The issue of abortion has found its way back into mainstream political conversation, thanks to last week’s controversy involving the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation attempting to stop funding Planned Parenthood because abortion is one of many medical services they provide, only to go back on that when people started getting in uproar over it. The panel on Fox News Sunday today discussed the controversy, with host Chris Wallace asking how much their actions were politically calculated.

Fox News’s Eric Bolling responded to MSNBC contributor Meghan McCain comments on The Tonight Show comparing herself to Ronald Reagan by lambasting her as “one of the dumbest people on MSNBC.” “In the steam train of conventional wisdom, she is the caboose,” Greg Gutfeld exclaimed. “By the time she said it — 100 other people said it.”

President Obama has been arguing recently that not only is the economy going to take more time to come away from the crevasse, but that it would take more than one term and even more than one president to deal with the problem. Chris Wallace reminded viewers that Obama said himself he would be a one-term president if the economy didn’t turn around, and discussed Obama’s handling of the crisis with the panel.

On Thursday night’s The Factor, host Bill O’Reilly invited guest Liz Cheney onto the show while lamenting the fact that her father and co-author Dick Cheney doesn’t seem to like him very much. “What am I, chopped liver?” asked an amused Ms. Cheney. O’Reilly then got right down to the nitty gritty, asking Cheney how her father and former President George H. Bush could have possibly “missed” the danger posed by the sub prime mortgage fiasco.

At one point, President Obama’s claims that his administration would be among the most transparent were met with mockery from his opponents, though with the current national security situation, some are concerned he is fulfilling that promise. On tonight’s Hannity, Liz Cheney expressed hope that the President would scale back on some of the details being released about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Liz Cheney is often about as strong an ally as the Bush administration can hope for in cable news. A veteran of the state department with family ties to the Vice President, most of her commentary tends to support the choices of the administration for which she worked. But this weekend on Fox News Sunday, she candidly admitted that the blame for a “policy of weakness” for which she blamed some of North Korea’s aggression fell on the shoulders of President Bush.

The current security threat involving UPS planes originating in Yemen, possibly suspicious packages, may have pushed to the back-burner most of the cable news coverage of the midterm elections, but that didn’t keep Liz Cheney from scoring some (cheap?) political points. Appearing on America Live with Megyn Kelly, Ms. Cheney reiterated her belief that “the steps that this President has taken, for example, threatening to prosecute intelligence officials are so dangerous and damaging to our nation.” Too soon?

Imagine, if you will, a talk radio host spewing anger and hate. Now, was the host in your imagination a conservative? Well, that’s an unfair stereotype because, last Friday, Mike Malloy proved liberals can do it just as well as a hundred righties by going on a rant which culminated in him directing Liz Cheney to plan her father’s funeral. Hooray, equality! We’re all crazy!

Is Republican party going to pieces over Michael Steele? Steele’s recent comments about Afghanistan sparked a slew of harsh criticism. but perhaps he can take heart that he apparently has Ann Coulter in his corner.

In a long, detailed post on Monday, Arianna Huffington decided to revisit both the facts of a month-old “dust up” between herself and Liz Cheney on This Week as well as PolitiFact’s subsequent reporting on the exchange. In particular, Huffington took issue with PolitiFact’s “Half True” ruling on her assertions to Cheney that Halliburton had defrauded American taxpayers of “hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraq”.

In our continuing effort to help CNN fill their 8pm slot, may we present out latest suggestion: Liz Cheney and Arianna Huffington. If today’s This Week roundtable segment is any measure it’s a pairing that would give the term “crossfire” a whole new meaning.

Bill Maher‘s graphics team had a fun time last night making up posters for Liz Cheney‘s alleged 2012 campaign for office. Maher’s attack on Dick Cheney‘s daughter comes after her Keep America Safe ads several weeks ago which depicted the lawyers who defended suspected Al Qaeda members as terrorists themselves.

Despite the absurdity of the Liz Cheney/Keep America Safe “Al Qaeda 7″ ad, and the fact that Cheney’s group sounds like its mascot ought to be a pee-pants version of Woodsy Owl, the spot has been generating a lot of heat. Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and frequent Countdown contributor Eugene Robinson wrote a scathing op-ed yesterday attacking the fallacy behind the ad, but it could have easily been directed at his friend and colleague, Keith Olbermann

You know hell has frozen over when Keith Olbermann and Ken Starr agree on something, and that sentiment was expressed in so many words on tonight’s Countdown episode, where Starr had some harsh words for Liz Cheney‘s Keep America Safe ads. Though Olbermann wasn’t there tonight, he had commented earlier to say “That’s how serious we both take this, that even we agree on it.”

This might be Rachel Maddow at her most Rachel Maddow-iest, so make sure you write down tonight in your e-planner or whatever for the date when our favorite MSNBC host went supernova on Liz Cheney‘s “Keep America Safe” campaign.

Rachel Maddow went on a field trip to CPAC yesterday and lived to tell about it. Kidding! She actually says everyone was very nice to her. Maddow came away from her trip with a whole lot of eye-opening swag and some interesting conclusions about the state of the Conservative movement.

CPAC opened yesterday in Washington DC, so it made sense for Bill O’Reilly to start his show covering what many saw as the biggest political event of the week. What may not make sense to some is the way in which he covered it. After airing brief clips of conservative icons like Dick Cheney, Jim DeMint, and Dick Armey (among others) bashing the presidency of Barrack Obama, O’Reilly called out those for making vicious personal attacks on the current sitting president. Video after the jump.

On a Fox News Sunday round table discussion today, Liz Cheney joined The Weekly Standard‘s Bill Kristol and Ceci Connolly of the Washington Post to speak about, among other things, the ongoing debate centered around the locale for the 9/11 terror trials. Cheney’s response, though, was the most direct: “When we prosecuted and successfully convicted people after the ’93 World Trade Center bombing, after the East African bombing, what it got us was 9/11 and 3,000 dead Americans.”

We’ve heard plenty about Mrs. Sarah Palin‘s plans three years from now — not to mention her potential running mates, including Glenn Beck. Now, Newsweek editor-in-chief Jon Meacham is utilizing his pot-stirring big spoon to serve up a new name: Dick Cheney in 2012. Is he serious or seriously “trolling for traffic,” as suggested by Salon’s Glenn Greenwald.

Maybe Newsweek was onto something, after all. At the end of the first week of Sarah Palin’s hugely successful book tour the question most pundits (and much of the G.O.P.) seem to be asking themselves is what do we do about the Palin problem. Answer: no one has a clue.

During her appearance on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, the former State Department official and eldest daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney spoke about the political future of Sarah Palin, her fitness as a political candidate in 2012 and the sexism that might hold her back. But the real takeaway was when Liz dropped a joke about a Cheney 2012 ticket.

Last night Countdown guest host Lawrence O’Donnell struck back at Liz Cheney for questioning President Obama’s decision to be photographed while saluting the caskets of American soldiers.

But things turned awkward when O’Donnell stared into the camera and addressed several rhetorical questions to Liz Cheney by name. Video Inside …

John McCain said today of President Barack Obama‘s Nobel Peace Prize that, “As Americans, we’re proud when our President receives an award of that prestigious category…Americans are always pleased when the President is recognized by something on this order.” According to Bill Kristol and Liz Cheney on Fox News Sunday — not quite.