On Saturday mornings’s Up with Chris Hayes, journalist and MSNBC contributor Karen Hunter challenged The New York Times‘ Jodi Kantor over her motivation for writing the buzzed-about tome The Obamas. Hunter leveled a highly-charged criticism at Kantor, mentioning her “seven figure” payday, and wondering “What was your motivation for doing it?”

Kantor’s response seemed to be leading to a crackling exchange, but host Chris Hayes swooped in and changed the subject.

During Monday night’s The Ed Show, host Ed Schultz took on former House Speaker Newt Gingrich‘s penchant for “vilifying President Obama” with the “coded language” of racism. During the panel segment, Salon’s Joan Walsh summed Gingrich up in easily-deciphered fashion, telling Schultz that “Newt is the face of the politics of resentment and racism and angry white male rage” that led voters to vote against their own economic interests.

On Monday, we reported on Rick Santorum‘s supposed use of the words “black people” during a campaign event in Iowa Sunday, and I was apparently the only person in the non-conservative world who thought he hadn’t said it. Since then, I’ve been joined on this lonely island by The Plumline‘s Greg Sargent, and now, The Young Turks‘ Jayar Jackson, who explained, last night, that he didn’t think Santorum said “black people,” but more importantly, that the issue is somewhat moot.

Chris Matthews gathered liberal commentators Ron Reagan and Joan Walsh to vent their frustration about President Obama’s‘s hesitancy to proudly champion the progressive agenda. Walsh suggested Obama’s “I’m the best compromiser routine” is wearing thin, while Reagan was sad to face the fact that maybe people need to realize Democrats really elected a center-right politician in Obama.

In an episode in which Real Time with Bill Maher host Bill Maher chided Fox News for its renaming of President Obama‘s birthday party as a “Hip-Hop BBQ,” the comic-cum-commentator made another of his own frequent racial non sequiturs about the President. Speaking about the recent debt ceiling deal, Maher quoted Speaker John Boehner saying he got 98% of what he wanted, which shows that “contrary to popular belief, black does crack.”

Following his comments Wednesday on The Ed Show that a Republican could beat President Obama in 2012 because of the grim economy, Bill Maher reiterated his point that “the magic is gone” and asked his panel if liberals were starting to have “buyer’s remorse” about President Obama.

Chris Matthews is scared that the Tea Party influence on Republicans may result in this country going off the cliff and soon resembling Greece. Matthews told his guest Joan Walsh that he sees “fanatics” who don’t believe the deadline for raising the debt ceiling is real and who seem very willing to let the country default on its loan obligations. And Walsh provided Matthews with little comfort to soothe his fears.

Between his Tumblr followers and his Twitter audience, more people see Anthony De Rosa‘s updates than attended that Mets game. That’s what you call a platform. Who is this once and future king of social media, and why should you be following him on Twitter?

Rep. Anthony Weiner lied boldly to the media for more than a week since indecent photos appeared on his Twitter account, and many in the media who believed him are now airing their resentment and indignation. Among them tonight was Salon’s Joan Walsh, who told Ed Schultz on MSNBC tonight that he made her “look stupid” for giving him the benefit of the doubt.

After a series of “strange” interviews with Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner today, Chris Matthews asked liberal commentator Joan Walsh why was Weiner “hedging” rather than just clearly saying he had nothing at all to do with the “lewd” photo. Walsh wanted to give Weiner the “benefit of the doubt” with all of his explanations, yet Matthews wasn’t buying Weiner’s changing stories about his “brief encounter” with a “suspicious package.”

Chris Matthews continued the celebration of Osama bin Laden‘s demise by recalling how wrong many Republicans turned out to be when speaking about foreign policy. In retrospect, Republican Senator John McCain looked particularly foolish saying it would be naive for then presidential candidate Barack Obama to say he would go into Pakistan to get Bin Laden.

Chris Matthews today was furious with Republican Mike Huckabee for his comments regarding where President Obama grew up, regardless if Huckabee later corrected them. Liberal commentators David Corn and Joan Walsh joined Matthews and blamed Huckabee’s recent uncharacteristic behavior as a result of being “immersed in those trashy dirty waters” amongst right-wing Fox News Channel commentators.

