities who helped make the event special for them.

As for tension between the East Wing and the West Wing, there has been some (at the staff level), but my impression is that it’s no more or less than what there has been in other White Houses. What tension there is, though, has been reported.

More broadly, the notion that Andrea Tantaros would smear White House reporters as “lazy and liberal” is just offensive. She claims to “know these reporters pretty well,” but her analysis relies on well-worn cliches spun by outsiders. Superficially, the beat does lend itself to stenography, which is what makes the beat so challenging. That’s the whole job, to get something out of this White House that they don’t want to give you. If Tantaros knew even one White House reporter, she’d know that.

The press corps is also decidedly not liberal, with the exception of the clearly-labeled “Professional Left” wing, and openly conservative reporters like CNS News’ Fred Lucas or Human Events’ John Gizzi. Take a quick gander at a website like Crooks and Liars to see how the mainstream White House reporters measure up to the liberal label. To conservatives, the absence of a conservative bias equals a liberal one.

But even those who are liberal still do their jobs. Speaking for myself, I’ve spent the better part of three years pressing this administration on issues like Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the awful Pharma deal, the health care reform public option, and even the White House’s treatment of the Tea Party. Liberal? Yes. Lazy? No.

The thing that casual observers don’t get about the White House beat is that it doesn’t matter what we report, or what we ask at those daily briefings, if it doesn’t get consumed. Readers, viewers, and news editors shape the perception of what we do, so we can ask 20 or 30 questions a day on serious policy matters, but if Secret Halloween Party wins, what can we do?

Here’s the clip, from Fox News:

From a propaganda standpoint, I understand the activist urge to cast Plan B, the “morning after pill,” in as sinister a light as possible. Hell, even President Obama succumbed to the urge to demonize the drug to a lesser degree, explaining the decision to make the drug prescription-only to those 16 years old and under by raising the scary-sounding, false prospect that it would be sold “alongside bubble gum or batteries.”

But the fact is, Plan B is not an “abortion pill,” it is an emergency contraceptive. In fact, as the drug label clearly states, it won’t work if you’re pregnant:

When is it not appropriate to use Plan B One-Step®?

Plan B One-Step® should not be used:

• If you’re already pregnant, because it won’t work
• If you’re allergic to levonorgestrel or any of the ingredients in Plan B One-Step®
• In place of regular birth control. Plan B One-Step® should not be used as routine birth control, as it’s not as effective.
• Plan B One-Step® won’t protect you from HIV infection (the virus that causes AIDS) or any other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)

Furthermore, a “morning-after abortion pill” is a scientific impossibility, since you can’t become pregnant the “morning after” unprotected sex. Not only isn’t Plan B a ”morning-after abortion pill,” there will never be anything called a ”morning-after abortion pill.”

As Dr. Susan Wood pointed out during her appearance on Up With Chris Hayes, the drug is effective, carries negligible side-effects, and has far fewer safety warnings than over-the-counter children’s pain relievers. If there is common ground in the abortion debate, it’s that fewer unintended pregnancies are a good thing, and Plan B is a safe, effective way to prevent abortions. As such, calling it an “abortion pill” is not just ignorant, it’s dangerous. It implies a much more traumatic, scary biological event that could dissuade someone who otherwise might have used Plan B, with possibly devastating consequences.

Calling Plan B an “abortion pill” is more than just propagandistic exaggeration, because there actually is something called an “abortion pill,” and confusing the two is dangerous. RU-486 is a drug that causes nonsurgical termination of pregnancy, but it’s not as simple as a trip to the pharmacy and a glass of water. It requires at least three visits to a doctor, and can take weeks to complete. Just as conflating RU-486 with Plan B can give women a false sense of danger about Plan B, it can also lead to a false sense of ease with RU-486, which carries significant risks that Plan B doesn’t.

The first time I heard the phrase ”morning-after abortion pill” was in an oppo memo from supposed conservative “intellectual” Newt Gingrich. In normal times, it would have merited more than a passing mention, but in today’s GOP, scientific ignorance is a feature, not a bug. When I heard Bachmann mention it on national television (not her first brush with dangerous medical misinformation) , though, I decided to see if the phrase had taken root elsewhere in the news media. A three-month search through the TV Eyes transcripts database turned up multiple mentions of the ”morning-after abortion pill” by Michele Bachmann, in speeches and remarks in Congress, but only one other instance. Anchor Rachel Platt of Kentucky ABC affiliate WHAS teased a Dec. 7 segment on the FDA’s Plan B ruling. That’s a good thing, but this is how these things get started.

