Mitt Romney– or anyone else on the stage, for that matter– was not about to escape tonight’s debate without being asked to explain and defend just how conservative he is. And he took that opportunity with gusto, though his answer about his record took a bizarre detour when he, once again, used the fact that Ted Kennedy had to take out a mortgage on his house to beat him in a Senate race.

Newt Gingrich drew audible murmurs by hitting Mitt Romney where it hurt by saying “the only reason you didn’t become a career politician is because you lost to Teddy Kennedy in 1994.” Romney had earlier argued that Gingrich was a career politician, “Speaker Gingrich has been in government for a long time.”

Ann Coulter made a hot mess of her Morning Joe appearance today, launching verbal assaults at late Sen. Ted Kennedy and Sen. John McCain, one of which was censored by the show, but neither of which prompted any real-time reaction from host Joe Scarborough. Since then, though without mentioning Coulter, Scarborough has repeatedly tweeted his followers to remind them of his respect for both of his former colleagues.

Conservative attention grenade Ann Coulter‘s appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe resulted in some predictable shenanigans on her part, but also in shocking silence from host Joe Scarborough following a crass slur of late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Seeking to excuse Mitt Romney‘s position shifts, Coulter noted that Romney had run against Kennedy, and referred to him as “that human pestilence.”

One of the instant memes to pop up around the killing of 9/11 murderer Osama bin Laden is the inevitable confusion between the dead terrorist’s first name, and the President’s last name. Popular on Twitter right now is this screenshot of a Fox affiliate’s chyron, announcing “Obama bin Laden Dead.”

They’re not the first to make the mistake, and weren’t the last, but in an amusing twist, former/future Countdown host Keith Olbermann called out Fox 40′s gaffe…right after he made the very same error (since corrected).

In 2008, an ailing Senator Ted Kennedy gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention that focused, in part, on the political issue closest to his heart: health care. “This is the cause of my life,” he said, adding that he hoped one day soon, “will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American—north, south, east, west, young, old—will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege.”

But according to former President Jimmy Carter, Kennedy himself is to blame for Americans’ lack of coverage.

To Bill Maher, nothing is sacred. And while he spent most of his career proving that by supporting those on his side of the aisle, last night he took some time to criticize public officials he has vocally supported, including the recently-deceased Ted Kennedy. Maher is “really mad” at the way the Obama administration has handled the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and refused to let go Kennedy’s resistance to wind energy just because he was no longer alive.

The Boston Globe is reporting that the FBI has nearly completed their review of the first 3,000 pages ofthe late Ted Kennedy’s secret file. However, before a single page is released to the public, the FBI has allowed the senator’s family to review the file and ask that sections be eliminated if they are embarrassing or infringe on any living family members.

Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander wrote an excellent piece about abusive online comments, pointing out some surprising consequences. Interestingly, Alexander also gives an astute defense of the value of the anonymous comment, and explains a fairly complicated new comment system that the Post is working on. A lot of these problems could be solved, though, and the online conversation could be enriched, by incorporating Twitter into online commenting.

It has become an almost tiresome game to tabulate and record the classless reactions of those on the left or the right when a political figure meets with mortal peril. Whether it’s conservatives celebrating Ted Kennedy‘s death with animal feces, or liberals crossing their fingers for Rush Limbaugh‘s chest pains to take a wrong turn, it’s apparent that ghoulish attention-seeking is not limited by political ideology. With that fact well-established, I had decided to recuse myself from this pastime, until I saw conservative blogger Dan Riehl‘s vile take on Senator Harry Reid‘s wife, Landra, and her recent car accident.

Lately Congress has started to feel a bit like a game of Ten Little Indians: who’s next. Yesterday’s announcement from Indiana senator Evan Bayh (D) that he would be retiring, amazingly caught just about everyone off guard. So who did he screw more, the Democrats or the Republicans? And is this actually a first step towards a White House run?

After two weeks of more or less ignoring the news of the day, Glenn Beck has jumped (with a chalk board vengeance) into the headline-making special Senate race in Massachusetts between Martha Coakely and Scott Brown. Short version: There will be cheating!

