Politics is a name game. It is about who you know– at least in the sense that knowing who the players are in this elaborate dance that defines how we govern ourselves as a nation is critical to successful analysis. And then there are anomalies like Tim Tebow, black holes of cable news time and energy that, through no fault of their own, become fault lines along our political geography.

In a discussion about Newt Gingrich‘s comparison of not getting on the ballot in Virginia to the bombing of Pearl Harbor The Nation‘s Ari Melber suggested a more apt comparison. “The analogy would be the Oklahoma City bombing,” Melber opined, causing other panelists to gasp. “If you want to make ridiculous analogies.”

On Sunday, I caught up with Up With Chris Hayes‘ Chris Hayes to quiz him on the success of his new show, his take on the media, and other topics. In the second part of our exclusive interview, Hayes assessed some current political topics, including President Obama‘s recent tough-talking reply to a question about conservative accusations of an “appeasement” strategy in foreign policy. Somewhat surprisingly, Hayes was not happy with the President’s “Ask Osama bin Laden” response to that question.

It’s fast becoming the worst-kept secret in cable news that Chris Hayes is ruining people’s weekends. The editor-at-large of The Nation, former Rachel Maddow fill-in, and (for the past few weeks) proud papa of daughter Ryan hosts a political roundtable which, true to its title, forces a growing number of people to get Up With Chris Hayes. The show combines the fun, accessibility, and sleep-interrupting qualities of a Saturday morning cartoon with the smarts and savvy of a crackling wonk dinner party. To atone for waking us up every weekend, Chris Hayes agreed to give us a look inside Up.

On Friday’s The Last Word, host Lawrence O’Donnell devoted two segments to the fallout from his polarizing interview with GOP rising star Herman Cain. O’Donnell acknowledged getting strong positive and negative reactions from friends and colleagues, and invited a panel consisting of Rev. Al Sharpton, The Grio‘s Goldie Taylor, and The Nation‘s Melissa Harris-Perry to discuss the interview. Albeit in a sweet, collegial fashion, Harris-Perry absolutely nailed some of the reasons for those negative reactions.

Former White House “green jobs czar” turned Glenn Beck frienemy Van Jones has recently reemerged calling for the left to take notes from the populist uprisings America saw with the Tea Party movement, so it was no surprise that he expressed approval of the Occupy Wall Street movement this morning on Up with Chris Hayes. What was somewhat surprising, however, was his insistence in viewing the protests through a prism of failure on the left, and not on the right, with the way the nation was being governed.

Chris Matthews posed an interesting question: do white voters hold black politicians to a higher standard than they do white politicians? Impressing that enthusiasm for Obama has waned in the second half of his term, Matthews wondered “if this is a phenomenon … this sense of, okay, you’ve got your shot, but let’s see you do it, if it isn’t really, really good, you know, you’re out of there.” Which is really all to ask, are voters racist? And if so, could race cost Obama the re-election?

Lawrence O’Donnell is popping some popcorn to watch Republican presidential hopefuls sharpening their claws on their way to the 2012 primaries, and he is hoping they are at least as respectable as Alan Keyes. Blasting the Tea Party as “anti-information” and “the most forgiving movement in American political history,” he proceeded to ridicule front-runners (?) Rep. Michele Bachmann, Gov. Haley Barbour, and the ubiquitous Newt Gingrich.

A cold flame war has broken out between Salon’s Glenn Greenwald and reporters Mark Ames and Yasha Levine of The Nation over the latter’s article, which attempts to unravel “The Washington Lobbyists and Koch-Funded Libertarians Behind the TSA Scandal.”

Central to that article’s premise is the notion that John Tyner, the originator of the “junk-touch” protest heard ’round the world, is not what he appears to be. Greenwald rightly labels the article a “smear” (an opinion shared by Nation reporter Jeremy Scahill), prompting a lily-livered response from Ames and Levine, and widespread refudiation from fellow liberals.

Though Democrats around the country are hurting after last week’s midterm elections, the New York Times argues today that liberal magazines like The Nation may flourish in these times. Jeremy W. Peters reports that historically, the 146-year-old magazine has seen growth in circulation and revenue in times when liberals were the minority party in American politics — and so last week’s devastating election results may spell future growth for The Nation.

On the cusp of the first major national elections since the Supreme Court ruled corporations have the First Amendment right to speech in politics, the echo chamber of public political discourse sounds all the louder with all those extra voices. While on legal grounds it’s unclear what it is about Citizens United that seems to evoke hysteria in many talking heads, they have good reason to want to lower the volume: to better hear themselves talk.

