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.

The massive amounts of heat Glenn Beck’s taken in the past week from both the Left and the Right have clearly taken their toll so, today, he told his audience he’d be delaying his planned material to respond. This primarily resulted in an episode of the host citing his sources as he went one by one through the statements he made and gave his evidence. It also resulted in one of the most awkwardly hilarious moments ever.

Try as they might, the crew of Morning Joe could not get Bill Kristol elucidate further on his spat with the “men bearing chalk boards” as Joe Scarborough put it. Kristol was just one of the many who took Glenn Beck to task over his week-long caliphate review, writing a scathing article in the Weekly Standard comparing Beck to the John Birch Society. Beck hit back on his radio show yesterday and it was clear that the MSNBC panel would have loved to see Round Three take place on their set but, to no avail. Kristol explained that he would rather settle the score with Beck on Fox News, joking that that’s where it’s “fair and balanced.”

The Daily Show‘s Jon Stewart is being credited by many for igniting the media and public outcry that ultimately resulted in passage of the 9/11 First Responders Bill. However, not everyone is praising the comedic host, as John McCormack of The Weekly Standard suggests Stewart’s crusade for legislation and self-appointment as the “arbiter of what political beliefs are ‘insane’” have made Stewart more of a demagogue than a respected journalist. No matter what you call Stewart, his growing influence is proving hard for anyone to ignore.

NPR’s controversial firing of former staffer Juan Williams is still providing plenty of talking points for Bill O’Reilly, and he addressed the issue again tonight, this time bringing in Weekly Standard staffer Stephen Hayes and asking why some other NPR contributors – particularly legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg – haven’t faced similar consequences to Williams.

In what seems to have become an annual rite, there’s a new list out counting down the top 20 conservative hotties (new media edition), and while I have great appreciation for conservative new media hotties, and I love Countdown, I’m not a big fan of this effort.

On Friday, David Brooks used his New York Times column to announce the first round of his Sidney Awards for the year’s best magazine essays. It was a varied and inspired list — except out of the six essays chosen, none were written by women. Today, in his second set of winners, that wrong was righted. But, two out of 14?

What can we learn about New York Times columnist David Brooks through his favorite essays of the year, published annually as The Sidney Awards? Well, he loves The New Yorker, paid special attention to the health care debate and, uh… doesn’t read the work of too many women. Fortunately, another batch is coming Tuesday.

“In a normal country, losing a bid to host the Olympics is seen as a bad thing,” Rachel Maddow began her segment last night lambasting American conservatives for celebrating Chicago’s failed attempt to host the 2016 Olympics. She criticized conservatives specifically for framing the failed bid as a strike against President Obama and for just turning the bid into a partisan issue, period.