RELATED: Sarah Palin Blasts Andrew Sullivan As A ‘TrigTruther Conspiracy Kook Writer’

Of course, as this was a segment in which a cable news program discusses a news competitor, the customary discrediting had to be done before the conversation could get started in earnest. Ok, lets see. Kelly joked that only four people read Newsweek and then asked if the magazine had “some obligation to pu an actual journalist” on its cover. Ooh, burn, Andrew! Who’s dumb now?!

Ok, where were we?

Kelly then asked if Newsweek was obligated to tell readers that Sullivan was a former TrigTruther. Radio host Leslie Marshall pointed out that the audience has the ability to Google the columnist, but Kelly argued that most people think of Newsweek as straight reporting. The National Review‘s Rich Lowry claimed that the magazine hasn’t been for a long time and is now “the house organ of the Obama Administration.”

Kelly worried that older people like her mom and step dad wouldn’t know that. Well, lets hope they were watching the show today. No one could come out of this segment without realizing just how purely evil Newsweek truly is.

Of course, news outlets dissing other news outlets makes up for about 95% of the daily cable news output, so this segment wasn’t anything new. The most fun moment came right at the top as we got to watch Kelly continue to trash her show’s new music choices.

I don’t know what it is but, whether you’re writing for a magazine or anchoring a newscast, I’ve always found self deprecation more charming than full on attacks.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan has responded to the Fox News segment. In a blog post entitled “How Scared is Fox?”, Sullivan challenges the cable network to have him on to defend his piece.

“What I want to know is why they cannot invite the author of an essay to debate it, rather than two random individuals (including Rich “Starbursts” Lowry) to discuss. Surely that’s only fair – unless, of course, I am on a blacklist.

So this is an open challenge to Fox News. If you want to trash my work, have me on to defend it. Any time, Megyn. Any time. What are you afraid of?

Apart from the truth, that is. ”

Watch the clip from Fox News below:

The segment was pegged to Santorum’s polling surge in Iowa, which Colmes argued wouldn’t last “once they get a load of some of the crazy things he’s said and done, like taking his two-hour-old baby who died after childbirth and played with it for a couple hours so his other children would know that the child was real…”

“That’s a cheap shot, Alan,” Lowry interrupted, the first of many interruptions that would leave Colmes sitting back in his chair, staring daggers at Lowry, and asking to be alerted when it was his turn to speak again.

The incident they’re referring to is the 1996 birth of a premature baby boy to Rick and Karen Santorum. The child only lived for two hours, and the Santorums dealt with the tragedy in an unusual way:

The childbirth in 1996 was a source of terrible heartbreak — the couple were told by doctors early in the pregnancy that the baby Karen was carrying had a fatal defect and would survive only for a short time outside the womb. According to Karen Santorum’s book, ”Letters to Gabriel: The True Story of Gabriel Michael Santorum,” she later developed a life-threatening intrauterine infection and a fever that reached nearly 105 degrees. She went into labor when she was 20 weeks pregnant. After resisting at first, she allowed doctors to give her the drug Pitocin to speed the birth. Gabriel lived just two hours.

What happened after the death is a kind of snapshot of a cultural divide. Some would find it discomforting, strange, even ghoulish — others brave and deeply spiritual. Rick and Karen Santorum would not let the morgue take the corpse of their newborn; they slept that night in the hospital with their lifeless baby between them. The next day, they took him home. ”Your siblings could not have been more excited about you!” Karen writes in the book, which takes the form of letters to Gabriel, mostly while he is in utero. ”Elizabeth and Johnny held you with so much love and tenderness. Elizabeth proudly announced to everyone as she cuddled you, ‘This is my baby brother, Gabriel; he is an angel.’ ”

It’s a story that I have heard mocked by many liberals (and mistold, by others, as having followed a miscarriage), and I agree with Lowry that the intensely personal arena of human grief ought not be cheapened into political fodder. Within reasonable limits, I don’t think anyone should be judged for things they say or do in the face of extreme grief.

The fact that Karen Santorum publicized the event means that, to some extent, it is an appropriate subject for public discussion, but then it should be handled in a delicate, respectful manner. While I think Lowry was taking a cheap shot of his own when he accused Colmes of “mocking” the Santorums (and with his deployment of the coded phrase “Manhattan liberals”), neither was Colmes’ characterization that they “played with” the dead child fair or particularly sensitive. He probably shouldn’t have brought it up at all, but his critique, while cold and lacking in relevance, fell well short of mockery.