Yesterday, Esquire contributor Tom Junod shared an…interesting theory of his: that Republicans’ resurgence can be explained in large part due to “semi-sexy” women (he counted Sarah Palin, Christine O’Donnell, and Michele Bachmann among them), whereas Democratic women are “either old or unattractive.” Today, The Young Turks’ Cenk Uygur had both Junot and The Nation executive editor Betsy Reed on MSNBC to discuss “sex over substance” in politics.

Lawrence O’Donnell continued his booking hot streak tonight when he had both Lou Dobbs – at the center of this controversy about employing illegal immigrants on his property – and Isabel MacDonald (whose report in The Nation sparked the controversy) on his program to debate the issue of whether Dobbs once employed illegal immigrants, despite his long-standing hard-line stance against illegal immigration.

The Nation has a report out today that has generated a bit of heat towards CNN’s former 7pm anchor (and fiery advocate of immigration reform) Lou Dobbs, suggesting that he employed a number of illegal immigrants to care for his daughter’s horses. The essay, which is entitled “Lou Dobbs, American Hypocrite” goes in to great detail about Dobbs’ horse farm and the alleged illegal immigrants who tend to the grounds. If this sounds at all familiar, its because Keith Olbermann reported on this story two years ago, when Dobbs was actually on the air regular attacks on illegal immigrants.

The Pentagon Papers Of Our Time. This is the title being given to the new Wikileaks release of more than 90,000 military documents pertaining to the war in Afghanistan. It’s hardly surprising given the parallels often drawn between Afghanistan and Vietnam — but what are the real similarities and differences? James Fallows makes some comparisons in The Atlantic.

MSNBC Host Rachel Maddow recently visited Afghanistan — and anchored her show from the country — to find out what was really going on and to see for herself whether we’re fighting a losing battle. Fair enough. But Tom Hayden, in The Nation, argues that Maddow did not make the best of her time there, and, indeed, missed a potential Walter Cronkite moment.

Progressives and Obama. They love him, they hate him, they should support him, they’re inevitably disappointed in him. We’ve heard it all. Given that we already have a good idea of how conservatives feel about the president, the media seem increasingly interested in analyzing and discussing the relationship between progressive Americans and President Barack Obama. The Nation and Politico offer two interesting takes: blame it on the political structure vs. blame it on bad politics.

Who knows what about the whereabouts of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar has been a hot topic this week since Big Government broke the story of his capture and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused the Pakistani government of knowing where he is. While no confirmations have surfaced, Foreign Policy is reporting that today, finally, a senior Pakistani official has responded directly to the report and refuted it, but Big Government and its proprietor, Andrew Breitbart, and not backing down.

ohn Nichols and Robert McChesney, this was a book promotional event and an opportunity to outline their recommendations to save traditional journalism. It was a setup for a predictable night full of previews of what’s contained inside yet another “save journalism” solution book. Yet, thankfully, David Carr took a topic that has been spoken about to death and breathed new life into the discussion.

Who: Wallace Shawn, Tony Kushner, and Walter Mosley, moderated by Gene Seymour. What: The Nation’s “What Will Become of Our Culture?” Where: Symphony Space When November 18, 2009 Thumbs: Up

How do you get a book of grave, intellectual critiques of Sarah Palin, printed by a recently-launched independent publisher, to get national press attention and a panel discussion on Entertainment Tonight‘s “The Insider?” Easy: call it Going Rouge and make the cover as much of a one-off swap as the title.

Who: Nomi Prins (Demos.org), Daniel Gross (Newsweek), and Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone), moderated by David Brancaccio (PBS) What: Demos.org, The Nation magazine, and New York Society for Ethical Culture present “Wall Street’s Game, Main Street’s Pain: The All-Important Battle for Real Financial Reform” Where: New York Society for Ethical Culture When: October 1, 2009 Thumbs: [...]

In yet another Future of the News discussion, it would be far too easy to retread the same tired information. But with leaders in three separate media branches — including Dan Rather and the New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer — at his disposal, moderator Victor Navasky didn’t limit the agenda for the evening. Instead, he kept it open-ended and tried to address the question of the evening: What’s in store for the future of media?

During a live segment on The Carlos Watson Show, Mediate Publisher Dan Abrams got into a bit of a kerfuffle with Nation Editor in Chief Katrina vanden Heuvel and revealed the torturous management style we at Mediaite have had to endure.

As a media watch dog site we can only make the following comments:

While the freedom of the press guaranteed by the First Amendment has never been successfully challenged politically, it is now being challenged economically: as a practical matter, the press is not so free. So, how to pay for the vital probings on behalf of the entire polity, in this time of forced deprivation?