Rep. Eric Cantor is a petulant child, and President Obama is the know-it-all teacher’s pet tattling that he refused to “eat his peas.” These are the headlines greeting America this morning– headlines which, given the financial guillotine Moody’s is dangling over America’s neck, read to some as rather shallow. The shock, sincere or not, unveils a naivete towards government in the American psyche that overlooks a harsh, but inescapable, reality: The media has turned Congress into a playground. Why are we surprised only children want to work there?

I am rarely accurate with prognostications or predictions but I am feeling pretty confident about two things: 1) there will be another high-profile trial in the not too distant future, like Casey Anthony‘s, that will capture the attention of the nation and the media; and 2) it will be followed by the hand-wringing and utter despair about the future of media that trail every high profile case. In fact, there is no surer way to be the belle of your media critic’s ball than to blast the Casey Anthony media coverage. From hackneyed assertions that “it’s not journalism,” to characterizations of it as “merchandising in tragedy”, to the populist position that it’s “just entertainment,” the Anthony coverage, like so many trials before it, serves as the ultimate media scapegoat.

The ‘Tea Party’ as we now know it has become the major driving force for conservatives in this decade, exhibiting major power to engage people politically and get out the vote. Thus it isn’t shocking that many are attempting to harness some of that energy, but the latest spin-off of the Tea Party– a Latino-centric get out the vote effort named the “Tequila Party”– highlights a serious misconception in the media of Latin Americans as a monolithic group with similar political leanings and concerns.

Rush Limbaugh has made no secret of wanting Sarah Palin to run for president in 2012. His callers, for the most part, seem to agree. But although Limbaugh is willing to let Palin slide if she prefers to continue her current lifestyle and not throw her hat in the ring, he made one thing clear yesterday morning: the one reason he will not accept for her to back out is fear. “If she is afraid to run,” he told his audience, “the media terrorists have won.”

There are several perks to being Arianna Huffington: For one, she’ll never have to search her couch cushions for enough change to buy a two piece and a biscuit. (Not that we’ve ever!) Plus, she also gets to have some pretty famous friends, like Nora Ephron, who do some pretty snazzy things, like host dinner parties in her honor.

We’re starting to feel overwhelmed by the onslaught of March Madness brackets organized by blogs, magazines and TV shows alike. These brackets range from the truly clever to the amusingly cutesy to the downright obnoxious. And, in an attempt to be cleverer, cutesier (to wit) and far more obnoxious than anyone else, we here at Mediaite have decided to create The Ultimate Bracket Bracket.

Check out our players.

Arianna Huffington decided to respond to Bill Keller’s claims yesterday evening, calling his piece an “exceptionally misinformed attack.” Huffington echoed the snarky tone of Keller’s article in her response, and even managed to get in a dig at News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch in the process. Now that’s multi-tasking

“The world conspires to convince me of my significance,” writes The New York Times executive editor Bill Keller, running through the numerous “most influential” lists he’s made.

Keller elects to use this influence to weigh in on The Future of Journalism in a much-discussed op-ed piece, tackling a specific issue that keeps popping up in discussions on what tomorrow might hold for those who report on – and make – the news: Content aggregation. And he sets his sights squarely on a name that has become synonymous with this “style” of presenting news online.

With Charlie Sheen still the talk of news shows and covered extensively everywhere, Bill O’Reilly wondered “should the media just leave the guy alone?” Doctors Keith Ablow and Karen Ruskin disagreed whether the media should continue to interview Sheen and although O’Reilly was conflicted, he concluded since Sheen always gets ratings, nothing would be able to stop the media from finding a way to get to him.

Tonight, CBS’ Survivor returns for Survivor: Redemption Island, featuring two of the show’s most enduring characters, Boston Rob and Russell. In keeping with tradition, we’ll celebrate with a Survivor-themed dinner and watch the show like full-on geeks (join me on Twitter for added perspective and live commentary). The season’s title got us thinking: in the media world, who would we most like to see play Survivor–dropped on an island in Nicaragua and forced to outwit, outlast and outplay the other media castaways?

