Rick Santorum comes into tonight’s debate at a fluid third, the place he held in the South Carolina primary. And he comes into it with the image of being the most solidly conservative candidate in the race, which is both a blessing and a curse. During a rally today, Santorum was confronted with the ugliest part of that side of the aisle– supporters of his who think President Obama is Muslim– and on CNN tonight, John King asked him to explain his response to the lady, which completely dismissed her comments.

Rep. Ron Paul may stick to advancing his own positions during debates and letting others do the sniping, but he took a detour on last night’s Tonight Show in a rapid-fire round where Jay Leno asked him to comment on each candidate in term. While he had some nice things to say about Jon Huntsman, his reactions to Newt Gingrich and Rep. Michele Bachmann were particularly harsh, the latter of which he noted “she doesn’t like Muslims… she wants to go get ‘em.”

Victoria Jackson. Everyone’s favorite SNL cast member of all time, yes? Show of hands? Yes? Obviously. And yet, we get so very much Adam Sandler and so very little Victoria Jackson. You may recall that the actress recently paid a visit to lower Manhattan’s Occupy Wall Street protests, and, I don’t know about you, but that really wasn’t enough V-Jack for my liking. Why doesn’t she have her own show? Why isn’t she in constant rotation on every nightly cable news program? When will she come out with a line of giant hair bows? I just don’t know. Fortunately, Jackson gathered together some like-minded, telegenic female friends — Jennie Jones, Jannique Stewart, and Ann-Marie Murrell — and created her own show: PolitiChicks. Just some chicks talkin’ ’bout Muslims, as chicks are wont to do.

The city of Detroit is “ground zero” for the culture wars, raves preacher Lou Engle, who has begun to stage overnight prayer events intended to convert Muslims to Christianity through revelations in their sleep. This the latest news from Rachel Maddow, who reminded her audience last night that kooky religious extremism was not foreign to the United States, nor foreign to politics– Engle, it turns out, participated in last summer’s Rick Perry prayer event.

“So, is it a holy war that is being waged in our nation’s capital?” That’s a question Sean Hannity and his panelists attempted to answer Thursday night on Fox News. Muslim students attending DC’s Catholic University of America have claimed that their human rights are being violated by the school because it has refused to provide a space — free of Catholic iconography and paraphernalia — in which its Muslim students can practice their daily prayers.

It turns out that a recent “birther” sign — which also appeared at the recent Iowa debate in the form of a large billboard — comes courtesy of the folks over at WorldNetDaily, who are not quite the greatest fans of Obama. Maddow described their mission as essentially “trying to make a buck off the more gullible elements of the conservative base.”

She then pointed to some of the group’s previous projects, such as their reports on the need to wage a war on Islam itself rather than on terrorists acting under their own fundamentalist interpretations. Maddow brought on Wired‘s Spencer Ackerman, who broke a rather amazing series of reports about how the person behind that WorldNetDaily report has been instructing FBI counter-terrorism officers using ideas prevalent in what Maddow describes as the fringe of the right wing.

Lawrence O’Donnell has never been much of a fan of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for myriad political reasons, but today he had to put that all aside. Noting that “Ann Coulter‘s favorite presidential candidate who isn’t running for president” could never get elected because he’s “a little too New Jersey” for Republican voters, he found a new reason why he’d never win a primary– one that won him the program’s first full staff standing ovation.

At this juncture, it may be more efficient to highlight which interactions between New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and the media are not newsworthy. The Republican’s appointment of Muslim-American Sohail Mohammed to a state bench this week ruffled some feathers among some who fear the threat of Sharia Law, but when asked about those concerns, Gov. Christie made clear he had no patience for such “ignorance,” calling the complaints “crap.”

It’s been a long year for Juan Williams since his controversial firing from NPR last October, but he, as Bill O’Reilly predicted at the time, managed to get back up and publish a book about his struggle. Williams visited The Factor last night to promote that book, Muzzled, and confessed some of the problems NPR had with his relationship with Fox, among them that he was told not to say he worked for NPR on TV and that they did not appreciate him “legitimizing” the network.

Often, when we’re nearing an election year, voters are asked which candidate they’d most want to grab a beer with. And while it might be fun to attend a Lady Gaga concert with Tim Pawlenty or go surfing with Barack Obama, former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain seems like he’d be a lot of fun to hang out with over a drink or seven, plus there’s a good chance he’ll bring pizza. After reading GQ‘s Q & A with the Republican presidential hopeful, we’re even more inclined to want to pick his brain over a large pepperoni and jalapeño (don’t judge).

Yair Netanyahu, the 19-year-old son of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is typical of many in his generation: He uses Facebook as a means of broadcasting his thoughts, emotional state and political beliefs. This becomes a problem, of course, when your father is at the helm of a nation currently embroiled in a raging, ongoing debate over land and religion and you say things like, say, Muslims “celebrate hate and death” or that “terror has a religion and it is Islam.” Did we mention Yair is also enlisted in the Israeli military’s media liaison unit?

