There are certain words and phrases that we here at Mediaite keep our ears open for when scanning the airwaves. Whenever an anchor starts a comment or segment by saying something like “This may make people mad but…” or “I don’t mean to sound racist but…”, it usually means that what they have to say is going to make for good, blog-worthy television. We can add to that list another great conversational preface in the phrase “Can I just throw a conspiracy theory out here?” That’s the question Eric Bolling asked on today’s The Five and, hoo boy, did he deliver.

It is the biggest secular holiday of the year, so naturally much of today’s The Five revolved around last night’s Super Bowl events. The crew particularly stopped on the first case of indecent conduct during the Halftime Show since Janet Jackson exposed her breast to America: British/Sri Lankan rapper M.I.A. giving the finger to the camera, as she does in the music video for the song being performed, “Give Me All Your Lovin’.” Most found it vulgar on its face, but Dana Perino objected not to the gesture but to M.I.A.’s presence at all: why would Madonna perform with a rapper who was “not even an American?”

Does one have the constitutional right to watch porn in public? The ACLU has signed up to defend the rights of citizens from a public library that has banned pornographic URLs from their computers and, naturally, this ended up one of the main topics of discussion on Red Eye. Some on the panel– notably Gavin McInnes– considered it a serious First Amendment issues. Ann Coulter disagreed, drawing a contrast to Citizens United: supporting political causes is speech, “getting off isn’t speech.

Does President Obama have an “enemies list”? That’s the provocative allegation put forth by Ted Olson in the Wall Street Journal. Olson is a former member of the Bush Administration as well as representative of the Koch Brothers who just so happen to be the only real people Olson thinks is on this supposed list. So, does the list exist?

On Fox News’ The Five, co-host Bob Beckel has a usual batch of ways in which he shows how angry he is about a subject. There’s “Muffled Curse Words” Beckel, where he lets the audience know what he really thinks by saying the beginnings (and just that) of all sorts of fun words. And there’s “Silent, Arms Folded” Beckel, my personal favorite, who gets so upset about a subject he refuses to even talk about it.

The nice thing about shows like The Five is that, even when all of the hosts agree on something, you at least get different opinions on why they agree. Take for example, Nancy Pelosi’s threats that she “knows something” that will keep Newt Gingrich from ever being president. The five hosts all agree it won’t hurt Gingrich, but they gave different reasons why.

Recently, Newt Gingrich has had a massive upswing from his new debate strategy; forget the candidates, go after the moderator. Twice now, he’s taken huge swings at the closest representative of the media at the nearest sign of a question that seems untoward. And, twice, he’s been able to reap the benefits of those attacks by milking the audience’s applause.

Race as an issue is increasingly rearing its head in this year’s Republican primaries, with many now accusing Newt Gingrich of race-baiting by calling President Obama the “food stamp president” and calling for underprivileged children to get jobs as janitors. On tonight’s The Five, the panel discussed the race issue and came to a near unanimous conclusion that Gingrich wasn’t racist. Even Bob Beckel agreed on that one, but explained that his language did sound inflamed with subtle racial cues on occasion.

Fox News’ medical correspondent Dr. Keith Ablow was last seen condemning respect for transgendered people, and this week came out with a piece that was vintage Ablow: Newt Gingrich, he argued, would make a great present precisely because he had been a philandering weasel. Needless to say, this logic did not go over so well on Red Eye, where the panel intermittently called it “asinine” and tried to determine if it was just masterful trolling on the doctor’s part.

There’s been quite a bit of hubbub lately about The Obamas, a controversial book by The New York Times‘ Jodi Kantor, which promises all sorts of juicy details from the White House. Well, one of those details leaked recently and it’s been blowing up. You see, it appears that the Obama Administration had a star-studded Halloween party for military families and kept it a secret from the White House press! Well, earlier today, our own Tommy Christopher (an actual member of said press) pointed out the many reasons why the “scandal” was fairly silly. However, later on, during The Five, Eric Bolling argued that…

Oh my God. Eric Bolling and Tommy Christopher agree about something. We have reached the End Times.

There is one strongly held belief of Fox News’ Bob Beckel that I agree with and support wholeheartedly and it has nothing to do with his politics. It’s his belief that absolutely nothing to do with Kim Kardashian should ever be discussed on a channel with “News” in the title. Today on The Five, the group tried to do a segment on how some blah blah group tried to blah blah Kim Kardashian about blah blah blah blah whatever and Beckel had the integrity to give that crap the same amount of respect I am now.

Today on The Five, the gang discussed Sarah Palin’s talk of possible third party candidates and focused on Ron Paul. After Eric Bolling joked that Paul’s fans may be “too stoned” to make it to the polls, the topic of conversation turned to a recent ad for Paul which featured a number of liberal commentators. The hosts questioned whether it would be effective or simply a turn off.

In the world of the microscopic news cycle, a year is a mighty long time. Think “dog years” on steroids. Over the course of the past year, in thousands (around 7,500 ) of articles and millions (between 3 and 4 million) of words, Mediaite has covered the ups and downs of that whizzing, ricocheting media world. In case you lost track in that sea of information, we’ve compiled a list of 2011 Media Winners and Losers that we hope will be the start  of a conversation, not the end of one. Here, in no particular order, are Mediaite’s 2011 Media Winners and Losers.

