The Daily Caller’s Tucker Carlson paid a visit to Fox News Thursday morning (sans bow tie, woefully) to discuss his site’s continuing investigation into liberal media watchdog group Media Matters. The group, as the Caller reports, received a $50,000 grant to “monitor and attack religious news outlets.”

As the series of Daily Caller stories on the inner workings of Media Mattersmake their rounds, a few questions about the cozy relationship between Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson and Fox News have popped up. Carlson, a Fox News contributor, revealed to the network on Tuesday morning that Media Matters had a plan to vilify the network.

The Daily Caller’s Tucker Carlson was a guest on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning, and discussed the series of reports his site is putting out on Media Matters. “We have all kinds of information from inside Media Matters,” Carlson said, revealing an email that he obtained that pointed out a strategy by the organization to vilify Fox News:

Tucker Carlson has been making the rounds on Fox News today promoting a massive investigation by his site The Daily Caller on Media Matters for America that exposes the close nature of their relationship with MSNBC and many mainstream media reporters and editors. On The O’Reilly Factor tonight, Carlson elaborated on some of those points, particularly pointing out Washington Post writers Eugene Robinson, EJ Dionne and Greg Sargent as taking cues from the organization.

On Sunday, conservative news and opinion site The Daily Caller published a lengthy report on Media Matters, the high-powered — and, the article reports, highly influential — liberal media watchdog group. The article, published by site founder Tucker Carlson and senior online editor Vince Coglianese with contributions by reporters Alex Pappas and Will Rahn, takes a look not only at the organization’s influence on major media outlets, advertisers and the White House, but also offers a portrait of Media Matters’ head, David Brock.

Often when talk about the best or greatest things in pop culture arises, nostalgia tends to things that, in real time, were not nearly as resplendently wonderful as they seem years down the line. If anyone ever considered that this may be the case for the single greatest debate show in history, Crossfire, Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala blew those doubts away. In a three-round “boxing match,” the two went over issues as varied as whether “America should kill all of its enemies everywhere” and word association games with “God” and “Newt Gingrich.”

Appearing on Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, The Dally Caller‘s Tucker Carlson argued with Alan Colmes about President Obama’s State of the Union address, with Carlson blasting it for many of its pro-government themes.

On Wednesday’s Red Eye‘s host Greg Gutfeld asked The Daily Caller‘s Tucker Carlson about Ron Paul’s surge in Iowa. “What happens if Paul wins Iowa? I wrote panic!” “Maybe Republicans (should) ask themselves why does this 70-ish weird guy have all of this support?” Carlson questioned.

With the rise of Rep. Ron Paul in Iowa throwing the entire Republican 2012 field once again for a loop– and new polls showing Mitt Romney virtually tied with President Obama should he win the nomination, the vulnerability of the incumbent President is a question on everyone’s minds, particularly against any specific candidate rather than “generic Republican.” On tonight’s “Great American Panel” on Hannity, the panel (led by guest host Monica Crowley) evaluated the chances of a strong Republican general election, despite the “scorched earth” campaigns going on today.

He doesn’t believe “Palestinian” is a real ethnic group. He has proposed a child janitor and inner-city Apprentice program to help underprivileged youth. He wants Rep. Barney Frank arrested and thinks same-sex marriage is a “temporary aberration.” And yet it appears many in the media are willing to dismiss some of Newt Gingrich‘s wildest ideas, focusing instead on his personal shortcomings and general unpleasantness, letting Gingrich-backing Republicans get away with the bizarre meme that Gingrich deserves to be considered a member of the Republican “smart set.”

On Fox News’s Red Eye Thursday morning, Tucker Carlson thought Democrats were surprised by the sudden surge by Newt Gingrich to the front of the Republican presidential race. “I think they were caught completely unprepared for Newt’s rise,” Carlson observed. “I don’t think they understand the Republican Party. I don’t think the Republicans understand the Republican Party very well right now. And I think they sincerely think that Gingrich, while smart and interesting and clearly connecting with voters in a way that Romney isn’t, that he is so undisciplined and disorganized that he would be easy to beat.”

Sarah Palin offered some advice to Mitt Romney, encouraging him to more openly embrace the fiscal and social conservative side of the Republican party, and to develop a more robust relationship with the Tea Party movement. This morning on Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, host Martha MacCallum asked Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson and liberal “embed” Alan Colmes to discuss Romney’s strategy in engaging the powerful Tea Party contingent, which Carlson put in remarkably stark terms.