So, to Steve Doocy, and anyone else who interviews Michele Bachmann or Newt Gingrich (or anyone else who uses this phrase), please don’t let it slide. All political lies are not created equal, and this one is dangerous.

Here’s the clip of Rachel Platt’s Plan B tease, followed by Rep. Bachmann’s Fox and Friends appearance, via WHAS and Fox News, respectively:

Fox and Friends co-host Steve Doocy said it seemed like Santorum was running for governor of Iowa and questioned whether he had the organization necessary to win in the next state’s election contest.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa — that’s not true! We have a great organization in New Hampshire!” the former Pennsylvania Senator exclaimed.

“Big organization or little organization?” Doocy pressed.

“Oh, it’s a good size — I mean, it’s as big an organization as we had here in Iowa, and New Hampshire is a much smaller state and we’ve had — we’ve had an office there for four or five months and it’s been — we’ve got tons of phones! People have been making calls for weeks and weeks!”

Watch Santorum defend his New Hampshire organization below via Fox News:

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Trump shared that he likes the idea of making America “great again,” adding later than the current GOP field reflects a certain “madness:”

I think when somebody like Ron Paul gets such a large percentage of the vote potentially, I look at the polls, and I think it’s absolutely madness to even think about it. I just see the candidates go up and down. It’s like yo-yos, they go up and down, they’re gone, they’re forever forgotten, then they re-emerge. Now what’s going on is very strange. I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it and I’ve been following politics for a long time.

That said, he “likes Rick Santorum,” who is a “nice guy.”

He made it clear that, when it comes to running himself, “I do have my ducks in line if I want to do it, but I’d love to see the Republicans pick somebody that was going to win and take over this country and frankly, to use the expression, make America great again.” For those who don’t speak Trumpese, allow me to offer a quick translation: “I’m gonna string any voters still potentially interested in me along as much as I can for as long as I can continue to garner attention and publicity.”

Yay!

Watch below via Fox News:

Have a look at the interview, from Fox News:

POLITICO posted video of a follow-up interview with Perry on Sunday, conducted by Mike Allen, where Allen asks Perry about the quote. Perry, almost hilariously, talks over Allen by repeatedly asking, “You got a name?” On Fox and Friends, Perry backed up his belief that, without a name, the story isn’t valid:

“When an organization that’s supposedly legitimate will not name names, that tells me that they’re listening to rumor and innuendo.”

Perry then added that, “I don’t know where POLITICO gets their information, but the bottom line is that they don’t have any sources. So I kind of put that off into the ‘wasted time’ category.”

“You’re right,” host Steve Doocy said, adding dismissively that, “POLITICO is a lefty blog, so consider the source.”

Watch a clip of the exchange below, courtesy of Fox News:

Huckabee was then asked if it was a wise move for President Obama, as reports have suggested, to run against Congress in 2012:

“His smart move is to say, ‘Look, it’s Congress’ fault.’ There’s 535 of them, their message is divided. That’s where the Executive Branch always has the distinct advantage, and frankly, it’s going to be a tough message for his Republican challenger to overcome.”

RELATED: Mike Huckabee Gives Rick Perry A New Campaign Slogan: ‘Win One For The Gaffer’

Huckabee later added that if the Republican challenger wants to win, the best strategy would be to remind people that “this President has miserably failed them.”

Watch a clip of the interview below, courtesy of Fox News:

Romney added a bit of a soft touch on Gingrich’s inability to get on the ballot in Virginia by explaining why he compared Gingrich to Lucille Ball.

“We all make mistakes and sometimes our campaigns can’t get things done quite right. I don’t compare those mistakes to Pearl Harbor. When I see mistakes, I try and find a little humor. In this case, Lucille Ball in the chocolate factory….Those of us who have gotten a little behind can identify with poor Lucy.”

Host Steve Doocy then asked if Romney, who is on a bus tour, will be making any Honeymooners references, which led Romney into one of the most wooden Ralph Kramden imitations the world has ever seen.

“One of these days, Alice, one of these days. Pow. Right to the moon. Yeah.”

