Well, this was bound to happen: On the heels of its $315 million Huffington Post deal, Aol has announced that it will shut down 30 of its blogs, electing to absorb some of these into other brands, including a few existing HuffPost verticals.

Aol’s Politics Daily blogger Matt Lewis reacted to news of his employer’s new purchase and, in a sense, new hire by making a firm decision: He’s leaving. Not only that, but he’s leaving for perennially bow-tied pundit Tucker Carlson‘s conservative-leaning news and opinion site, the Daily Caller.

Seeking to make hay out of Willow Palin‘s Facebook misadventure, among other things, Bonnie Goldstein, Editor of Politics Daily’s “Woman Up” blog, writes that the Palin teens “lack supervision,” and that “Sarah Palin may want to budget a companionable nanny for the older children.”

While we predicted that some would level this attack, it seems counterintuitive that a blog devoted to women’s issues would not only see the Palin kids as fair game, but would then perpetuate the sexist notion that parenting is the sole purview of the mother. Todd Palin’s name never comes up.

Small town girl Sarah Palin is having her praises sung from an actual singer: John Mellencamp. The rocker, who publicly supported Obama‘s 2008 presidential campaign, defended her intelligence, saying that people too often underestimate her “just because she says things and winks.” He added that “she’s pushing the right buttons…you can’t be stupid and do that.”

Yesterday Dylan Ratigan may have surprised his audience when he announced that his political leanings were conservative, and not progressive or liberal like many on the right consider anything related to MSNBC to be. While wrapping up a panel discussion on Obama’s relationship with John Boehner and today’s GOP primary in Delaware with Jonathan Capehart, Alicia Menendez and Matt Lewis let loose his political stance which is certain to color how his future commentary is viewed.

When Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation took over Beliefnet in 2007, some feared that the site known for its ecumenical approach to religion and faith would turn into a Fox News-styled mouthpiece for social and religious conservatives. With the storied site now sold and some people writing its obituary, it appears that Beliefnet was harmed not by becoming Fox, but instead by becoming too much like O, the Oprah Magazine full of self-help columns and vague spirituality.

The national media have been much quicker to report on the National Enquirer-driven Al Gore sex scandal than they were the John Edwards story, both of which featured underpinnings of traditional journalism, such as named sources, documents, and in Edwards’ case, photographs. It may surprise some, then, that quick-to-lecture-on-journalism Politics Daily Chief Editor Melinda Henneberger is peddling a new rumor about Gore, with a single anonymous source. (h/t Drudge and Washington Examiner)

Mother Jones Washington Bureau Chief David Corn, who also writes a column for Politics Daily, is a well-known author and journalist who broke early news on the Valerie Plame affair, and provided memorable coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign. In the most action-packed Inside the White House Press Corps ever, Corn talks about covering the White House, his Twitter dominance, and tells us what he misses about the Bush White House, all while fending off chaotic distractions.

Pretty much everyone – from Politics Daily to BusinessWeek to the LA Times to textbook companies and every techie publication known to man – is anticipating the release of a Kindle-esque Apple tablet, or at least an announcement of it. Perhaps Steve Jobs spoke too soon last year when he told the New York Times that the Kindle would inevitably fail because Americans just don’t read anymore.

AOL’s Daily Finance blog has signed a third ex-Portfolio staffer to join its Daily Finance team, further indicating that the Web 1.0 online giant is serious about expanding — and spending the money to do so.

Where other sites are being forced to cut back and do more with less, AOL seems to be merrily picking up name-brand talent in what is becoming a regular habit.

In today’s Washington Post, Howard Kurtz paints AOL’s Politics Daily as a fantastic wonderland of six-figure salaries, 5000-word articles, foreign correspondents who actually go overseas, and a distaste for the “hyperpartisan.” Sounds great, but can it turn a profit in an environment where traffic for articles like “Strippers Compete in Palin Look-alike Contest” is likely to dwarf Afghanistan coverage for the foreseeable future? If not, what is AOL trying to pull?