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain appeals to many voters because he appears “real” and not like a traditional politician. Yet is yelling at a reporter for asking a question you don’t want to answer being just a bit too real, or could that be the type of no-nonsense attitude people might be looking for this time around?

Halfway into the CNN Republican debate, the hopefuls went through a venerable minefield of controversial topics, like the economy, foreign policy, social issues, and late night comedians. But some questions were also narrowly tailored to specific candidates and comments they have made in public, and Herman Cain could not escape answering whether he would establish a “loyalty test” for Muslims in his employ. This gave the candidates a chance to stand staunchly against Sharia Law overruling the Constitution.

President Barack Obama‘s mideast speech today riled up many on the right for what they considered his heavy hand on Israel, but tonight Bill O’Reilly highlighted a parallel trend to his disapproval from the right: his approval ratings among Muslims appear to be in decline as well. Given that O’Reilly characterizes his foreign policy as “coddling the Muslim world,” he found the phenomenon difficult to explain, and asked Muslim commentators to weigh in.

Oh, my! Is somebody making a hilarious All In the Family remake for the 21st century? In which the Jeffersons are actually a mosque and Archie Bunker gets back at them for their bright lights by hanging a sign out in his yard saying “Bomb Making Next Driveway”? That’s hilarious!…Wait, what’s that? This isn’t a socially conscious Norman Lear sitcom? It’s real life? Oh. Well, then that’s slightly less funny.

It’s unclear whether this was a botched remake of the famous Godfather scene or a botched remake of the famous Rahm Emanuel story, but Rep. Peter King received a strange package today: a bloody pig’s foot, possibly in protest of his recent calls for investigating Muslim groups for involvement in terror.

After a failed attempt earlier in the week to provide his birth certificate, Donald Trump on Tuesday proved that he is in fact an American citizen. Trump is the latest person to demand that President Obama prove he, too, is an American, and the stunt got people wondering about Trump’s intentions. The birther movement may [...]

Potential Republican candidate for President Herman Cain wasted no time attempting to clarify his earlier statement regarding Muslims not being allowed in his administration. Appearing with Neil Cavuto, Cain backpedaled slightly from his prior position, but more eagerly stressed that “being politically correct isn’t something I’m going to spend a whole lot of my time worrying about.”

Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain is ramping up his campaign for the Republican nomination for President in 2012, however he’s hitting a few speed bumps along the way. Although some don’t view him in the same league as top-tier Republican candidates, he does have strong conservative support in early primary states and at least proves that like other potential nominee Donald Trump, that he’s not afraid to speak his mind.

Let’s face it– liberals are going through a bit of a rough patch. With President Obama resuming military trials in Guantánamo and NPR in complete disarray, Jon Stewart wanted to “pour one out” for the “liberal homies” down on themselves for the bad day. And by “one,” he means a handcrafted pot of homemade gourmet salad dressing– right onto his lap.

Fox News often objects to criticism of their coverage as excessively fear-inducing towards certain groups of people. And then there are segments like this: Fox News “man on the street” interviewer Jesse Watters hit the pavement around Columbia University for The O’Reilly Factor to ask those rascally college kids about their views on Islam. Unsurprisingly, the montage paints a picture of America’s brightest youth as naive, sheltered, and dangerously liberal.

It’s a cliche in American politics to attack the other side with some variation of “you can’t handle the truth,” but sometimes it’s hard to find any other way to describe moments when prepackaged political views and hard data collide. MSNBC host Cenk Uygur had one such moment today as he appeared to refuse to read data on a chart by his guest’s institution that showed black separatists groups were in the top three kinds of hate groups in America today.

The other day when Bill O’Reilly was airing videos of some of the worst behavior by union protesters, he claimed that the “liberal media” would have gone crazy if they had gotten their hands on any footage of Tea Partiers acting similarly. Well, we may now be able to test that theory. A new video that has been shooting around the Internet the past day or so shows hundreds of protesters screaming “Go back home!” and “Muhammed was a pervert!” at Muslim families as they attempt to enter a California community center for a February 13th fundraiser hosted by the group Islamic Circle of North America Relief USA. The video, uploaded by ICNA and CAIR, links a local Tea Party group and anti-Islamic blogger Pamela Gellar as some of the protest’s sponsors.

Mike Huckabee weighed in on a debate over a church allowing Muslims to worship at their facilities, and his comments have drawn criticism from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group. In a statement released Monday, the Council suggested that Huckabee do more research into Islam, calling his comment not only insensitive, but inaccurate as well.

The debate continues over a small church allowing Muslims to worship in their building while a nearby mosque was under construction. On Fox News today, Steve Stone, Pastor at the church explained why he thought the decision was right, while Dr. Alex McFarland echoed the recent sentiments of Mike Huckabee that such a seemingly kind gesture is, in their opinion, a horribly unchristian action.