Hot off his performance moderating last night’s Republican debate, National Journal‘s Major Garrett joined Chris Matthews and his fellow panelists in discussing the effect television has on political candidates. Matthews cited Mitt Romney‘s relaxed demeanor during the Republican debates, and wondered how much his appearance would factor into how much voters trust in him and see him as a confident leader. Garrett believed whoever becomes the Republican nominee will have to show they are confident and trustworthy.

For some reason, people are not flocking to Halloween stores this year to go as Barack Obama or Michele Bachmann. How could that be?

It’s been quite the week or so for journalistic ethics given the end of News of the World and the continuing corruption scandal engulfing Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp/News International enterprise. The Watergate references running fast and loose, Lawrence O’Donnell brought on an expert tonight to explain just how the two scandals compare– legendary former Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein. In doing so, however, O’Donnell brought down some ethical judgment on himself as Bernstein, now a Newsweek writer, stood up for his magazine.

Gawker’s investigative reporter, John Cook, recently combed through various documents (as in, 318 pages of memos, letters, outlines and resumes) detailing Fox News president Roger Ailes‘ working relationship to the White House under President Richard Nixon.

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.”

On Tuesday night’s Hannity, host Sean Hannity joined a chorus of conservative objectors to rapper Common‘s invitation to a White House poetry event. In particular, Hannity objected to a line from a Common poem that said “Burn a bush for peace,” and said that “If this was somebody who used the same type of rhetoric about violence against President Obama I would be against it.”

So what did Hannity have to say when rocker Ted Nugent suggested that then-Senator Barack Obama “suck on” his machine gun?

It’s an old complaint that you hear all the time: “Political discourse in this country is fascinating…but can you dance to it?” Fortunately, thanks to The Real, you now can. The group has released a new song and video entitled “My Girl’s a Republican” that’s catchy and hilarious enough to keep you dancing all the way to voting booth tomorrow.

If you needed further evidence that the American right has gone off the rails, Right Wing News (last seen publishing their Conservative New Media Spank Bank) has just put out their list of the 25 Worst Figures in American History (as selected by 43 conservative blogs). Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh could only make it to #9 on the list, while Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama earned the top two spots, respectively. Worst of all, though, is that Snooki doesn’t seem to have gotten a single vote. (h/t Doug Mataconis)

Before you jump to panicked conclusions, Matthews is not comparing Sarah Palin to President Nixon. He is comparing her to former Vice President, defeated presidential candidate Richard Nixon who spent the intervening years between losing to John F. Kennedy in 1960 and his 1968 campaign relentlessly touring the world, denying his presidential ambitions, all the while quietly (and ingeniously) setting the stage for a presidential run.

In a refreshing display of bipartisan nepotism, the AP and the New York Times ran nearly simultaneous pieces yesterday exploring the political successes of the grandchildren of the two most controversial presidents of the ’70s (sorry, Gerald Ford). New York Congressional candidate Chris Nixon Cox and Georgia State Senate candidate Jason Carter are taking up their grandfathers’ footsteps and, surprisingly, it’s Cox who seems much more willing to flaunt his pedigree on the campaign trail.

Riddle of the day: if Sean Hannity‘s ideology directly conflicts with Ronald Reagan‘s, whose side does Media Matters take? The liberal watchdog group created this identity crisis by penning a piece suggesting that Hannity’s conservatism may be disingenuous. But in attacking Hannity, they inadvertently created a champion of the left out of the patron saint of Republicanism.

President Barack Obama threw out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals’ first game of the season today, a ceremonial marking of Major League Baseball’s opening day. It’s truly a moment awash in the pomp and pageantry of our nation’s pastime – and just think how great a moment it could be if the Nationals weren’t so, you know, awful.

C-SPAN has completed arguably the most exciting academic task since the founding of Wikipedia: they have uploaded 23 years of their video archives to a free, user-friendly database online. It’s a landmark in government transparency and a godsend to anyone embarking on an American history research project.