Chris Matthews welcomed two frequent guests to Hardball, Salon‘s Joan Walsh and Washington Post‘s Eugene Robinson to discuss some controversial Republican stories ranging from Governor Haley Barbour refusing to denounce license plates that honor the KKK’s founder to Speaker of the House John Boehner refusing to tell Americans whether or not they should believe President Obama is a Muslim. Somehow Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann snuck into the conversation too, with Matthews finally just concluding that Republicans are a “party of crazy people.”

Following in the footsteps of Rachel Maddow, today Chris Matthews piled on in criticizing Glenn Beck‘s latest theories and concerns regarding what the Egyptian uprisings mean for the rest of the world. Matthews immediately dismissed Beck’s proclamations as “looney tunes” but was eager to ask his two liberal guests what could possibly be the motive for the “right-wing freak out?”

Rep. Michele Bachmann sure is starting to act like a presidential candidate, and while she has many followers among conservatives, much of the left wing is in stitches over her attempt to garner attention. In a segment marked by stifled laughter, Chris Matthews, Joan Walsh, and Richard Wolff tried to make sense of what she was up to, and Matthews could only conclude that she had no filter which warned her when she was “being an ass.”

President Barack Obama is staying in India in the coming days, prompting renewed criticism on the right that this is not the right time to spend money on travel. For many, the criticism, in this economy, is justified. For others, they are partisan attacks that fail to understand the importance of diplomacy. Then there’s the “ethnic aspect” Chris Matthews finds, in which President Obama is considered “not worthy to travel.”

Chris Matthews is very puzzled why more people don’t like Obama. Last night Matthews puzzled over President Obama‘s recent unpopularity as manifested in Pew polls revealing more and more of the country is confused about whether Obama is a Muslim (read: foreign, scary). How can this be when Obama’s personal story is as American as you can get?

If nothing else Glenn Beck has given the cablers something to talk about for the rest of the week. On Day Two of Restoring Honor coverage Chris Matthews is turning the spotlight on fundamentalist pastor John Hagee who was part of the ‘black-robed regiment’ Beck brought on stage at the end of his remarks on Saturday.

Sarah Palin, who earlier this year famously called for Rahm Emanuel‘s firing after a second-hand report surfaced that he had used the word retard in a closed-door meeting, and who has spent and inordinate amount of time refudiating the Lower Manhattan mosque on the basis that it is insensitive, is one-hundred percent on Dr. Laura’s side. In fact, she would like Dr. Laura to “reload.”

Today on MSNBC’s Hardball, Chris Matthews tried to debate Salon‘s Joan Walsh and former Gov. Howard Dean that Andrew Breitbart‘s version of the controversial Shirley Sherrod speech was completely unedited. Considering there were about 35 minutes missing from that tape, this was wrong for obvious reasons. But if you caught the 7PM rerun, you wouldn’t have seen that, because Hardball retaped the segment, this time with Matthews admitting the Breitbart version was incomplete.

There has been so much reported on Shirley Sherrod and Andrew Breitbart that it’s hard to believe that there are actually news junkies out there who don’t understand the story, but they apparently exist. What’s harder to imagine is that a television news anchor like Chris Matthews happens to be one of them. In today’s opening segment on Hardball, Matthews debated Howard Dean and Salon Editor-in-Chief Joan Walsh about the tape, and steadfastly refused to believe that Breitbart published an edited version of the clip. Huh?

The Washington Post may be ignoring Salon’s stories on the Arlington Cemetery mismanagement saga, but they will have a hard time ignoring Joan Walsh who launched a Twitter attack last night to air her grievances over WaPo’s alleged snub.

The secondary storyline this week with respect to President Obama and his handling of the BP oil spill appears to be how many Democratic stalwarts turned coat and began to loudly criticize the President in recent days. Salon’s Joan Walsh, meanwhile, thinks the nation should stop looking for a daddy.

It may or may not come to pass that 2009 was the year “real” journalism died (at least as we’ve come to understand the definition). Despite the plethora of hard news stories in 2009: the inauguration of our first black President, the economic collapse, health care reform, the Iran election, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., it does feel like all the big news stories we actually recall in our year-end lists have been a bit…hollow.

David Carr’s latest New York Times column, “Reality TV’s Glare Hits High Office,” has more zingers than Obama has photo ops, as he suggests the president scale back on the “oversharing.” The White House-crashing Salahis are after reality TV fame, but the Obamas have it locked down. But in his criticism of the “Celebrity in Chief,” isn’t he forgetting an important player — namely the press club he’s a valuable member of?