The Los Angeles Times‘ Company Town blog has, as it does at the start of every new year, turned to its various sources to come up with a few predictions about what the near future might have in store for several big names in media. Let’s take a look at a few of their predictions before weighing in with our own thoughts, shall we?

Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton runs a business based on trust– the trust of photographers that feed him photos, the trust of celebrities that give him the access that makes his site a must-read for those of the gossip world. It’s a trust of Teflon strength, surviving a series of questionable side projects, but with his most recent endeavor, UnratedPerez.com, Hilton may be definitively testing the immunity of his sources to outrage or insult.

The media is good for more than reporting on snow falling from the sky and onto the ground: It can also save darling baby animals from plummeting to an icy demise. A two-year old calf (born on Christmas! Everyone together now: Awww!) was saved by a news helicopter after an Oklahoma woman – having heard about the same helicopter pilot had rescued a baby deer that had also found itself stuck on an icy lake – called local news station KWTV-Channel 9 for help.

If there is one cardinal rule that binds all media and all mass production of information, it’s that sex sells. It sells big and it sells female, whether it’s scantily clad photos of Fox News’ leading lady or x-rays of curvy skeletons in heels. It’s been the bane of the existence of many women for decades, and instead of subsiding for them as media evolves, something bizarre has begun to happen: what do we make of our culture when the sex that is selling is gaunt, male, brainy, and wanted by Interpol for rape “sex crimes“?

Anyone who has gone to J-school can recall countless lessons on unbiased reporting and avoiding conflicts of interest. Yet these ideas almost seem archaic when looking at the state of journalism — and least in this country — today. Or so argues Howard Kurtz in today’s Washington Post column.

Progressives and Obama. They love him, they hate him, they should support him, they’re inevitably disappointed in him. We’ve heard it all. Given that we already have a good idea of how conservatives feel about the president, the media seem increasingly interested in analyzing and discussing the relationship between progressive Americans and President Barack Obama. The Nation and Politico offer two interesting takes: blame it on the political structure vs. blame it on bad politics.

A victim of news cycle fatigue, the War on Terror is rarely a top story in 2010, barring a juicy scandal. When it does appear, the fight abroad monopolizes the coverage, with little on what happens to Al-Qaeda operatives once we find them. The New York Times has taken the initiative in profiling US Attorney Jeffrey Knox, who has been at the forefront of the messy process of prosecuting terrorists, but why are they the only ones on this story?

Well, at least someone is happy about what could become the worst oil disaster in American history. Rush Limbaugh took to the airwaves yesterday with the goal of debunking the media-perpetuated myth that the Gulf oil spill is all bad– at least it will clear the beaches and make the turtles go away, and “at some point, the beach will fix itself.” Rush is entitled to an opinion on this because he owns beachfront property, unlike most of the media, who “don’t have any skin in the game.”

ohn Nichols and Robert McChesney, this was a book promotional event and an opportunity to outline their recommendations to save traditional journalism. It was a setup for a predictable night full of previews of what’s contained inside yet another “save journalism” solution book. Yet, thankfully, David Carr took a topic that has been spoken about to death and breathed new life into the discussion.

On the heels of what might be the beginning of a truce between Fox News and the Obama administration, the White House is now calling out another major news organization. Late last night, the White House’s Recovery Implementation Office released a detailed rebuttal of what it called a “misleading” report by the Associated Press. While the AP hasn’t been stripped of its legitimacy, the reaction does seem a little bit harsh.

Tonight, ASSME — or, the American Society of [Recently Fired] Media Elites, as the NYT’s David Carr so delicately puts it — is having their first-ever Swag-A-Thon, which I am pleased to have had a modest role in helping with along the way, through my micro-giving site, Charitini.com.