UPDATE: Colmes has tweeted that he called Santorum and his wife and apologized for the comment, an apology which was accepted.

just spoke to @ricksantorum. He and Karen graciously accepted my apology for a hurtful comment

Here’s the clip, from Fox News:

“He’s accomplished a lot,” acknowledged Lowry. “He’s obviously a hugely talented guy, probably the most talented politician of his generation, right up there with Bill Clinton. But like Bill, he has big flaws, and in the case we try make in this editorial a general election candidate, without enough upside potential as president in our minds because if there’s one guy in this field who might just wake up one day on the wrong side of the bed and decide he’s going to cut a grand deal with Nancy Pelosi it would be Newt Gingrich. ”

RELATED: National Review Urges Republicans To ‘Reject A Hasty Marriage’ To Newt Gingrich

Guest anchor Alisyn Camerota asked Lowry about Gingrich’s defense of his dealings with mortgage lending firm Freddie Mac during last night’s debate.

“He is so hugely impressive on that debate stage, no one else would think of mentioning electric membership co-ops, you know, that’s Newt Gingrich, the wonk,” Lowry conceded. “But that was really his worst exchange of the night because he cannot defend those payments. He got $1.6 million from Freddie Mac to influence him, to keep him basically on their team and to pretend as he does that they’re giving him this money out of the kindness of his heart because he was an historian is just ridiculous and Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann, I thought were very effective on hitting him on that point.”

Watch Lowry’s criticism of Newt Gingrich below via Fox News:

RELATED: New Ron Paul Ad Calls GOP Opponents “Little Shih Tzus” And Features Exploding Fed Agencies

The National Review‘s Rich Lowry didn’t think Herman Cain supporters would flock to Paul, thinking Newt Gingrich would be the more logical beneficiary but did agree the media was ignoring Paul.

“On the merits, you look at his standing in the polls, you look at the kind of fundraising he’s doing, you look at the kind of organization he has on the ground and he is not getting the media attention commensurate with all of those things,” Lowry observed. “The most notorious example was he came in second in the iowa straw poll, a traditional, significant winnowing event in the republican season, and there was a notorious headline that says Michele Bachmann finishes first and Tim Pawlenty finishes third, totally skipping over ron paul and I think the reason for it is that people I think — at the end of the day — don’t think he has any chance of getting elected president…but if you look at all those indicators and he’s not getting his fair share.”

Scott countered Colmes dismissal by noting that supporters were “fervent.”

Colmes acknowledged that many liberals sympathized with Paul’s views on the Patriot Act and other positions, he even revealed that he called himself a ‘liberal-tarian’ , agreeing with him sometimes. “One of the reasons that Rich may have a point is that he’s outside of the Republican mainstream and therefore is not taken in some quarters as seriously as he should be.”

“That’s the nicest thing that Alan has ever said about me,” Lowry joked. “That I might have a point.”

Watch Colmes and Lowry argue Ron Paul’s media coverage below via Fox News:

Host Eric Shawn opened the floor to conjecture over how the tour was going for the President, which writer Rich Lowry was first to reply to– that the President’s rhetoric attacking Republicans was out of hand, arguing that “if you had a Republican out there every day basically impugning the patriotism of the other side… it would be a firestorm.” As for the vacation, panelist Jim Pinkerton recalled “Reagan getting clobbered” over vacations, but the state of the economy allowed him to take them with less scrutiny than President Obama anyway.

Judith Miller then jumped in to bring up the bus, which she found a surprising character in the entire debate. Noting its various new nicknames– “Magical Misery Tour,” “Greyhound to Nowhere”– Miller argued that there was “so much focus on the bus and nothing on what he was saying,” which actually left the right at a disadvantage. “It does look bad,” replied columnist Kirsten Powers, though she added that the bus was “not his” and, in fact, was bought as a way to save money for the 2012 elections, as an identical model was purchased by the Secret Service for the Republican 2012 nominee.

The debate via Fox News below:

Host Rick Folbaum proposed to the panel whether the coverage of the scandal was well warranted. The panel seemed to agree that it was worth covering, but to what extent remained to be determined. Panelist Rich Lowry suggested that it was worth mentioning, but not a top story– to get an exclusively British story on the front page of the New York Times as much as this one has been, he joked, “you’d need the Queen to abdicate or a plane to hit London.” Kirsten Powers agreed the coverage in some forums had been from “a lot of people that are wanting to see tha this is the thing that takes Rupert Murdoch down,” was still a worthwhile story. Meanwhile, Ellen Ratner defended the story enthusiastically, noting that it was the story of story where “we don’t know how it’s going to end,” and that, as its plot was driven by “larger than life characters” like Murdoch and the News Corp team, it made for compelling coverage.