On Fox News’s Red Eye, Wednesday night, The Daily Caller‘s Tucker Carlson made a blunt analysis on Herman Cain‘s abilities to govern as president. “Come on, can we just stop pretending?” Carlson remarked. “I don’t know what happened with these women, the ‘he said, she said, she said, she said’ thing. He is not qualified to be president, and we are all pretending he 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.

You can tell a segment hit a host’s nerve when even the mention of it leads to a testy exchange. During a show preview on Hannity tonight, host Sean Hannity was brave enough to casually mention last night’s Mike Tyson-prompted brawl to Greta Van Susteren, who seemed to still not be entirely over her tiff with Tucker Carlson. Thankfully, Hannity offered his services to her as “peacemaker,” as “you didn’t resolve it last night” and that the two are “communicating a bit” didn’t quite sound like burying the hatchet.

Greta Van Susteren went slightly ballistic over Tucker Carlson‘s editorial decision to publish a story on Mike Tyson‘s deplorable comments on Sarah Palin– she called him a “pig” and his website “disgusting.” So it wasn’t a surprise that her debate face to face with Carlson tonight was some of the best cable news television in quite a while, with Carlson cornering Van Susteren into explaining how his publication of “prima facie repulsive” comments compares to her friendly chats with Tyson on her program in the past.

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.”

Conservatives in general, and Fox News in particular, have gone to town on Politico like a rumpspringa tour bus over their “Is Rick Perry Dumb?” headline from yesterday. However, after watching three separate Fox News segments on the article, featuring guests Tucker Carlson, Michelle Malkin, and Laura Ingraham, I’ve noticed that while Fox guests are certain Politico is biased, and/or really, really wish people would call President Obama dumb, too, none of them offers even a syllable in defense of Perry’s intellect.

With Texas Governor Rick Perry‘s college grades out in the open, the question of whether he has the intellect for the nation’s top job was put on the table this morning, much to conservatives’ chagrin, by Politico, officially turning it into a campaign talking point. On his program tonight, Sean Hannity tried to turn the tables on those who would question Perry, asking his panel whether the media were missing the point that President Obama was the stupid one.

When people turn to Tucker Carlson‘s DC-based political website The Daily Caller to check the political winds, this probably isn’t what they have in mind. On Tuesday morning, The DC‘s Jeff Poor reported on the possibility that Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) farted on The Rachel Maddow Show‘s air. The DC posted a clip of what is pretty clearly Frank shifting on a noisy chair, and even went so far as to contact Rep. Frank’s office for comment on the matter.

It’s been a long month of July in politics– the debt crisis debate has certainly taken the wind out of the sails of many in Washington and, for anyone watching at home, leaving a bad taste of cynicism and fatigue in one’s mouth. But now it’s August, Congress is in recess and the news cycle is ready for a recharge. While we wait for the next Ground Zero Mosque imbroglio, here is something to thaw out the collectively grizzled and warn political hearts of America: your favorite cable news personalities interacting with dogs.

Yesterday, we called the epic debate between Chris Matthews and Rep. Joe Walsh one of “the most exciting and in-your-face political discussions ever recorded” and it’s clear we weren’t the only ones that enjoyed it. Last night, Sean Hannity brought the clip in front of The Great American Panel who, unsurprisingly, all seemed to feel like Walsh came out on top. What may have been surprising was just how harsh one panel member, Matthews former network-mate Tucker Carlson, was in his description of the MSNBC host.

In a sprawling expose´ for The Daily Caller, filmmaker (and sometime Mediaite guest columnist) John Ziegler airs several years worth of gripes about his relationship with Sarah Palin and her team, among them that Todd Palin approached him in May about a role in a possible 2012 presidential bid.

Ziegler, more than anyone, is responsible for creating the alternate history of the 2008 campaign upon which much of the current Palin brand is based, but he clearly feels burned by Palin, and fears that a Palin run could, in turn, burn the Republicans.

FishbowlDC gossip and media reporter Betsy Rothstein is, to put it mildly, a polarizing figure in Washington, DC. Despised by some for her role in Dave Weigel‘s Journolist-fueled career reorganization, dismissed by others as a petty gossip, she also enjoys a stealth legion of admirers who appreciate her hard work and Keyser Soze-like omnipresence. When word spread of my interview with Rothstein, “Team Betsy” emerged from the woodwork to weigh in, and the common theme was quickly evident: Betsy Rothstein is fearless.

The Daily Caller has emerged as a bona fide member of the internet right, in part by drawing refreshing distinction from a crowded landscape through its willingness to critique those whose ideas its right of center writers may share. The latest damning exposé revealing a member of Palin’s staff attacking fellow conservatives is merely one example that has sparked infighting among conservative bloggers, fueling a surprising zeal to slam its publisher, Tucker Carlson.