As Kimberly Guilfoyle put it in the opening of today’s Five, “the knives are out for Ron Paul.” With his Iowa poll numbers surging, the other GOP candidates have gone on the offensive, providing a number of colorful, anti-Paul quotes. The Five hosts had some cutting utensils of their own, discussing how Paul’s less mainstream ideas were “sinking” his chances of becoming President or even getting the nomination.

The Five is clearly Fox News’ golden child (they even got a damn New York Times profile!) and so, as the old veterans are out vacationing it up, the network is giving their favorite new superstars run of the place. Greg Gutfeld guested for Bill O’Reilly last night, Eric Bolling’s doing it tonight, Kimberly Guilfoyle is stepping in for Greta Van Susteren, and Andrea Tantaros sometimes does double duty on the radio. As they were all discussing their good fortune at the close of the show today, one lingering question remained; won’t somebody think of Bob Beckel?

Fox News’s Greg Gutfeld tackled the often vexing world of prime time on Tuesday when he tried to fill some big shows hosting Fox News’s top-ranked show The O’Reilly Factor. It was an equal-parts bold and odd choice, putting the network’s oft-times unpredictable, distinctly snarky and libertarian-minded funnyman as replacement host of the Fox News flagship program. But would Gutfeld measure as O’Reilly’s FNC tent-pole?

With the Iowa caucuses a week away, The Five revisited the 2012 Republican presidential landscape to find what the polls were looking like in the week between Christmas and New Year’s. And it appears that, despite a rough week of racist newsletter coverage, Rep. Ron Paul is still on top. What did the panel compare this development to? Greg Gutfeld noted that, to some that had worked with the Congressman, it was as if “Crazy Uncle got too far.”

The headline quote is not actually part of the text of Brian Stelter‘s eye-opening report on Fox News’ surprise hit The Five, but a description of the atmosphere from the inimitable Bob Beckel. He, along with producers and other co-hosts, spoke to Stelter in this week’s New York Times report that exposes several surprises about the show– the hosts were told they were trying out for a weekend hosting gig, for one– and tries to get to the bottom of its success.

Recently on The View, during a conversation on North Korea’s transition of power, Whoopi Goldberg made comments stating that Communism makes sense “on paper” but doesn’t work once humans put it in practice. Clearly this means that she is a Communist. At least, that seemed to be the message of a segment on The Five where they accused Goldberg of not being condemn-y enough or something.

On Wednesday’s Red Eye‘s host Greg Gutfeld asked The Daily Caller‘s Tucker Carlson about Ron Paul’s surge in Iowa. “What happens if Paul wins Iowa? I wrote panic!” “Maybe Republicans (should) ask themselves why does this 70-ish weird guy have all of this support?” Carlson questioned.

We don’t usually get two View posts in a day here at Mediaite but, while that fart thing was just BREAKING NEWS THAT THE WORLD NEEDED TO SEE, there was also another interesting moment on the show. Saturday Night Live‘s Fred Armisen appeared to promote the second season of his IFC series Portlandia ( a series where that hilarious one-man show sketch probably would have been better appreciated) and Sherri Shepherd pointed out an issue that’s been a problem almost since SNL‘s inception (and possibly the actual solution to Greg Gutfeld’s conspiracy yesterday); Lorne Michaels needs to hire some more damn black people.

This past weekend, Saturday Night Live wrapped up their show with a sketch showing Jesus Christ appearing in the Denver Broncos locker room to tell Tim Tebow that he loves him but maybe the guy could “turn it down a notch.” Pat Robertson has already rushed to call the sketch “anti-Christian bigotry” so, when The Five opened today’s show teasing a segment on the situation, we knew someone was going to be outraged. Would it be Catholic Kimberly Guilfoyle? The (huge) Tebow fan Eric Bolling? Nope. The offended one was actually lone-liberal Bob Beckel who called the sketch “despicable.”

There was something for everyone in Thursday night’s Fox News Republican debate, from Newt Gingrich‘s “history lessons” to Rick Santorum… existing. The Red Eye panel took a swing at recapping the debate last night, and covered all the bases– from the fashion sense of the “pervy dude at the Kiwanis club who corners you and has had too many beers” to the sweets Greg Gutfeld thinks of when he listens to Rep. Ron Paul.

Fox News’ brash, snarktabulous star of Red Eye, Greg Gutfeld is riding high on last week’s ratings success averaging a staggering 208,000 demo viewers. For five consecutive days, the show averaged more demo viewers than shows airing in primetime (!) like John King USA, The Dylan Ratigan Show, and Erin Burnett‘s OutFront. All this for [...]

On Monday’s The Five, Greg Gutfeld responded to a Democratic National Committee ad calling Newt Gingrich the “original Tea Partier.” “The original tea partier, as you know is [Rep.] Ron Paul,” Gutfeld observed, “not Newt Gingrich. ” “Can you stop right there?!” Eric Bolling exclaimed.