Pack up the picket signs and stop what you’re brewing: the American Prospect has officially declared the Tea Party Movement dead. Correspondent Mark Schmitt has released a shocking piece highlighting the short half-life of right-wing populists movements in America that is sure to put many on the left at ease knowing that the Tea Parties will be done before they know it.

Everything old is new again! Last night certainly felt like a blast from 2008 as all the cablers went wall to wall with coverage of Massachusetts special election. And really it would be hard to argue that there is anyone who enjoys the election circus more than Chris Matthews, who reached farther back than 2008 in order to explain the election results: Not even Monica Lewinsky was as damaging as this economy.

After all of the speculation that Barack Obama was going to be Time‘s Person of the Year for the second year in a row, the award went to … Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Since announcing the pick, Time has been sending signals that seem to say that President Obama, who was announced to be a finalist for the award on Monday, but was not really in contention after all:

Time‘s Person of the Year can “Sometimes be surprising, sometimes be controversial, but always interesting,” as Meredith Vieira put it on this morning’s Today Show, where Time managing editor Richard Stengel announced the nominees. The same can be said of the list of finalists. A few were no-brainers (Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke), at least one was puzzling (The Chinese Worker? Really?). And some omissions (i.e. Twitter) may have been the biggest surprises of all:

As the face of media evolves, it’s important to honor the figures who helped define, shape and set the standards in their industries. These are some of the most prominent members of the media who passed away over the past 10 years. Take a look back with some snippets from their respective New York Times obituaries.

Slate’s Jack Shafer taps his contender for the ‘which President hated the press more’ parlor game that has been going on in media circles of late. If the goal of the White House was to white noise any other news reporting out of the news cycle with their ‘war’ on Fox than I think, at this point anyway, their decision must be considered an unmitigated success!

Salon’s Joe Conason weighs in on the “cosmic jest” of comparing the White House’s recent ‘war’ on Fox News to that of President Nixon’s policies against the press during his presidency. Conason thinks the only Nixonian handbook at play right now is that of Roger Ailes, and that some overzealous pundits should perhaps pick up a history book, or two.

This is probably not the result that White House officials had in mind when they came up with the strategy of marginalizing Fox News. Last night Anderson Cooper had on guests James Carville (Democrat) and Kevin Madden (Republican) to debate a growing meme that should concern the Obama administration: do they have a “Nixon-type enemies list”?

The New York Times is reporting that William Safire, a long-time former columnist for the paper, and speechwriter for Richard Nixon has died at 79. Safire joined the Times in 1973 and won the Pulitzer in 1978 for his commentary. Prior to this he worked on Nixon’s 1960 and 1968 presidential campaigns and after Nixon’s 1968 victory served as chief speechwriter for both Nixon and his then Vice President Spiro Agnew.

Long before The Daily Show, long before The Colbert Report, Saturday Night Live was making fun of the news in a way that no one had ever seen before.
In honor of the premiere of Season 35, we’ve pulled together 35 of SNL‘s choicest news anchor spoofs and Weekend Updates, from Baba Wawa to Fred Armisen‘s Joy Behar to the infamous Couric/Palin interview.

Erin Andrews, the ESPN Sportscaster, was the victim of a peephole video last month when someone rigged a small camera to record her changing in her hotel room. As a guy who is retro-fitting a prosthetic eye to be a video camera, I have followed the debate about video ethics and privacy closely. Because my video camera eye (a working field model is nearly done! Stand by!) is a bit creepy I get a lot of criticism for potentially invading people’s privacy.

Historians generally agree that Watergate was a great moment for the press – and for the Washington Post, which published the scoops of that would eventually take down a president. But the July 17th issue of the Economist points to a more unorthodox take: That the Washington Post was selfish, irresponsible, and directly responsible for thwarting the World Peace that Richard Nixon would certainly have won.