The panel then turned to the Parliamentary hearings themselves this week and whether they provided any particular news fodder, or a “gotcha moment” for Murdoch’s foes. “A gotcha moment defined as something dramatic and live on television?” asked Jim Pinkerton, thus answering, “I guess the pie” to laughter. He also noted the coverage of the pie incident was not up to his tastes– “some nitwit at MSNBC felt obligated to say the Murdochs must’ve been behind the pie thrower,” he scoffed.

The panel also discussed the role of CNN anchor Piers Morgan in the scandal, and his support of Murdoch over Twitter, which Folbaum suggested “sort of nailed it.” Lowry replied that Morgan “as a stake in this fight,” as his book exposed certain practices on Fleet Street that were not quite exclusive to Murdoch (though Morgan had edited News of the World in the past). Ultimately, Lowry concluded, it was crime that needed policing, not “the media or media culture.”

The panel discussion via Fox News below:

Kirsten Powers argued “the minute he started with this Birther stuff he should just be ignored” and given many of his other “crazy claims,” thought he should no longer be treated as a serious person. Jim Pinkerton disagreed and suggested Trump is raising other significant issues that “nobody in the elite wants to address” like what are we still doing fighting in Afghanistan? Furthermore, after showing a clip of Trump’s agitated interview on Good Morning America, Pinkerton declared:

“Trump is obviously good television. He’s saying to George Stephanopoulos and all the rest of them exactly what 2/3 of the American people would like to say which is ‘why are you these little arrogant snots making millions of dollars telling us what to think?’”

Rich Lowry agreed that Trump’s best characteristic so far might be his eagerness to take on anyone in the media. Lowry thought “the more disdain [Trump's interviewers] show for him and the more combative with him they are on the air, the better it is for him . . . people hate the media, they hate the establishment and even if this guy is a braggart and a joker and obnoxious, they love to see him sticking his finger in everyone’s eyes.”

Plus there’s something purely entertaining about watching someone so unpredictable and willing to say anything at anytime. Yet it remains to be seen whether Trump’s unique personality that makes him such a huge television draw would be able to be translated into any type of political success.

Watch the clip from Fox News below:

Yes, her positive comments on the merger, as host Jon Scott notes, conflict with previous notes that large media corporations are dangerous for competition among the press. But the panel was far more interested in what will happen to the ideology of the Huffington Post. National Review editor Rich Lowry expressed particular concern in how lucrative a site HuffPo would be without being slanted. “She created a traffic monster” with her liberal slant, he noted, and now is “basically defining her left-wing views as neither left nor right.” He then, somewhat surprisingly, argued that objectivity would be a detriment to her efforts. “It would be a mistake for the site to lose its left-wing identity, because I think that’s really the glue of its community, but she is correct,” he added, somewhat in jest– “pictures of scantily clad models have no ideology one way or another.”

His fellow panelists offered no objection to the scantily clad models, but certainly expressed similar concerns. Jim Pinkerton, in particular, wondered how that ideology would translate to websites like TechCrunch or Mapquest, arguing that those sites wouldn’t take orders from “some limousine liberal in New York.” Alan Colmes, meanwhile, complimented the merger, and interjected that Huffington lives in California, for what it’s work. “She’s showed herself to be a great businesswoman,” he noted, regardless of the outcome.

The discussion via Fox News below:

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.”

Megyn Kelly hosted a debate on the issue on America Live and kicked things off by noting that Gov. Abercrombie has said he was in Hawaii at the time of President Obama‘s birth and knew the family. Kelly said the governor had taken an issue that was “quieting down” is jumped it right back to the front burner, which guest Dan Gerstein said threatened to irritate both Democrats and Republicans:

GERSTEIN: It drives everyone crazy. On the far right, you have people totally ignoring the facts, it’s a settled case, and they continue to hold on to this conspiracy. And now you have the governor when it was a dead issue-

KELLY: It was quieting. The number of requests for the birth certificate had gone down, it was like even the birthers were quieting down.

GERSTEIN: Mainstream Republicans were saying leave this alone, it just makes us look extreme and vindictive. And now, for no reason–you can understand the emotions behind it–just blows it up again.

The National Review‘s Rich Lowry said of the Hawaiian governor, “I don’t think he has any idea what he’s getting into.”

Watch the segment here, from Fox News:

CNN had the right idea with Parker/Spitzer: a lefty/righty one-stop shop, without all the bitter conflict of the Crossfire model. Unfortunately, they muffed the execution. As Ed Rendell‘s recent jaw-dropper demonstrates, there’s a low hum of creepy to the whole thing, and since endorsing Obama in 2008, Kathleen Parker isn’t such a draw for conservative audiences.