This seemed like the perfect time to segue into a Gingrich clip that challenged Romney to a face-to-face debate. Romney deftly scooted around it by saying that they’ve already had 10 to 12 debates, and have two more in January. “If it comes down to this, the two of us, at some point, we will debate person to person. But right now, there are a bunch of folks in this race,” Romney explained. “Newt and I are not necessarily number one and number two across the nation, so we’re going to have to narrow it down and see where it leads us.”

RELATED: Newt Gingrich Challenges Mitt Romney: ‘Be Man Enough’ To Accept One-On-One Debate

With the one-on-one debate now scuttled, the topic moved to charges that Romney isn’t conservative enough to please the Republican base. He rattled off a list of his conservative achievements done while Governor of Massachusetts, then addressed Romneycare, a provision that Gingrich actually applauded in a 2006 newsletter.

“I knew that he supported the plan in the past. And I believe he supported it until he got into the race this year, but maybe before that he changed his view. But look, our plan was right for our state. And in my view, it was based upon conservative principles that, frankly, came from Newt Gingrich and the Heritage Foundation… The plan is not perfect, there are things that I’d change in it, but I’ll stand by the things we’ve done.”

Romney then added: “I will do what I think is right for the people I represent.”

Watch a clip of the interview with Romney, live from a coffee shop in Iowa, below, courtesy of Fox News:

Walker first addressed the idea that recall petitions with names like “Mickey Mouse” are considered valid because they are properly dated. He said the entire process is “pretty unusual,” adding that a local TV station found a man proudly boasting that he had signed 80 different recall petitions. Walker said they went to court to challenge this, stressing that the law says one person should be able to sign something one time. “For those who don’t want to sign it, their voice should count as much as anyone else’s,” Walker said.

Asked how concerned he was about the recall efforts, Walker said that he was taking it very seriously. He noted that while the pro-recall forces have been running “very negative ads,” with, “plenty of distortions out there,” he has focused on staying positive, preferring to focus on how the reforms he enacted have worked. When prompted for any mistakes he might have made as governor, Walker — whose state, according to latest polls, is just 49% opposed to a recall — said that he initially looked at the governership from the angle of a small business owner and not a politician, deciding to fix the problem without first hammering home the idea of why the moves needed to be made.

“What I probably should have done was spend more time laying the groundwork, making the case over and over again about how school districts prior to our reforms would have to pay tens of millions of dollars more for things like their health insurance. You have examples of people abusing overtime, like the bus driver in Madison who’s making $150,000 or more per year. Those sorts of excesses and abuses are things that we tried to fix but we didn’t lay the groundwork for it. So when we did it, the national big government union bosses came out and spent literally millions of dollars attacking us.”

Enjoy a clip of Walker’s appearance below, courtesy of Fox News:

Gerstein brought up a stellar sports analogy to paint the Congressional picture in its perfect light. He said that, like last weekend’s Arizona Cardinals-Cleveland Browns game in the NFL (the teams are a combined 11-17), this payroll tax cut drama, “was a meaningless game played by two bad teams that only partisans care about.” He then expounded:

RELATED: Rachel Maddow Compares Speaker Boehner To A Naked Will Ferrell In Old School

This is the classic example of Washington dysfunction and the lowering of standards. What are Congress’ two biggest accomplishments this year? They didn’t let the country default on the national debt and they saved a small puny tax cut that’s going to do nothing to grow the economy. That’s why the American people are disgusted.

Watch Gerstein’s take-down of Congress below, courtesy of Fox News:

“I think the president should play much more of a lead role, rather than go shopping for his dog,” McCain said, referring to President Obama’s visit to PetSmart on Wednesday. “Maybe call these people into the White House, as the previous four Presidents that I’ve served under would have done, and see if we can’t hammer something else out.”

McCain believes that the issue is hurting Republicans, and that Democrats “are exploiting it.” He bemoaned the fact that 160 million Americans are “caught in the crossfire” of partisanship, saying, “they deserve better from Washington.”

Kilmeade then switched to foreign affairs talk, and McCain, speaking on the troop pullouts in Iraq and Afghanistan, noted that President Obama may find himself in a quagmire if things go awry. For now, though, McCain intimated that the ending of the war is being exploited politically by the President. He did not mince words.

“Already, his re-elect committee is using this as part of the propaganda for his re-election and it’s really sad. And we’re making the same mistake in Afghanistan. It’s called leading from behind.”

Watch a clip of McCain’s interview below, courtesy of Fox News: