On Monday, we reported on a new, false narrative that current Republican presidential frontrunner Herman Cain wrote an op-ed piece in November that was at odds with his currently hot (and hotly debated) “9-9-9 plan.” On Tuesday’s Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough and friends took up the story with gusto, saying that Cain might be “the biggest opponent of the 9-9-9 plan,” even while quoting sections of Cain’s Daily Caller piece that cut against the flip-flop idea.

With Herman Cain‘s new role as GOP frontrunner comes the inevitable Cain Scrutiny (apologies to Dave Weigel), and while there are many legitimate grounds upon which to criticize the upstart pizza magnate, the idea that he was arguing against himself with his months-ago opposition to a national sales tax is baseless. Business Insider cites a Cain-penned November, 2010 op-ed in The Daily Caller to suggest that the candidate is at odds with his own 9-9-9 plan, but even a casual reading of Cain’s piece belies that.

While the Occupy Wall Street movement has captured the imagination of genuine activists nationwide, intrepid libertarian reporter Michelle Fields for The Daily Caller uncovered that some protestors were being paid off to attend one of the rallies in Washington DC. “Some of them are volunteers. Some of them aren’t. I can’t identify them. I’m not going to get into an identification game,” admitted an organizer from DC Tenants Advocacy Coalition, a group that advocates for affordable housing.

Herman Cain must be feeling pretty good coming off that Florida straw poll, because word has it he’s looking long. The Daily Caller reports today that, even though not everyone really thinks he’ll get so far as to need one, the Godfather’s pizza magnate has already planned his inauguration. It will be a demure thing, Cain promises. He will waste not his time nor your money on gaudy, star-studded inagurual events. If he is elected, that is.

Mike Tyson‘s violent fantasies about Sarah Palin, reported and denounced here at Mediaite, have spawned several ugly subplots regarding Daily Caller writer Jeff Poor‘s uncritical reporting of Tyson’s remarks. Greta Van Susteren and DC publisher Tucker Carlson had it out, online and On The Record, over Poor’s reporting, but even as those embers cooled, conservative blogger Dan Riehl took things in a direction so nasty, even Tyson would have to run for a Silkwood shower.

On Sunday, Greta Van Susteren harshly criticized Tucker Carlson for an explicit headline on his blog, The Daily Caller, which referred to Mike Tyson‘s controversial comments about Sarah Palin. Susteren branded Carlson a “pig”, for publishing the “disgusting post” and characterized it as “not just smut,” but “violence against women.”

This weekend, former Obama Spokesman Bill Burton attacked Mitt Romney as a “phony” for tweeting about his love of flying commercial, and of eating Subway sandwiches, in what Burton sees as an attempt to change his image with regular folk. In an email to reporters, Burton said the tweets show that Romney “is willing to do or say anything to become President, even if it means changing his positions, his appearance and his sandwich.”

Barely an hour after a (now-downgraded 5.8) earthquake hit the East Coast, the internet began congratulating its own sparkling wit by publishing Top Earthquake Tweets lists. While this is a decidedly narcissistic exercise, some of them are actually pretty funny. As a public service, we’ve culled through the lists to present some of our favorites, plus a few tweets that didn’t make the lists. We’ll let you decide which group had the funniest tweets.

On CNN’s Reliable Sources Sunday morning, host Howard Kurtz asked his panel to respond to the criticism, best summed up by Jon Stewart, that the media is unfairly ignoring the presidential candidacy of Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX). While the panel offered a familiar raft of excuses, Kurtz pushed back against the notion that Paul can’t be elected, saying, “That can be a self-fulfilling prophecy if you decide, in advance, that he’s not going to win the nomination.”

Comedian George Lopez, host of TBS’ Lopez Tonight, has drawn the ire of several conservative websites by telling CNN’s Piers Morgan that “If Sarah Palin becomes president at any point, I will say allegedly, I will move to Canada.”

Given Lopez’s prior Palin pronouncements, it’s hard to see what they’re all getting worked up over, but it does underscore the degree to which Michele Bachmann has sucked all of the air out of Palin’s presidential ambitions.

FishbowlDC’s Betsy Rothstein has the inside line on a bit of good-natured hazing that’s being inflicted on The Daily Caller‘s Matthew Boyle. The DC‘s media writer, Jeff Poor, has changed his Twitter avatar to a cheesy pic of Boyle in retaliation for Boyle’s “douchey” use of a screenshot from a TV appearance as his Twitter pic. While the TV screenshot avatar is a popular subject for needling among non-TV media peeps, does using a TV spot to promote yourself really qualify you for a Massengill Awardâ„¢?

CNN’s Anderson Cooper gave a comedic lecture on the topic of sarcasm and satire on AC360 Thursday night, prompted by a post on The Daily Caller that accused Cooper of saying it was not a “big deal” for a 16-year-old girl to marry a 51-year-old actor, which was the subject of Cooper’s “RidicuList” segment on Tuesday night (and which we posted here on Wednesday). In that segment, Cooper clearly mocked the marriage, calling critics of the age difference “romance haters.” Turns out Laura Donovan, who writes for The Daily Caller, missed the joke.

While we were all enthralled by the epic Weinergate saga, a different tale of unsecured weaponry went virtually unnoticed. On Thursday’s The Big Picture, liberal radio and TV host Thom Hartmann discussed a recent call by Al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn for aspiring terrorists to exploit weak US gun control laws. Hartmann debated the topic with The Weekly Standard‘s Daniel Halper and Jamie Weinstein of The Daily Caller, who didn’t object to closing the loophole, but weren’t that fired up about it, either.

Late last night, Jonathan Strong of the Daily Caller posted Twitter direct messages (private tweets sent from one Twitter account to another) written by Rebecca Mansour, a top aide to Sarah Palin, and they are…not that exciting. Did you know that Palin was angry about Joe McGinniss? That she and her team weren’t thrilled about Bristol Palin maybe marrying Levi Johnston? Shocking right! Add in some less-than-polite phrasing and you basically have an idea of what the scandalous material contains. Unsurprisingly, many on the right are attacking the Daily Caller for posting messages. However, does their righteous indignation lose a bit of its luster when you realize that some of these very same people lauded DC and Strong for posting the private Journolist emails just a few months ago?

Let me keep a nice and tidy story here and get right to the Sarah Palin quote: “Goodness, cleaning up the sloppiness of reporters could be a full time job,” the former Alaska governor wrote on Facebook, exasperated over the “sloppy” work of a reporter for The Daily Caller, who Palin insists “buried” her quotes.

The Tucker Carlson-led publication used quotes from a 650-word statement Palin provided, and then ran the statement in its entirety on the story’s second page. And yet Palin deemed that unacceptable, writing on Facebook that “in response to The Daily Caller’s online inquiry, I gave them a statement that the writer buried on his story’s second page (which most people won’t even notice – I didn’t even notice it.”

Conservative lightning rod Michelle Malkin took to the Twitter Tuesday morning to lash out at fellow conservatives Karl Rove and Tucker Carlson over their “misogynist mockery” of Sarah Palin, and to throw in a jab at “lib pantywaists” for good measure. After consulting my 1930s dictionary, I was properly offended, but Malkin’s tirade seems to have had at least some effect, extracting a Charlie Sheen-blaming apology from Carlson. But isn’t there a word for using feminine traits as insults?

The Daily Caller is reporting that, on Friday’s Hardball, host Chris Matthews “Calls Obama Critics ‘Crackers‘,” and cites this as a deviation from the “new civility.”

While technically correct, Matthews’ target was much narrower than Daily Caller‘s Jeff Poor implies, and while “cracker” is, indeed, an uncivil term, it is arguably an apt one for the “birthers” who just can’t shake the feeling that President Obama just doesn’t belong here. Finally, though, this clip illustrates one more benefit of white privilege: even our racial epithets are easier.

On Tuesday’s Daily Rundown, co-anchor Chuck Todd delivered an innocuous “On This Date” segment about the 1999 swearing in of Jesse Ventura (I-Mn) as Governor, but the 30-second spot did not escape the notice of The Daily Caller‘s Jeff Poor, who wondered if there was a shot at former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin embedded in the clip.

It’s a fair question, especially if you’re inclined to be defensive about Palin, but Todd’s remark was actually fairly broad. Even so, rather than wonder, I actually asked Chuck about it.

In 2010, the Diversity Committee of the Society of Professional Journalists began a quest to get American journalists to stop using the terms “illegal aliens” or “illegal immigrants” and instead use “undocumented immigrant.” This ruffled some feathers with Tucker Carlson who headed over to Fox News to debate the issue over grounds of free speech and journalistic integrity. Mostly though, he just wanted to know who the heck the Society of Professional Journalists is.

Over the summer, Tucker Carlson‘s Daily Caller purchased the URL KeithOlbermann.com and Carlson said he would personally use the email address Keith@KeithOlbermann.com. Today, news came out that The Daily News‘ Stu Bykofsky was tricked into thinking he was having an email fight with Keith Olbermann himself. The exchange was published on Phawker, where it began to pick up heat before quickly being shot down.

Its beginning to seem that, to many college students, President Obama has lost his luster. This was pointed out in a piece earlier today by Mediaite’s own Steve Krakauer, and now the Daily Caller tips us to a slightly less elegant take on the matter: an energetic YouTube video by the College Republican National Committee, in which Obama is portrayed as the boyfriend from hell.

The new MSNBC “Lean Forward” mega-campaign is already fodder for Jon Stewart, and now the first of what will likely be many parody ads is out.

The folks behind KeithOlbermann.com (as in, The Daily Caller) have a spoof of the Olbermann video promo from yesterday – only this one has him writing a “Worst Person” segment and not a “Special Comment.”

Hasn’t anyone noticed that attacking Connecticut Republican Senatorial candidate Linda McMahon for her past helping run World Wrestling Entertainment doesn’t seem to be working? Just one day after McMahon’s won the primary despite opponents like Peter Schiff trying to use WWE clips against her, Democrats attempted to use the same exact tact. Unfortunately for them, Republicans have a pretty good rebuttal.

There are some liberals who are freaking out about Fox News’ move to the front row of the Brady Briefing Room. Not helping matters was Bill O’Reilly‘s joking suggestion that he and Sean Hannity “hog-tie” Major Garrett and go tête-à-tête with Robert Gibbs themselves.

If it helps at all, I can personally vouch for the fact that nothing like this will ever happen. But even if it did, I don’t think it’d be such a bad thing.

It may sound corny to some, but Helen Thomas is never very far a way from my thoughts, but the occasion of the White House Correspondents Association’s re-assignment of her iconic front-row center seat in the Brady Briefing Room provided me with the impetus to speak with Helen for the first time since her controversial retirement. I called her this afternoon to reconnect, and to get her reaction to the news. I was surprised to learn that my call was the first she’d heard of it. Her reaction, and those of some of our colleagues, after the jump.