Tina Brown and Newsweek‘s decision to put Andrew Sullivan’s provocative essay (and an even more provocative headline) on the cover was purely about getting people to talk about Newsweek. That was the theory put forth by a Fox News panel during a segment dedicated to…talking about Newsweek. But, as Megyn Kelly proposed at the start, has Newsweek and the mainstream media “crossed a line in trying to get the President reelected?”

In a wild exchange on Fox News’ Happening Now, longtime contributor Alan Colmes lost it a little bit when National Review‘s Rich Lowry pressed him over an attack on Rick Santorum‘s handling of the 1996 death of his newborn son. Colmes used Santorum’s reaction to the death of 2 hour-old Gabriel as an example of “some of the crazy things he’s said and done,” prompting immediate, sustained pushback from Lowry, and death-stares from Colmes.

The National Review‘s Rich Lowry,, appeared on Fox News’s America Live to talk about his publications editorial which urged Republicans “to have the good sense to reject a hasty marriage to Newt Gingrich, which would risk dissolving in acrimony.”

Libertarian energizer bunny Ron Paul‘s presidential campaign is getting more than enough media coverage according to radio host Alan Colmes. Fox News host Jon Scott noted that Paul was polling 2nd in Iowa with 18%, ahead of Mitt Romney in a new Des Moines Register poll and asked Colmes if the plucky free-market firebrand was being overlooked by reporters. “I don’t agree with the premise, he’s in every debate, I have him on my radio show a lot, I’ve seen a number of segments not just here about how the media doesn’t talk about Ron Paul well they’re talking about Ron Paul!” argued Colmes. “People know who he is if you’re following this stuff and that’s maybe one of the reasons why he’s doing well because people do know who he is and he does resonates with a good percentage of the Republican electorate. I don’t think he can get the nomination because he deviates too far from establishment Republicanism: anti-war, legalized drugs, whole series of positions that are too libertarian for the Republican Party but here we are giving him media attention about not giving him media attention!”

The President’s Midwestern bus tour has garnered plenty of negative of attention from conservative sources, from the fact that it looks like a campaign tour to the bus’s Canadian origin. On today’s Fox News Watch, the panel argued over whether the President’s current vacation in Martha’s Vineyard following up the tour was good optics, or whether the right’s occupation with both helped the President.

As the network’s main media analysis show, Fox News Watch has taken the most heat for its coverage of the News of the World phone hacking scandal. This week, they had plenty more material to work with– Rupert Murdoch‘s testimony to Parliament and the feud between a British MP and CNN host Piers Morgan taking up the bulk of the conversation. While concluding crimes must be paid for, the panel agreed that other media entities were “piling on” to News Corp out of a sense of competition.

The Fox News Watch panel attempted to determine whether Donald Trump was an attraction or a distraction for the media and basically concluded the symbiotic relationship is both good for ratings and good for Trump. Yet although the conservative panelists enjoyed Trump arguing with many in the “elite media,” the liberal commentators worried journalists were wasting their time treating Trump seriously.

The post-Super Bowl news drop that AOL and the Huffington Post were merging into the most bizarre internet media conglomerate in recent memory took most of those in the news world by storm, and the Fox News Watch panel appeared as confused as anyone else. While many questioned the size of the merger and the potential impact on content already part of the AOL media network, the main question for the Fox News Watch team concerned Arianna Huffington‘s recent comments on objectivity– namely, that she practices it.

Quick: name the governor of Hawaii. If you said Neil Abercrombie, you either a) live in Hawaii, b) are related to Neil Abercrombie, or c) are following the latest angle in the birther debate more closely than most people. The Democrat’s vowed to “take on” the birthers despite the urging of some in his own party to stay out of a fight “not worth having.”

The jury is in on the Delaware Non-Witch Trial, and Christine O’Donnell has been found not guilty of being a witch, or a Senator. However, as the molten cauldron of media coverage attests, she still casts a powerful spell. While Fox News isn’t stepping up to the plate, this freshly-minted era of divided government creates the perfect opportunity to capitalize on O’Donnell’s most winning qualities by pairing her with the right lefty host. It would be a bold move, a forward-leaning move, for a network like MSNBC.

In a country club version of the Hatfields and McCoys, Tucker Carlson of the Daily Caller and Rich Lowry of the National Review stepped up their online feud over allegations made by the scrappy start-up that the folks at National Review were working with Republican lawmakers to promote the “Pledge to America” in a gushing editorial in the magazine.

According to National Review editor Rich Lowry there is a new player on the inside political news scene: Sarah Palin’s Facebook page. Lowry describes it as a “must-read organ of conservative opinion.”