While he has the backing of the Republican establishment, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has so far been unable to cast a spell over GOP primary voters. All of that may change, however, now that he has secured the endorsement of former witchcraft-dabbler and losing US Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell.

The Romney campaign announced the O’Donnell endorsement in an email to reporters relatively late last night, but well short of the witching hour.

Bill O’Reilly is concerned that the Tea Party is straying onto a volatile path. O’Reilly has become one of the more moderate voices in the current debt debate, being cited by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney as such and chiding Rep. Michele Bachmann for opposing compromise. Tonight, he opened his program asking if the Tea Party was “self-destructive,” comparing them to the radical “Yippie” movement of the 1960s.

As host of MSNBC’s The Last Word, Lawrence O’Donnell is viewed by his both his fans and his detractors as a progressive thought-leader (though the connotation of that term is used in both celebratory and derisive ways.) But in last night’s “Re-Write” segment, O’Donnell went out of his way to praise GOP Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) for what the O’Donnel called a “brave” fight against conservative thought-leader and anti-tax increase pioneer Grover Norquist in a laudatory way rarely seen on MSNBC.

Now that likely Republican candidate for president Newt Gingrich is temporarily cut loose from Fox News, it looks like fellow Republicans are wasting no time going after him. Republican Senator Tom Coburn strangely complimented Gingrich just seconds before attempting to decimate his chances of being taken seriously as a contender for the highest office.

On Meet the Press, host David Gregory was curious whether Senator Tom Coburn agreed with some that political discourse describing disagreement over issues in “apocalyptic” terms was worrisome? However, Coburn was quick to dimiss the question as a media-generated “false premise.”

It may be beginning to look a whole lot like Christmas, but the holiday cheer was limited on today’s O’Reilly Factor as host Laura Ingraham and Dick Morris decried the last of the bills passed during this month’s lame duck congressional term– and especially the Republicans “selling out” and making legislation like the START Treaty pass.

Fox News Shepard Smith has been way out ahead of the 9/11 First-Responders Bill. Last Friday, after The Daily Show dedicated most of the previous night’s program to the oddly controversial bill, Smith piled on by asking how congressional members who have held up the bill providing health care to emergency relief workers on 9/11 “sleep at night.” Yesterday he called out ever single GOP lawmaker by name who turned down a request to join him on his show. Today? It was Senator Tom Coburn who drew Shep’s ire.

Many Republican legislators have suggested that the recently passed health care reform plan (“Obamacare”) is a bad idea that will hurt the nation, but it hadn’t yet been articulated that this result was intentional until this soundbite: Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, explaining the concept of “adverse selection” in insurance buyers, claims that “the plan is for this plan to fail.”

Revelations that some of the stimulus money shelled out under President Obama‘s Recovery Act has been squandered on less-than-deserving projects are nothing new. But now, thanks to GOP Sens. Tom Coburn and John McCain, a large portion of these allegedly unworthy ventures have been exposed and criticized in a handy-dandy list.

Peggy Noonan has decided there aren’t enough adults in charge and that we need old men (I guess old women wouldn’t be of any help). Waxing nostalgic on the anniversary of the publishing of To Kill a Mockingbird, she’s decided that we need Atticus Finch to lead us through life and that he could be personified in, wait for it, former Republican National Committee chair and current Mississippi governor Haley Barbour.

Today’s results of Keith Olbermann‘s “Worst Person in the World” competition saw his arch-rival Bill O’Reilly take home the gold, again, for his reprimand of Senator Tom Coburn, where he argued that no one on Fox News ever said that under Obamacare not having insurance could lead to jail time. Except all the evidence Olbermann presented was from last fall, when jail time actually was considered as a potential punishment.

Bill O’Reilly had Senator Tom Coburn on his show to address derisive comments he made last week towards Fox News, telling constituents upset with health care reform “the intention is not to put any one in jail. That makes for good TV news on FOX.” O’Reilly pushed back hard, insisting that nobody on Fox has ever said “you’re going to jail if you don’t buy health insurance” Well, he’s wrong, and we have the clip.

When news broke yesterday that Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) had made unfavorable comments towards Fox News (and perhaps more striking, favorable thoughts on Nancy Pelosi) one knew that Keith Olbermann was sure to pounce. And pounce he did, though in his own words, he was stunned. At a loss for words even.

Last weekend, David Frum (the former speechwriter for George W. Bush) appeared on ABC’s This Week, and made some news by claiming that “Fox (News), like Rush Limbaugh, has an interest in pushing the Republicans to the margins, making people angry.” Last night, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) joined in the “anti-Fox” fray during a town hall meeting with his constituents regarding their health care coverage, saying “that makes for good TV news on Fox but that isn’t the intention.” Are we sensing a trend?

Perhaps it was a slip of the tongue, or he didn’t mean it the way it came out. Nonetheless, Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) is getting a lot of attention for a comment he made on the Senate floor yesterday while discussing the coming Senate vote on Health Care reform. “What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can’t make the vote tonight. That’s what they ought to pray.” Update Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) challenged Coburn to come back to the floor to explain himself.

Earlier this week, self-described “Tea Party” protesters descended on Washington for what they called “Code Red” rally on health care. Participants were joined by numerous conservative and Republican personalities including Rep. Michele Bachmann, radio-host Laura Ingraham, Sen. Jim Demint and Sen. Tom Coburn. Participants dressed in an alarming red, chanted, “Kill the bill!,” and some even got into the spirit of Christmas in a most unusual way — by singing a Tea Party version of the “12 Days of Christmas.” Video after the jump.

In what may turn out to be the cruelest irony of the year, the death of Senator Edward Kennedy may have papered over a CNN video clip poised to change the dynamic of the national healthcare debate: footage of a desperate woman crying “We need help!” because she lost health insurance after her husband suffered a brain injury.