O’Donnell, on the other hand, has movement street-cred to spare, along with an ability to get along with the other side. Bill Maher‘s roundup of O’Donnell’s Politically Incorrect clips demonstrates that she holds up well even against the most strident opposition, mainly because she has a sense of humor about herself.

Her sex appeal, of course, doesn’t hurt. The irony of O’Donnell’s anti-masturbation stance isn’t likely lost on a large portion of the conservative audience (and maybe the liberal one, too), who probably felt a twinge of Rich Lowry-esque deja vu when O’Donnell punctuated her concession speech by saying “We’ve got the room all night.”

The right co-anchor could enhance those qualities. The problem is, established liberal personalities like Ed Schultz already have their own shows, and an abrasiveness that wouldn’t mesh well with O’Donnell. A notable exception, though, is recent MSNBC bench acquisition Cenk Uygur.

Uygur’s liberal bona fides, like O’Donnell’s conservative ones, are undeniable, but he also has shown an ability to play nice with the other side. A former conservative himself, there’s ample opportunity for he and O’Donnell to find something approaching common ground, or at least a common frame of reference. Also, despite a long, deep footprint in the progressive community, Uygur is the anti-wonk, maintaining the outsider-y perspective that echoes O’Donnell’s, and this year’s midterm voter’s.

There’s no question that MSNBC has cornered the market on the lefty share of the cable news pie, but creating a spot for Christine O’Donnell would offer the network a rare opportunity to cut into Fox News’ audience. MSNBC’s 7pm timeslot currently features a Hardball rerun that beats the non-Fox competition, but still finishes a distant second to Fox. An O’Donnell-led hour could easily put the network neck-and-neck at 7, and bring a fresh set of eyeballs in the bargain.

The origin of the inter-conservative fracas was a piece last Friday by Daily Caller’s Jon Ward which alleged “that the National Review editorial had been prearranged, however, by Neil Bradley, a top leadership aide* who is close to April Ponnuru, the executive director of the National Review Institute, and Kate O’Beirne, NRI’s president.”  Ward then quoted a Republican aide calling the editorial “a political blowjob.”

The folks at National Review Online immediately rejected the allegations and went on the attack, questioning Ward’s reporting.  Lowry, still fuming over the allegation, continued to attack Ward and the story over the weekend.

Carlson returned fire today, saying “National Review has taken sides, providing ideological cover for the party’s establishment wing at a critical moment. We think it’s worth knowing a lot more about that arrangement.” Carlson is standing by the reporting, saying the National Review editorial was being handed out by Republican aides before the editorial was available publicly.

In response, Lowry attacked Carlson’s credibility and explained the time-line that led up to the editorial.  National Review, Lowry said, had an embargoed version of the Pledge having given a conditional thumbs-up earlier in the week. Once the embargo was broken, the magazine readied its editorial for release and that’s why Republican aides had it in their hands before the GOP caucus even got an official copy of the Pledge.

Lowry also makes his own accusations, suggesting that Daily Caller was modifying its story online with notifying readers and that the clarifications were being made in response to defenses being made by the National Review gang.  Ben Smith at Politico outlines the allegations and shows the changed copy.

The slap-fight between the conservative outlets underscores the current battle within the conservative movement between the party establishment–National Review–and the Tea Party insurgents–Daily Caller. Accusing the National Review of being in-bed with the Republican party is a nice way of separating the elites from the grassroots, although the fact that the surrogates are both movement insiders makes the rhetoric less impressive.

From the sidelines, the spectators at the feud are enjoying the rumble. Greg Sargent at the Washington Post’s Plum Line scolds that “[t]he next time the Daily Caller publishes a ridiculous trumped up “expose” about Journolist, or any other ridiculous trumped up expose, here’s hoping respectable Republicans and conservatives, not to mention other right-leaning media outlets like National Review, won’t be so quick to play along.”

The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait is also piling on the Daily Caller, saying “the story provides zero evidence — not even vague characterization — that the contact with NR was anything more than a routine spin session. And given the Daily Caller’s record of utter contempt for basic journalistic norms, the very strong presumption should be that this is a non-story.”

Palin has lived to tell the tale because going rogue is now her operating principle. Her base of support is so intense, she doesn’t need supply lines into the political or media establishment. She transformed her Facebook page into a must-read organ of conservative opinion by lobbing “I can’t believe she said that” rhetorical bombshells. No political consultant would ever approve of her M.O.; for Palin’s purposes, no political consultant could possibly improve on it.

Find your new must-read here.