Cosmopolitan dug through their archives to find a June 1982 issue featuring a very naked chap by the name of Scott Brown playing centerfold model. Flattering, in a certain light, but possibly problematic for Brown, who is running for Ted Kennedy‘s United States Senate seat in Massachusetts. “Vote for Brown. He Has One Hell of a Stimulus Package,” the lady mag suggests as a slogan.

Game Change, the upcoming (tomorrow) book by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, is already making waves in DC with its sensational revelations about the 2008 presidential campaign. One of those excerpts, posted by The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder, struck me as just a bit hypocritical. It concerns Cindy McCain and a previously discredited rumor, resurrected in Halperin’s book.

Late last night, the White House announced that there would be no pool coverage for Sunday, January 10. While the President had no scheduled events this weekend, there was pool coverage yesterday. It could be a mere coincidence, or it could be that the White House is trying to catch its breath before responding to bombshell revelations in the upcoming book Game Change, excerpts of which poured out all day yesterday. President Obama already issued a statement about Harry Reid’s “negro dialect” quote, but even more explosive passages have emerged since.

The age of Twitter has spawned new rituals, among them the watchdogging of reaction to the death or illness of polarizing figures. Rush Limbaugh’s chest-pains scare from last night was no exception. We’ve got a sampling of each for you, including some very good behavior by the left’s most visible media figure:

“We feel that we’re about to do today something that’s been attempted now for almost 100 years,” House Majority Whip James Clyburn told reporters after what he called an “uplifting” meeting between Congressional Democrats and the president. Though CNN referred to the contents of the meeting as “secret,” one thing’s for sure: Democrats can practically taste health care reform.

Former President Jimmy Carter last night reiterated his belief that much of the anger directed at President Obama is racially motivated. Only this time Carter was a tad more specific, targeting those “demonstrators” as who describe Obama “as a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, or when they wave signs in the air that we should have buried Obama with Kennedy” as having a “racist attitude.” Sound like anyone you know?

Activist Alex Lawson, who was at today’s 9/12 rally in DC, captured some shocking images: Pre-printed posters passed out to protesters which read “BURY OBAMACARE WITH KENNEDY.”

But who was behind them?

Just how effective is the right wing media at hijacking a topic, blasting controversial sound bites, and stirring widespread outrage, all without a shred of context, debate, or discussion of salient issues? Incredibly, as I found out the hard way.

With the death of Senator Ted Kennedy, news magazines were charged with the difficult task of choosing the appropriate cover photograph for an embattled political legend. Would the cover be about documentation, spectacle or celebration? In this week’s Cover Wars, we evaluate the tributes to the last Kennedy brother.

Anytime an influential man dies, attention is paid to his wife. The grace and allure of the grieving widow has fascinated Americans for decades, from Jackie O to Ruth Madoff (in a weird way). Vicki Kennedy is no exception. Since Senator Kennedy’s death, there’s been countless profile pieces written about “the woman who saved Ted,” their marriage, and how they fell in love.

Who wants Eliot Spitzer back in office more, Spitzer or the New York Post? The Post knows where it’s bread is buttered, if Spitzer were to run for office again just imagine the headlines! It would be the best thing to happen to the paper since Rudy Giuliani’s short-lived run against Hillary Clinton for New York’s Senate seat back in 2000.

Amidst this weekend’s wall-to-wall Ted Kennedy coverage, and the growing Sarah Palin anniversary retrospectives it was sometimes difficult to recall that Saturday marked the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans. Even Twitter seemed relatively quiet on the subject. Speaking of Twitter, it’s hard not to wonder how differently the aftermath of Katrina might have played out had Twitter been around just four years ago.

Coverage of Senator Edward Kennedy’s funeral and burial dominated this weekend. Both the networks and the cablers carried Saturday’s service live and then returned later in the day in order to broadcast Kennedy’s motorcade past the Capitol, and burial at Arlington National Cemetery. In case you missed any of it here’s a look at the top five moments from this weekend’s coverage.