After twenty or so minutes of calm debate on the economy, Wednesday night’s CNBC Republican Presidential Debate turned ugly, as moderators Maria Bartiromo and John Harwood asked embattled frontrunner Herman Cain about the sexual harassment allegations being leveled at him, then followed by asking Mitt Romney if he would have retained Cain as a CEO in one of his businesses. The debate crowd booed both questions loudly.

On CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning, John Harwood seemed both far too tired to engage in jokes comparing members of the Tea Party to “terrorists” and quite convinced that voters, before too long, will forget the debt deal that will likely go to President Obama today. “It will be forgotten by voters pretty quickly,” said Harwood. “Everybody took a hit. It was not good for President Obama. It wasn’t good for John Boehner. But at the end of the day, they got something done. Remember, John Boehner knew as soon as he became Speaker after the election that this issue in particular was going to be like waterboarding for him. Because he–you had the impulses of his newly elected members and many conservatives in his caucus, everybody in Congress hates the debt ceiling. Everyone. But he knew that it had to pass eventually.”

CNBC’s John Harwood directed surprisingly strong language today towards progressives who are upset by what they perceive to be compromises in health care reform. Harwood said “if you’re a liberal and you want universal coverage in this country, and think that you can do better, that Harry Reid can do better…they ought to lay off the hallucinogenic drugs because we’ve had a vivid demonstration of the limits of political possibilities on this issue.” Video of the clip after the jump.

For all of the hoopla about Fox News’s partisan bias, what about the rest of cableland? Writing in The New York Times, CNBC correspondent John Harwood makes the point that essentially all cable news networks that aren’t Fox have viewerships that tilt substantially to the left, which is very different from how it was eight and even four years ago. It’s not just MSNBC: even the likes of HLN, CNBC, and Comedy Central have big Democratic leans.

It’s official: Chuck Todd’s goatee will remain intact. Todd had a running bet with ABC’s Jake Tapper that if the Phillies made it to the World Series, he would either shave off his goatee or donate $1000 to the charity of Tapper’s choice. After a tense standoff with a razor-wielding Press Secretary Gibbs on The Today Show, Todd went with charity, much to the disappointment of the Twitter community. Videos after the jump.

President Obama’s speech to the gay community on Saturday night was nevertheless well-received, and Obama’s reaffirmed commitment to end “don’t ask, don’t tell” was a historic occasion. Less than 24 hours later, the blogosphere is aflame over a set of remarks attributed to an unnamed White House adviser to the effect that the White House views the National Equality March as “part of the Internet left fringe” and not to be taken too seriously.

Earlier today Politico has nabbed the video of President Obama‘s now infamous “jackass” remark. And then quickly removed it because “it was more respectful news-gathering operation” they tell us.

However! CNN apparently has no such qualms, and aired the video themselves. Watch it here. It’s a fairly jolly scene!