As gathering outrage over the “forcible rape” language in a proposed anti-abortion law crested with a piece of devastating satire on Wednesday night’s The Daily Show, Politico reports that the phrase has been stricken from the bill. The law seeks to restrict the use of taxpayer funds for abortions, and although they have restored the [...]

People of every political persuasion were rightly outraged when, in 2009, Whoopi Goldberg presented the odd defense of Roman Polanski that his crime “wasn’t rape-rape.” A new law, introduced by a GOP congressman and lauded by House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), seeks to similarly redefine the circumstances under which public funds may be used to fund abortions by replacing the current “rape or incest” exemptions with something they call “forcible rape.” So far, the outrage is a bit one-sided.

There were no shortage of media disaster’s this year: from a politician threatening to kill a reporter, a movie star threatening to kill his ex-girlfriend, a Prime Minister killing his own political career, and a CEO trying to “top kill” an oil spill, there’s lots of lighthearted embarrassment and shame to go around.

Here, without further ado, are 2010′s ten worst media disasters:

President Obama delivered his first Oval Office speech last night, and it went over like an oil-infused pelican. Everyone from MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, to our own Frances Martel, laid into the speech with the gusto of a chin-impaling bull. Admittedly, the speech didn’t solve all of our problems (and if there’s anyone who could have solved all of our problems with a speech, it’s Barack Obama), but the specific criticisms I’ve read seem childish, and ignore important subtexts.

According to this month’s CBS/Vanity Fair poll 22% of those asked would be willing to forgive Tiger Woods his bad behavior (no word on whether Elin was one of the polled). This may seem like a low number, but Tiger should perhaps breathe a sigh of relief: he polls well compared to, say, John Edwards who only got five percent of the forgiveness vote.

That’s right — no more cell for Mr. Roman Polanski. The 76-year-old director, under arrest for the 1977 rape of a 13-year-old girl, was granted bail at the equivalent of a $4.5 million in late November and has since relocated to the Swiss Alps to await his fate. His luxurious house arrest — or “chalet arrest” as CNN dubbed it — has now begun, and would be the envy of his prison roommates, the below report states obviously, failing to mention that being “confined” to a house in the Alps is what most people call a dream vacation.

So it’s the day before Halloween, and you don’t have a costume. What to do? Fortunately, Mediaite has come up with some costume suggestions for you. Pulled straight from the headlines, these are guaranteed to be hits:

Politico is taking heat from all over the blogosphere for a story they posted Wednesday that conflated support for convicted rapist Roman Polanski with political donations to President Obama. The splashy headline read “Roman Polanski Backers Gave $34k to Barack Obama, DNC.”

File this under “People Who Think They Are Helping Roman Polanski Really Aren’t”: At least one pro-Polanski online activist has blocked at least one Facebook user critical of Polanski from posting anything to do with Polanski to her Facebook page. Bi-zarre.

The Internet is making journalist objectivity tricky business these days! This Week pundit Cokie Roberts was caught on camera yesterday advocating the death penalty for Roman Polanski. Someone should have asked her what to do about Dave!

Joy Behar started her new cable news show on Tuesday, giving her two hours each day on the small screen. She’s on The View every morning, and on HLN at 9pmET.

But yesterday Behar didn’t stop there. She showed up at 11pmET on The Daily Show and “she” showed up on NBC at 8pmET as well.

While our country is engulfed in two wars, struggling to climb back after falling off of an economic cliff last year and trying to find a way to provide health care for nearly fifty million uninsured Americans, I am glad to see that some of Hollywood’s elite, (including Mr. Weinstein, Ms. Winger and Woody Allen, among others) have found a truly important cause worth fighting for: defending Roman Polanski.

Yes. It’s a stretch. But it’s also the first question that popped to mind after reading this New York Times article about how Roman Polanski’s U.S. legal team has hired lawyer Reid Weingarten, who is “a well-known Washington power player and close friend and associate of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.”

Dear Hollywood,

Since Roman Polanski was arrested Saturday night in Switzerland for fleeing the U.S. after pleading guilty in 1977 to unlawful sexual intercourse (a plea deal for a rape accusation), you’ve been speaking out in droves to defend the director. CNN describes it as “Hollywood Embraces Polanski“, Fox News calls it “Hollywood Left Bands Together to Fight Polanski Arrest“.

Here’s a tip: stop.

Sunday’s arrest of Roman Polanski took most of the world by surprise and much was made in the American papers about how dearly the French loved and supported Polanski, especially their government! Not so fast. According to the Times the French public may not actually be so hot on Polanski’s freedom.

In an online column yesterday on the Washington Post‘s opinion blog, Anne Applebaum voiced her disagreement with the “outrageous arrest of Roman Polanski,” arguing that to put Polanski on trial or to jail him “does not serve society in general or his victim in particular.” But Applebaum failed to reveal that she’s married to a Polish foreign minister who is fighting for Polanski’s release.

This morning the Associated Press joined Talking Points Memo and Gawker as practitioners of the ‘open notebook’ method of reporting — well, inadvertently. One reporter’s notes about the developing news of Roman Polanski‘s arrest were sent out on the wire instead of the text of his article and published online by the New York Times and Forbes.